23/07/2026
Have you read my Wednesday Newsletter? How to listen your body.
Your body is talking. Are you listening?
Learning to Read Your Body's Signals Before They Become Symptoms.
Most of us have been taught to manage our bodies rather than listen to them.
We push through the afternoon headache. We ignore the tight chest before a difficult conversation. We override the exhaustion that arrives by Thursday because there is still too much to do. We notice the symptoms — eventually — when they become impossible to ignore. But by that point, the body has usually been trying to say something for quite a while.
Somatic awareness is the practice of learning to hear it earlier.
What does somatic actually mean?
The word comes from the Greek soma — meaning body. Somatic awareness is simply the ability to notice what is happening in your body in real time: sensations, tension, breath, posture, the quality of your energy. Not to analyse it or fix it immediately — just to notice.
It sounds simple. It isn't, at first. Most of us have spent years learning to live from the neck up.
The body speaks before the mind registers.
Before anxiety becomes a panic attack, there is usually a tight chest and shallow breathing. Before burnout becomes collapse, there is usually disrupted sleep, digestive changes, and a particular kind of flatness. Before a migraine, there is often tension across the shoulders and the base of the skull — sometimes hours before the pain arrives.
The body is not mysterious.
The body is not mysterious. It is communicative.The problem is not that it doesn't speak — it's that we have not been taught to listen.
Somatic awareness creates a gap between sensation and reaction — a moment of noticing before the nervous system moves into a stress response. And in that gap, there is choice.
The signals most people miss
These are some of the most common early signs that the nervous system is under load:
Shallow or held breath — often the first sign the body has registered a stressor, before the mind has even named it.
Tension in the jaw, neck, or shoulders — chronic holding that most people only notice once it starts to hurt.
A shift in gut feeling — tightness, butterflies, or a heavy sensation in the belly that arrives before a difficult situation.
Restlessness or an inability to settle — moving between tasks without completing them, a sign of the nervous system in a low-grade activated state.
Fatigue that sleep doesn't fix — not tiredness from exertion, but a deeper depletion that suggests the nervous system has been working too hard for too long.
A simple somatic check-in to try today
You need only about two minutes.
Wherever you are right now — sitting, standing, waiting somewhere — take one slow breath and ask yourself:
* Where am I holding tension right now?
* What is the quality of my breath — deep or shallow, fast or slow?
* What is the feeling in my belly — open, tight, or neutral?
Just notice. No need to change anything.
Done a few times a day, this builds body literacy — the ability to read yourself accurately, before the signals become loud enough to demand your attention. This is the foundation of everything I do. Before we regulate, we need to hear what needs regulating.
Read more about Somatic practices which I offer, click here. https://neurowellness.one/programme/somatic-gentle-movement
