Nervous system literacy with the Alexander Technique
Today’s post is about the wholeness of your central nervous system, and thus the wholeness of your felt human experience. Yet the complexity of our nervous system can cloud functional understanding.
We are organisms composed of trillions of microscopic parts. There are at least 200 different kinds of cells, and 37 trillion cells total, within us. Each cell hums with life, takes in energy, and expels waste. Nerves are just one kind of cell in this complex matrix.
One of their many gifts is that you can sense and feel this humming! It is food for the soul.
Your nervous system provides internal homeostasis and moves you through your environment safely and skillfully.
Physiological homeostasis is foundational to mental health, and so is access to sensory experience.
One profound benefit of the Alexander Technique is restoration of the flow between one’s “self-sensing” and ones awareness of environment. This has been formalized as “orienting” by Somatic Experiencing practitioners.
There are at least five different ways to talk about the nervous system, its parts, and the way they fit together. I want my students to remember each one of these five divisions easily and without confusion – but it’s a challenge for all of us!
Here are five divisions of your nervous system I think are important:
- Central /peripheral
- Voluntary/involuntary or autonomic
- Sympathetic/parasympathetic/enteric (three divisions of the autonomic nervous system)
- Left hemisphere of brain/right hemisphere of brain
- Sensory/motor
I’ve made little dances for each one to facilitate learning. Today’s video guides you through an introductory practice for sensory and motor nerves.
Sensation and movement, while separate abilities and kinds of nerve cells, are parts of an indivisible, whole experience in your body.
Sensory nerves (afferent nerve cells) and motor nerves (efferent nerve cells) are one way in which we articulate differences in nerve cell functioning. You can think of afferent nerves as being “body to brain” and efferent nerves as being “brain to body.”
Step one: I sensory appreciate you!
The first step invites inner connection and acceptance. It helps you appreciate your own sensations without overthinking.
- Begin by turning your attention inward.
- Gently say to yourself: “I sensory appreciate you.”
- Let this message be a form of self-kindness and gratitude, acknowledge your body, your senses, and your presence. How amazing.
- Interpret this prompt as you wish—whatever feels right in your body and mind.
- Take a couple of minutes just to be with this prompt, allowing yourself to accept, enjoy, and receive the experience.
Your body responds positively to being appreciated instead of assessed and judged.
Step two: I sensory appreciate where I am
Now you can build on this foundation of sensory awareness, expanding your field of attention beyond yourself to include the world around you.
- Gently, shift your focus to your environment.
- Say to yourself: “I sensory appreciate where I am.”
- Notice the space around you and what’s happening in it.
- Appreciate contact with supporting surfaces
- You are free to explore this in your own way—look around, tune in to movements, sounds, smells, colors, textures and shapes from the space you’re in.
- Continue for a couple of minutes, remaining open to anything that interests you in your environment.
This practice encourages the ability to maintain ongoing internal sensory experience, while orienting to the world around you physically and emotionally. It is integrative.
Step three: I am free to move
Now that you are oriented in your space, you can engage the voluntary (somatic/motor) aspect of your nervous system, highlighting autonomy and choice in movement.
- Let yourself know: “I am free to move.”
- Remember, you do not have to move, but you are free to move in any way you choose.
- Whether it’s a small shift of weight, a shake of an uncomfortable area, or a stretch, any movement is welcomed.
- As you move, observe the new sensations—how your body feels, the impact on your breath, or how your attention flows and shifts in the space.
- Enjoy the natural flow between your voluntary decision to move and the sensory feedback you receive —you are creating an ephemeral sensory painting as you move.
Motor activity/volition and sensory experience in your body and in your space are truly not divided. Your experience of yourself in your environment is unified and whole.
Step four: I am free to rest
This final step explores the voluntary decision to rest. Rest is as much a chosen action as movement.
- Tell yourself: “I am free to rest.”
- You can choose to be still and yield to the support available to you—perhaps the surface beneath you or your breath.
- Recognize that even in rest, autonomic movement continues internally—heartbeat, breath, subtle shifts—but you’re free to stop voluntary movement if you wish.
- Take as much time as you need to navigate the dialogue between fidgeting, getting comfortable, and rest as deep stillness.
Rest and movement both fall under voluntary control; resting creates a sensory backdrop in which you can feel the autonomic processes always at work. Motion can obscure these sensations, but if you practice you become more and more able to be in tune with them.
So, to name a few themes that are foundational to your mental and physical health:
The indivisibility of your nervous system:
While we name and teach parts separately (sensory, motor, voluntary, involuntary), functionally, they operate as an integrated whole.
Embodied learning matters:
Moving from cognitive understanding to embodied experience is real learning—we digest information not just with our brain, but with our whole self.
Autonomy & wholeness need practice to manifest:
Each step reinforces the freedom to engage with the prompt or not, making space for true autonomy and integration in both movement and stillness.
Devote ten minutes to these four prompts every day, and notice the how your central nervous system refreshes itself.