What You Need to Know Before Your Bodywork Session
The Primacy of the Autonomic Nervous System
When preparing for a bodywork session, it’s natural to want change—immediate relief, deep tissue manipulation, or a transformative experience. However, true healing is not something that can be rushed. One key element that’s often overlooked in bodywork is the autonomic nervous system (ANS), the part of your body that controls your response to stress, safety, and healing. Understanding the importance of your ANS before your session can profoundly influence your experience and the expectations you hold for a session.
Why the Autonomic Nervous System Matters
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating your body’s unconscious functions—like your heartbeat, breathing, and the way your body reacts to stress. When it comes to bodywork, your ANS plays a pivotal role in how you respond to touch, tissue manipulation, and the environment around you. If your body is in a state of fight-or-flight (stress response), it will resist deep healing, no matter how skilled the practitioner or how intense the tissue manipulation.
Safety is the key to unlocking your body’s capacity to heal. In a bodywork session, if your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, your tissues will remain tense, your muscles will resist, and your healing process will come to a stand still. This is why understanding the role of the ANS is essential before a session begins.
The Slow, Steady Path to Healing
Many clients believe that starting with deep tissue manipulation will lead to faster results. However, this approach can actually be counterproductive. Rushing into intense tissue work too soon may be a trauma response—a way thinking or behaving to force healing without first establishing safety. Your body needs time to attune to the practitioner, the environment, and the touch being offered.
By honoring the slow, steady process of attuned bodywork, you allow your autonomic nervous system to assess the situation and decide whether it's safe to release tension or trauma. Going slow, rather than diving deep from the start, gives your body space to:
Interpret safety or threat in the environment.
Communicate its needs and desires regarding touch intensity.
Release emotional and physical blockages in its own time.
This careful tuning into the body allows for deeper, more meaningful healing than trying to force it through intensity.
Listening to Your Body’s Needs
Before a session, it’s crucial to recognize that your body may not want the same type of bodywork that your mind thinks it needs. While you might believe you’re ready for fast, deep bodywork, your body might be asking for a slower pace—something more titrated and gentle to allow space for feeling, healing, and introspection.
This is why negotiation between practitioner and client is essential. Together, you can determine:
What type of touch you need.
The level of intensity that feels comfortable and nurturing.
The duration of touch that allows for true, meaningful healing.
It’s not just about what your mind thinks it needs, but about what your autonomic nervous system is signaling—whether it feels safe enough to let go and release tension or trauma.
How the Four Domains of Health Tie In
As a Certified STREAM Practitioner, I don’t just focus on the physical body in isolation. True healing involves an understanding of the Four Domains of Health—Biochemistry, Biomechanics, Scar Tissue Remediation, and Emotional Health—and their relationship to your autonomic nervous system.
Biochemistry: Your body’s internal chemistry, including diet, hormones, stress levels, environmental toxin exposure affects how your nervous system responds to touch and healing. If your biochemistry is out of balance, it can influence your body’s ability to relax, heal, and hold a new state of being long term.
Biomechanics: The way your body moves and functions is often tied to the state of your autonomic nervous system. If your body is stuck in fight-or-flight, your muscles and joints may not move as freely, even with manipulation.
Scar Tissue Remediation: Old injuries, surgeries, or even emotional scars create restrictions in the body that are best addressed when the nervous system feels safe and open to healing.
Emotional Health: Emotional scars often manifest in the body as physical pain or tension. Attuning to your body’s emotional needs through the ANS allows these blockages to release more naturally.
A whole body health assessment session prepares the client to embrace a slow and steady path to healing. We address all four domains prior to your first bodywork session. Creating a roadmap of your interior world is the first step to respect the primacy of the autonomic nervous system. We can access the true wisdom of your body’s design—its internal communication system—and tap into spontaneous, profound healing.
Creating a Safe Environment for Healing
Your body cannot heal if it doesn’t feel safe. A core part of bodywork is creating an environment where the autonomic nervous system feels supported, not threatened. This means:
Allowing for slow, steady touch that your body can adjust to over time.
Respecting your body’s timing and needs—not overriding its signals with too much intensity too soon.
Understanding that true healing comes from tuning into your body’s signals, not from forcing results.
When we honor your body’s natural rhythms and respect the autonomic nervous system, we create the conditions for deeper, more intricate healing—both physically and emotionally.
What to Expect in Your Bodywork Session
Before your session, come with an open mind and a willingness to listen to your body’s needs, not just what you think it should need. During the session, we’ll work together to assess:
What kind of touch your body feels safe with.
How much intensity feels right at each stage of the session.
How to pace the work to allow space for both emotional and physical release.
Remember, rushing the process side-steps true healing. The goal is to allow your body, guided by the autonomic nervous system, to feel safe enough to let go of tension and trauma in its own time.
Final Thoughts
Understanding the primacy of the autonomic nervous system is key to getting the most out of your bodywork session. As a Certified STREAM Pelvic Care Specialist, I honor the deep connection between your body’s need for safety and its capacity to heal. By going slow, tuning into your body’s signals, and respecting the Four Domains of Health, we help you unlock the delicate layers of healing that traditional approaches often miss.
Your body knows what it needs. I am here to listen—and to help you heal from the inside out.
