A Whole-Person Approach to Handling Stress and Strain
The Alexander Technique is a self-care method that has been found to have lasting therapeutic effects. Through learning how to move with less effort and tension, students can feel relief from pain and make progress on stubborn injuries such as repetitive strain injuries, carpal tunnel syndrome, and chronic neck and back pain.
In lessons, we collaboratively work to learn positive concepts to counteract movement habits that contribute to strain in your body. This both improves biomechanics that might keep you from aggravating injuries and keeps you from contracting around problem areas, which can activate nerves and be a potential cause of back pain and other chronic conditions. We will work to teach you the skills to maintain this easy movement and create habits that will serve you long into the future.
In lessons, we collaboratively work to learn positive concepts to counteract movement habits that contribute to strain in your body. This both improves biomechanics that might keep you from aggravating injuries and keeps you from contracting around problem areas, which can activate nerves and be a potential cause of back pain and other chronic conditions. We will work to teach you the skills to maintain this easy movement and create habits that will serve you long into the future.
Research and Support
If you are a physician, you can download a PDF on how the Alexander Technique can help your patients here.
Please note that lessons in the Alexander Technique are not a substitute for consultation with a qualified medical professional, but a way to help when posture and movement issues are a contributing cause to physical conditions. Medical practitioners should always be consulted for acute back pain and to help with structural issues.
Stress, Anxiety, and Breathing
Our body and mind are intricately connected. When we experience stress and anxiety, a concrete pattern of its manifestation comes into our body as a specific physical response. The Alexander Technique works to undo this response and to help us be mindful of preventing it in order to allow us to move through potentially stressful situations with ease and poise.
One of the keys to undoing a negative relationship with stress is unlocking your breathing. When our breath is moving naturally and easily, we can resist going into the fight or flight response that can spiral into anxiety. The Alexander Technique does this by removing tension that restricts the ribs, diaphragm, and other components of respiration from functioning optimally and by teaching a student to access a free and natural breath cycle.