Hi guys, it's Tony Robb and you're listening to Habits and Hustle.
Pressure it. Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthy yourself. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up. You guys, we have a great episode.
“I hope it's a great episode. I think this is a really interesting topic. I don't, you”
know, full disclosure. I don't know much about this topic, which is why I'm super interested
and excited to have you on here. Never had a somatic healer. Is that what you would call
you? Her name, though, is amazing on socials. It's the workout which, which is, I love that name. Thank you. It's great to be here. All of thank you for being here. It's great to have you. Like, her name is Liz Tanuto, her book is called When The Body Speaks and how somatic healing sets you free. So thank you for being here. Can you just tell us all just in Laman's terms? What is somatic healing? Like
what, what is it? What are we dealing with here? So soma is the Greek word for body. So somatic healing literally translates into body healing. What I teach are somatic exercises, which
are really tiny micro movements that you can do in bed or on the floor or even like in your
car waiting at a red light or on the plane that release stress out of your body, release tension out of your body, release trauma and regulate your nervous system. So is it like another modality? Like they say, like, you know, breath work is a very popular one right now. Course meditation. Things like that is somatic. Is it, what is it? Is that what you call it somatic healing? Is that just another modality that really just helps
like you said calm your, your nervous system and de-stress? Like, exactly. Yeah. It's just another modality. I would say it's more under the umbrella of therapy. Yeah. But it kind of spans therapy and wellness and therapy and even fitness. Therapy is considered like a top-down method, which means that it's more cognitive mindset based and then somatic healing or somatic exercises. What I teach is bottom-up. So you're really working from
“the body. So don't you have to be, would someone have to be really entuned with their body”
to have it even work for them or to, is it more like psychos, is it also psychosomatic? Because the reason why masking is, I've recently gone through like kind of a traumatic experience and people were like, you should try somatic, you know, somatic healing. And it seems like it seems so foreign to me that I couldn't even, like, I couldn't even wrap my head around it, right? Yeah. Like, that seems woo-woo. And that's, I'm like the most, I'm the most un-woo-woo person you
can ever meet. Yeah. So anything that seems or sounds woo-woo, it's like right away, like my guard goes up. Yeah. And, you know, I know that you do rakey and you do, uh, what other stuff, other other, other pilates. Yeah. So like, yeah. But this to me was, like I said, was really interesting because of, I have had friends who who do it, we've done it. I've asked you about a couple of my friend I was talking about, oh, before. And they're obsessed with it. Yeah. They think
they get so much out of it. Yeah. Which is why you wanted you on here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had a really similar experience when I first started. I was actually invited to a somatic class by my dance teacher I used to be in my early early 20s. I was a ballet dancer. And my dance teacher was like, oh, you're so dissociated all the time. And I knew I had PTSD at that time. And she was like, come to my somatics class. And I, I had seen her class. And it was just people rolling around on the floor
and their pajamas. And I was like, I don't know what this is going to do for me. I was so skeptical, but I was also desperate. I was in a lot of pain at that time. I had sleep issues. I had chronic pain, chronic anxiety, lots of dissociation. And so yeah, out of desperation, I tried it. And I cried
in the bathroom after my first class because it felt so good. And I never felt that good in my body
before. So like, if you're dissociated person or if you were, how did you associate or how did you feel anything the first time? Because the whole idea of dissociation or the idea of like being
“like, you know, compartmentalized or whatever, like, it is that you cannot associate, right?”
That you cannot feel. Yeah. That, in that, like, the mind body connection. Yeah. So, you know,
When we think of the nervous system, you can think of it essentially as like ...
the connection between your mind and body. And when you're dissociated, your nervous system is kind of
in a freeze state or it's dysregulated. And what somatics is really good at is re-establishing that connection. So if you think about yoga, there's kind of like a right and wrong way to do the poses, right in Western yoga. And somatics is not like that at all. It's really about reconnecting you to your inner landscape. And my teacher used to say, like, your version is the right version of doing this exercise because the way that we cue people through the exercises really reconnects
the mind and body and brings you back into that associative state. Oh, so if it's a, can you give us an example, actually? Yeah. And that'd be good. And that'd be good because I can
“ask a million questions. But I think sometimes it's easier to learn when you have an example like that.”
Yeah. So let's do one together and I'll talk through. Okay. What do I do? We're just going to sit here.
