Restore Body Trust at Home: A Somatic Practice Using a Physio Ball
Rebuilding Body Trust, One Bounce At A Time
In eating disorder recovery, reconnecting with your body isn’t just emotional, it’s a physical process. A physio ball may seem like a simple tool, but in the context of somatic healing, it becomes a powerful ally in restoring regulation, boundaries, and interoceptive clarity.
Whether you're recovering from bingeing, restricting, or body image struggles, this at-home practice can support your journey back to body trust, self-regulation, and digestion, from the inside out.
Why a Physio Ball?
The ball is both stable and responsive. When I lie on it, bounce on it, or breathe against it, I feel something solid meeting me. There’s feedback, connection, and an embodied reminder: I exist, I am supported, I belong here.
This kind of physical contact can help:
Reestablish a sense of safety
Awaken gut awareness and interoceptive signals
Support the vagus nerve and digestion
Build energetic and emotional boundaries
Somatic Practices to Try at Home
1. Yield and Be Held
Lie on your back on the physio ball, draping over it. Feel the support underneath you, especially behind your heart and pelvis.
Can you let yourself be held? Can you yield into support?
This helps signal safety to your nervous system and builds trust in resting. From here, a sense of "I have enough. I am enough" can arise.
2. Bounce to Meet Your Life Force
Sit and gently bounce on the ball, letting your spine and pelvis find rhythm. This connects you to your vitality and sexual energy in a safe and contained way, reminding your system that aliveness can feel good.
3. Define Your Edges
Breathe against the ball. Feel it push back.
This helps clarify:
Where do I begin and end?
What are my yeses and nos?
This simple push builds boundary awareness, which is key for intuitive eating, consent, and emotional clarity.
4. Stimulate Gut Receptors
Place the ball or a pillow on your belly and breathe into it slowly. You might want to drape over the ball for this one too. The gentle pressure activates receptors in your gut, helping you recognize hunger, fullness, and emotional cues.
5. Regulate Before Meals
Before eating, breathe with the ball or a pillow to activate the low-tone dorsal parasympathetic system—the part of the nervous system that supports digestion and social engagement.
This prepares your body to receive food without overwhelm or shutdown.
From Dysregulation to Interoception
Over time, these somatic cues guided by the ball lead to better digestion, refined body connection (able to track, feel, and name sensations (aka interoceptive awareness)), stronger boundaries, clarity around wans, needs, and preferences, and greater regulation and trust around eating. They also help you access something even deeper — your gut knowing.
The more you come into your body, the more you can feel the subtle in-between, where the whispers of clarity and truth reside. The ball helps with that in a playful way. It gives your nervous system something to push against, something to connect with and trust.
This is the path of restoring body trust: one breath, one boundary, one bounce at a time.
Have You Tried It?
Have you used a physio ball or similar somatic tools in your healing journey? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear how it's helped you reconnect with your body.
To see me practicing with the physio ball, check out my IG post.
Photo by jerry chen on Unsplash