Somatic healing refers to practices that engage the body to help process emotions, trauma, and stress. The core idea behind somatic approaches is that the body holds onto emotional experiences, especially when they haven’t been fully processed by the mind. This mind-body connection is key to understanding why certain physical activities or somatic exercises, such as shaking, breathing, dancing, sighing, etc. can trigger emotional releases like crying.

Psychology Behind Somatic Healing

From a psychological perspective, emotions and trauma can become “stuck” in the body if they’re not processed effectively at the time they are experienced. This is especially true for trauma, which may overwhelm the brain’s capacity to fully process the event. Instead of fully integrating the experience, the body holds tension, stress, or energy in muscles, tissues, and the nervous system.

Somatic healing is based on the idea that re-engaging the body can help release these stored emotions. Practices like shaking, deep breathing, or even intentional movement are thought to “unlock” the stored tension, allowing the individual to process and express emotions that were previously repressed. This can lead to cathartic experiences like crying, which is a way for the body to physically express and release emotional tension.

Neuroscience of Somatic Healing

Neuroscientifically, somatic healing taps into the body’s autonomic nervous system, particularly the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches. The sympathetic nervous system is involved in the “fight or flight” response, which can lead to the storage of trauma-related energy in the body. The parasympathetic system, on the other hand, helps with calming, rest, and repair—this is the system that helps the body recover from stress.

Somatic practices often stimulate the vagus nerve, which plays a critical role in regulating emotional and physiological states. Shaking, for instance, can help shift the body from a state of sympathetic arousal (e.g., fight-or-flight) toward parasympathetic dominance, which is a more relaxed state. This shift can trigger emotional releases, including crying, as the body starts to move out of a defensive, tense mode into a state where it feels safer to process emotions.

Why Crying Happens

Crying during somatic exercises is often a sign that emotional tension is being released. When the body starts to relax and let go of the stored stress or trauma, the emotional “dams” that have been holding in feelings like sadness, fear, or anger may break. Crying is a way the body expels this built-up emotional energy. In fact, tears contain stress hormones, so crying may have a literal “detoxifying” effect on the body.

Somatic exercises, by focusing on bodily sensations and movement, help bypass the cognitive defenses that might otherwise prevent the person from accessing these stored emotions. This is why people can cry unexpectedly when doing something like shaking—they’re accessing deeper, non-verbal parts of their emotional experience.

In short, somatic healing works by helping the body complete stress responses and release stored tension, and this often triggers emotional releases like crying because it allows the body and mind to process emotions that have been held onto for too long.