What is Pandiculation?

Creates communication between your brain and muscles.

Pandiculation helps create communication between your brain and muscles.

Pandiculation is the active lengthening of a muscle group out of a contraction, similar to a yawn.

All vertebrae animals do this which is natures waynaturally resets all our subconsciously held muscle tension by contracting and then releasing all muscles back to their neutral resting position and length.

  1. deliberate contraction that is slightly stronger than what currently exists.
    This sends strong sensory feedback to your brain so your conscious part of the brain registers and feels the muscles.

  2. A deliberate slow controlled release (like a yawn) that requires your full attention .
    Here your brain notices details of your movement.

  3. Complete release/relaxation at the end of the movement.
    Giving your brain time to learn and integrate both sensation and any noticeable differences you sense in your body

The 3 Stages of Pandiculation

Have you ever noticed a cat or dog wake up from sleep and give a lovely big and satisfying stretch?

It’s actually not a stretch it’s a pandiculation.

Because their muscles have been subconsciously gradually tensing up to keep them in their curled up sleeping position this is nature’s way of releasing the build-up of tension. They aren’t stretching at all they’re contracting all of their muscles at the same time then very slowly releasing them allowing them to return back to their normal resting length. If you watch them their bodies get longer as they do this.

 It's nature’s way of hitting the reset button so the muscles are back in their correct places and ready for movement.

We’ve developed repetitive and habitual ways of moving.

It took thousands of years for humans to evolve to be upright and in a short space in time we have remarkably changed the way we use our bodies. We’ve developed repetitive and habitual ways of moving because we use our bodies in much more repetitive and sedentary ways eg. sitting, computers, driving, phones. Unfortunately, as we age, we build up muscle tension at a much faster rate because we move less with less variety in our movements. This gradual build up in muscle tension and loss of awareness and control of our muscles often inhibits our pandicular response. So the muscle tension remains and builds.

If you can’t fully contract AND relax a muscle or muscle group it means that you can’t use it properly, this in turn means you don’t have full control over it. In Somatics we call this Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA). Practicing the safe and successful technique of Clinical Somatics helps address this.