What are the benefits of SI?

The benefits of SI are many and varied, for each person it is a very individual and personal experience. As you stand the body up in alignment with gravity (letting gravity flow through it) the body has access to energy that was previously being used to keep the body from being torn down by the gravitational field. The body (as it is a very efficient and intelligent system) uses the extra energy for whatever it feels it needs.

The quote below from a client worked on by Jay Ruddock in 2005 is a great description:

“I feel like I have put down a big bag of bricks! Physically and emotionally I feel 2 stone lighter and 10 years younger”

Structural Integration remains an experiential process, simply writing about it does not do it justice.

Research

A Study of Structural Integration from Neuromuscular, Energy Field and Emotional Approaches – Valery Hunt UCLA 1977.

For the full study please visit www.somatics.de/HuntStudy.html

In this study Dr Valery Hunt shows that a course of Structural Integration can have an effect on the body in the following ways.

  • More efficiency in movement
  • Improved performance on memory tests
  • Decrease in the levels of anxiety (also found in Silverman, 1973)
  • Greater social skills
  • Higher perception of wellbeing
  • Enhanced ability to access different states of consciousness
  • An increase in right hemispheric brain activity (when right side dominance is required for tasks)
  • An increase in energy with less perceived fatigue
  • Improved balance
  • Improved energy distribution and flow
  • Evidence of changes in ways of processing data and the nature of thought processes that ensue

Hunt/Massey 1973 - looked into the amount of muscle contraction recorded by EMG before and after a series of SI, they found that there were significant changes. They concluded “ that (after a series of SI) alterations will occur in patterns of energy release and in the frequency of muscle depolarization, leading to improved motor capacity...to produce such numerous changes in the myograms, some form of reorganization must have taken place in the central nervous system. All evidence points to improved organization and balance in the neuromuscular system with extensive positive benefits for motor efficiency. If these prevail the widespread effects upon vitality and wellbeing could be profound”

Full study available here: www.somatics.de/Hunt-Massey/Hunt-Massey.pdf

Hunt has also found that Structural Integration "Creates a more efficient use of muscles, allows the body to conserve energy, and creates economical and refined patterns of movement."

Other benefits illustrated by studies include:

  • Increase in vital capacity (inhalation/exhalation) of between 33% and 66% ( Theis 1969)
  • Improved self perception and body image (Jolley 1960, Davis 1969, Leiber 1974)
  • Increased “sensitivity and receptivity to environmental stimulation” (Silverman 1973)

A Study of Structural Integration from Neuromuscular, Energy Field & Emotional Approaches (abstract: Dr. Valerie Hunt and Wayne Massey, UCLA Dept. of Kinesiology, 1977)

Electromyographic Evaluation of Structural Integration Techniques, Dr. Valerie Hunt and Wayne Massey, UCLA (abstract: Psychoenergetic Systems, Gordon & Breach Science Pub. U.K., 1977)

Silverman, J. , Rappaport, M . P., Hopkins, H. K. , Ellman, G., Hubbard, R., Belleza, T., Baldwin, T., Griffin, R. and Kling, R. Stress, Stimulus Intensity Control and the Structural Integration techniques. Confina Psychiatrica, 1973, 16^, No. 3-4, 201-219.

Hunt, Valerie & Massey, Wayne, 1973. Electromyographic Evaluation of Structural Integration Techniques. Psychoenergetic Systems, 1977, Vol 2, pp. 199-210