Oh, um, we'll sit with our time move that. Shame move this. You don't really need to. We'll sit with our ankle tip distance apart. Yep. And then you're just going to take your finger and place it in between your eyebrows. Yeah. And you can have your other hand resting. Perfect. Anywhere is fine. Great. And then we're going to swipe up on our forehand. Once it gets to your hairline, you'll lift off and come back to your eyebrows. And we'll just repeat that action over and over again. If at any point
your arm gets tired, you can rest, put it down, and then pick it back up when you're ready. So I'm just taking my finger for those of who are listening from my eyebrow to my head, right? And then just
then taking my finger up. Yep. And we'll do medium to firm pressure here. You can go a little harder
than you think. Great. And as we do this, how relaxed can your job be? How soft can the hand that's resting on your leg be? Great. How relaxed can your stomach be? Excellent. Can you unclench the spinkler? Excellent. Imagine, be as lazy and unambitious as you do as possible as you do this, as you could draw as you do this. So we'll just do like one or two more. And at any point when you're ready, you can rest. And we'll just pause for a moment. See how you feel. That is a really quick exercise
that instantly relaxes you. It actually calms your fight flight response. Yeah, I know. Oh my gosh. Where did he know the podcast? I'm exhausted. I should have told you that before. Wow.
“I have to feel tired. Yeah. Yeah. Immediately calms the fight flight response. Why?”
It connects to a cranial nerve that connects down to the to your brain stem. And that is where your fight flight response gets activated. So by just taking your index finger or any finger and just pushing and pressing up from your between your eyebrows to the top of your head. That works. What how long does someone need to do that for? What I teach is five to 10 minutes a day. So I have an app. I have courses and I do five to 10 minutes a day of practice. But for example,
on my way here, I was feeling a little tired. I had a late flight into LA last night. And so on my way here in the car, I did an exercise to stimulate my vagus nerve by pulling on my ears that gave me like an extra burst of energy. And I just did like a minute and felt immediately work.
“It works. Yeah. It works really, really well.”
It does that too. Yeah. You want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Mine as well. Because that I'm going to fall asleep when your interview. So yeah. Okay. Great. Are you wearing earrings? Yeah. Okay. So we'll just work around the earrings for now. We'll still have the ankles hip distance apart. And you're just going to use your hands and pull firmly down on your earlobes. And you're going to pull right left, right left. And you can have
medium to firm pressure here. And we're going to start to walk up the earlobes all the way up to the top of the ear. And we're just pulling right left, right left. And we'll walk down the earlobes. We're just going to repeat that action several times. And it's almost like you're pulling them out. Yeah. Exactly like that. Mm-hmm. And then as we do this, see if you can relax in the toes. So your toes aren't clenched. Unclenching the eyebrows. Great.
Seeing if you could drill as you do this movement as well. It's looking at me like, what are you doing? Oh my God. I didn't go ahead of us. Okay. I still need a coffee.
That didn't work as well.
you'll feel a little surge of energy. It can take a, this one takes like maybe you'll feel brighter
“in your face. See, I used to drink my magic minds. Yeah, I did what I needed. What's”
by the way, we should do right now. See, to me, this is how I get my energy in my focus. But like, but I feel like, by the way, cheers. Is there anything that you had one before? No, thank you. I'm excited to try it. Oh yeah, this one has no caffeine. It's great for, um, for focus. So,
delicious. Have you ever had one? No. Oh my God, they're amazing. People love these things.
I usually just down them. But the reason why I'm not, I've had like four today. I don't know how many of those have. Hmm. Maybe we're going to do like a, just with it with the, uh, pulling of the ears. Yeah. How does that, like, so explain to me how that works. Like, number one, do you have all these modalities that you've been taught through like, you said, like a coach or somebody who just is like a book that says, do this to feel that and then it was practice.
It just helps. Like, tell me how you became the person that does all this stuff. Like, you did it, you didn't make up these things. Did you or some of the exercises that I teach? I created kind of
knowing the principles of somatic exercises. For example, what we just did with the ears. Yeah,
utilizes a principle called bilateral stimulation, which is also found in EMDR therapy with your eye movements right to left. I know that. He's so tell people who don't know what that is. Because that's another therapy, form of therapy that's extremely effective. It is really effective. It's another bottom
“up therapy, meaning that you don't have to necessarily remember your trauma or even verbalize”
your trauma and it still is a, it will still help you heal from trauma. How great for people with PTSD and CPTSD, what's it called? CPTSD is complex PTSD. So folks who experienced abuse during childhood or or if people were in like a really abusive relationship, just like a long term from that. Okay. Okay. His is CPTSD. Essentially bilateral stimulation has done an EMDR and I created some exercises that utilize bilateral stimulation, but just in it with different body parts in a different
way. But the majority of the exercises that I teach are exercises that people have been researching since like the 1970s and under the semantics umbrella, there are several different schools of semantics. There's EFT tapping. That was the one I was talking about. Yeah, body mind centering, there's Faldon Christ, there's Alexander Technique. So there are all these different schools of thought.
“And I really discovered this and became good at it for my own healing from trauma. And then I was”
teaching, I would certified in Pilates. And so I started kind of like introducing some of the somatic exercises into my clients lessons, most of them were healing from injury. And they were like, oh, we love this. Can we, you know, can we start and end the lesson with this? And I just started teaching it more and more. And during COVID, I really started posting it online and people, people
became people became, I thought it was going to be very niche, but now I have like 4.8 million
followers across platform. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so give me an exercise for sciatica. Yeah, so you're going to be moving a whole time. So you would lay down on the floor. Yeah, another one of these. Okay, the brain fog and the sciatica, the two good ones. You would lay down on the floor. And you would place your, actually have a free 21 minute class on YouTube for sciatica. It's not for sciatica. It's just a full body relaxation class, but it will help your sciatica.
But let me give you a specific, it'll like relieve the pain of sciatica. A specific sciatica exercise would be your laying down on the floor. You have both of your knees bent. They're facing the ceiling, ankles hip distance apart, arms down by your side. You make a figure for position with your leg, which means that your right ankle is on the bottom of your left thigh. And then you would just take that whole shape and rock it a little bit to your left and come back.
And it just, is this really, and we would just, um, like, it looks more like the whole shape rocking like this. Yeah. Oh. Yep. And you keep your shoulders relaxed on the floor. And it's where you would just take it a little bit to the side and come back, because you don't want to pull on the sciatica nerve. You don't want to experience any pain. But then if the small movement feels good, we could make it like 10% bigger, 20% bigger. And we would just do that on both sides.
If you tend to have more sciatica pain on one side than the other side, I would repeat the side that you experienced more pain on one more time with you. And that's a great, quick
Extra.
right? How about our faces? Yeah. Because, and our hair. I see people who, when they're going through
“a lot of stress, they get much more gray hair. And their face starts to get more, age, like, more”
wrinkles and fine lines. How do we stop that? And besides just taking a peptide and injecting it, what can we do? Other than not, so medically. Yeah. To look our best. Yeah. So with hair, for example, I was in marriage. And it was a really stressful toxic marriage. And the guy was not good to me. And I was quite young. I was like in my early 30s. And I got like this huge gray streak in my hair. While I was married. And then was doing semantics as I was getting out of the relationship and
then just got out of the relationship and my hair repigmented back to my natural color, which is brown. So stress, essentially, what stress? How is that possible? Yeah. Stress. Like, extreme amounts of stress like that. It's all connected to your survival response. So when you're in fight flight,
freeze your body diverts energy away from non-essential functions, like, like pigments in your hair.
“And it goes and it conserves its energy only for the most essential functions. So that's why you'll”
start to experience faster signs of aging. You'll start to experience more wrinkles. You'll start to experience the the graying of your hair or like bags under your eyes can be connected to lymphatic drainage to there can be other things, but essentially stress accelerates aging. Because your body is diverting energy away from its natural repair systems and from its non-essential functions. Once you get your body out of its stress mode, out of its stress response, then your body is like,
cool, we can divert energy back up to the stem cells that are pigmentsing the hair. We can divert
energy back to collagen production, for example, in your face. But I've never seen people go from gray
hair, like look at Obama, like he became totally gray after, you know, being the president. His hair never went back to being the regular color or like people who age, right? Like, when you're 50 or 40, you don't have gray hair, but then when you're 60 or 70 or 80, you have gray hair. I don't see the fact that like if that was the case, when you're retired and don't work and don't have any hair, half a slaughter would be brunette and blonde without gray hair. Yeah, so this goes
up to a point. So once you turn 16, then that's when genetic aging starts to kick in. And there's not much that you can do, right? So there's a difference between getting gray because of aging. Pretty mature, yeah, or premature because of like chronic stress. Exactly. Yeah. So if you're getting gray, and you know, if you notice like, oh, my hair is getting gray a lot faster. Like, yeah, and you're also in a really stressful period of your life. That's very, and you're also
under 60. Like, that's all very connected. I mean, there are different, I mean, sometimes it's genetics and you're just, but like, I will say, though, like, of course is every extent, what does different circumstances, but I will say for the most part, if you really think about it, people who are highly stressed, they do look older. Like, even the fact like, you know, every mom, I know, right? The age, if a mom, I see at 40 who has two kids, three kids, and they're
like, they're in it, look older than a four-year-old who's basically has no kids who doesn't have that additional stress and responsibility. There is a difference. You know, it's just what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And it's really how your, how your body is processing it, right? So you're saying some of these exercises can actually help remove and release some of this stress. Mm-hmm. And then your body's natural repair systems can kick back in. You get out of survival mode,
“it diverse energy back to the non-essential functions. Your body is self-healing. So really,”
you just need to like, give it this catalyst, up getting it out of its stress response, and the body does the rest of the work for you. And so is there a particular, a particular
exercise we can do to kind of look younger, like, face-wise and bloating? I got a million.
I've been ever leaving. Yeah. So in terms of like, your scalp, for example, and you can do exercises where you're moving your scalp or even like pulling on your hair a little bit like this. So I'm just for anyone who's listening. I'm just taking my right hand, and I'm placing my fingers on my hair, and I'm grabbing my hair, close to the scalp, and then I'm just giving it a little tug. And you can just do that all over your head, and that brings blood flow back up to your scalp.
That's a good one. Yeah. And what does that do? Helps with great, with natural
Repigmenting your hair back to a natural color.
Yeah. And so I teach a bunch of scalp exercises as well. So maybe Obama will do that one too.
Yeah. I don't even know why. All the people I thought of him, the only president hasn't looked, hasn't looked at day older as Donald Trump, because, you know, because he already is.
“Yeah. Well, because he's not stressed. He's not stressed. He's not stressed, you know?”
Yeah. Hold on. This is a really good one. Yeah. So if you go on the top or just the bottom. Yeah. You can go on top. You can go all over just pulling your own hair a little bit. And it brings blood flow back up to your hair. Oh my god. I love it. Yeah. We're going to do this after. This is such a good one. It's so good. Oh my God. It also feels good. It feels good. I see why you're so popular. Oh my god. Give me another one. Yeah. Because it
feels good. So people are like immediately like, yes, I'm only leaving this. Because so far, you gave me two really good ones that are really easy to do. Yeah. That it doesn't like require
“much effort. It's just like you're sitting here. You must pull your hair. Right. And you might”
as well. I put your finger on your forehead and press it up towards it. It's like the easiest things. Yeah. Yeah. It's super, super easy. I do them on the plane. Like all this. Yeah. Yes. Give me another one. Okay. Give me one for bloating. And I think that's a big one. I could everyone I talked was bloated. Yeah. Because that's god hells. Could you do a lot with god hells too? I do a lot with god hells. Yeah. So with bloating, there are, there is more of like a sequence
that you want to do. But to get us started, we can sit with our ankles, hip distance apart like this. Okay. Great. And then we're just going to think about the tailbone, rolling towards our knees and coming back up. Mm-hmm. You're just going to do that movement over and over again. And you can make it tiny, tiny. It's almost like chair-tworking. Yeah. It is kind of chair-tworking. I like it. Yeah. This is a seated pelvic tilt or seated pelvic clock for anyone who's familiar
with somatics. You can also do this laying down on the ground and this helps with bloating. This helps release some stress out of your body, which this is why I said that there's kind of like a sequence that you want to do. But if you practice this for about like eight days and you do this little sequence for those like a five to ten minute sequence for about eight days, you'll notice
the significant difference in your bloating. This is amazing. Okay. Wait. I want to check something
on your Instagram. So for the bloating one, when you do that, are you able, like you're telling me with an eight days, people's bloating will go down? Mm-hmm. Sometimes three. Really. How long do you have to do the exercise for? Is it a minute? Is it 30 seconds? I repeat each exercise for about a minute. Okay. And then there's like an intentionally sequenced series of exercises that I take people through for different things. Mm-hmm. So how important is sequencing them?
It's super important. It's super important, right? Yeah. So like it's not just one exercise. Exactly. Like for today, because you're here showing me like, oh, here's one for this. Here's one for
“that. But to get the best, best bang for your buck, you need to do like a series together, right?”
Yeah. Yeah. If you do squats, yeah, it's good for your butt. But if you do squats and deadlifts and you're gonna get the whole every muscle in your glint in your gut. Yeah. Exactly. Same thing. Exactly the same thing. Yeah. So now I'm really getting to understand this. So this is like
literally a kind of an entire different wellness modality to like basically make you stronger,
you know, emotionally and everything. Yeah. Make you stronger and prettier. Yeah. Stronger for your spiritual more, emotionally, evolved, all the things. I love it.
