Why This Matters.
Understanding these systems is key to unraveling the chronic compensation loop.
What is Proprioception?
Proprioception is your body’s built-in system for knowing where it is in space, without having to look.
Muscles, joints, and connective tissue constantly send feedback to your nervous system about tension, alignment, and movement. This information enables your body to adjust its posture, maintain balance, and move efficiently, often without conscious effort.
When this system is disrupted, your body compensates... and that’s where imbalance begins.
The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, monitors head position and movement to help you maintain balance and stability.
Although the vestibular system is housed in the inner ear and primarily detects head position and movement, its regulatory influence extends throughout the musculoskeletal system.
Vestibular input merges with proprioceptive and visual signals to generate a comprehensive, real-time map of body orientation in space.
This multisensory integration allows the central nervous system to modulate muscle tone and motor activity across the spine and limbs via the vestibulospinal and reticulospinal tracts.
When core musculature becomes imbalanced—such as with a tilted pelvis or asymmetrical ribcage—the body initiates compensatory strategies to maintain upright posture and head alignment. Even minor deviations from vertical alignment can prompt continuous activation of the vestibular system.
In response, reflexive signals travel down the spinal cord, recruiting postural musculature to stabilize the head and torso.
These reflexes are adaptive in the short term, but when core imbalance persists, the vestibular response can become overactive and self-perpetuating. The result is sustained, involuntary contraction of stabilizing muscles, particularly within the thoracolumbar fascia, pelvic girdle, and cervical extensors.
This chronic activation often underlies persistent tension patterns that prove resistant to localized treatment—until the deeper, reflexive neuromuscular loop is addressed.
How Muscle Imbalance Triggers Reflex Loops.
Chronic tension creates a feedback loop between proprioception and the vestibular reflex.
Let’s say your right hip is tight and pulling your pelvis off-center. Proprioceptive sensors recognize the shift, and the vestibular system responds to keep your head level and body upright.
The result?
More muscular compensation, especially in the spine and core. Over time, this loop leads to rigidity, pain, and postural dysfunction.
When the Reflex Won’t Turn Off
Vestibulospinal reflexes are meant to be temporary.
However, when muscular imbalance persists over time, so do the reflexes.
Your body begins to treat this new pattern as “normal.”
The reflexes don’t reset, and chronic muscular tension becomes your baseline.
This is why a client may leave your table pain-free, only to have the pain return—the deeper reflex loop hasn’t been addressed.
The Chronic Tension Loop
- Muscle Imbalance or Tension Begins
— Triggered by injury, poor posture, or repetitive strain
— This sets up asymmetrical loading or compensation in the body - Proprioceptive Distortion
— Proprioceptors (in muscles, joints, fascia) begin sending skewed information to the CNS
— The body perceives an imbalance and attempts correction - Vestibular System Activation
— Vestibular reflexes engage to maintain upright posture and head alignment
— These reflexes send signals down the vestibulospinal tract to stabilize the body - Continued Muscle Contraction
— Core and postural muscles (especially in the back, hips, and neck) contract reflexively
— Often this contraction becomes chronic and unconscious - Loop Reinforcement
— The nervous system adapts to the new "normal"
— Proprioceptive distortion continues, vestibular response stays activated
— The cycle repeats unless interrupted
Clinical Insight:
This loop is adaptive at first, designed to keep you from falling. But over time, it becomes maladaptive, embedding chronic tension into the neuromuscular system. That’s why traditional treatment methods that address only the local tension often fall short — the deeper reflex arc isn’t reset.
The Vestibulospinal Reflex:
Your Body’s Hidden Balance System.
Every human body is 'equipped' with a powerful internal system that constantly works to keep us upright and oriented—whether we’re standing still or moving through space. Known as the vestibular reflex, this automatic response is triggered anytime we begin to fall or lose our balance. It’s why we instinctively catch ourselves or adjust posture without conscious thought. But when muscular imbalances or chronic tension interfere with this system, the reflex can stay activated—creating a loop of effort that impacts posture, movement, and long-term comfort.
As a therapist, understanding this reflex is essential for restoring efficient core muscle coordination, allowing the body’s structural system to recalibrate, redistribute load, and return to mechanical balance.
As someone looking for pain relief, if you’ve been living with chronic pain and nothing seems to help, the problem might be deeper than your muscles—it might be your body’s balance reflex stuck in overdrive. This deep, automatic system can hold your core in tension without you even knowing it. Therapists trained in this work understand how to reset that reflex, helping your body release, realign, and finally find relief that lasts.
Don’t give up—real change is possible.
The Berry Method® recognizes and works with this core 'anatomical Engineering' principle, which may explain Lauren's success in addressing the muscular components within scoliosis.
This article from the National Library of Medicine sheds light on the muscle tension connection to looping vestibular relaxation.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2342524/
When the core is balanced, movement feels easier, posture improves, and the body’s natural healing responses can activate.
Consider and connect some dots.
Your body is constantly working behind the scenes to keep you upright and balanced—whether you're moving or standing still. At the heart of this effort is the vestibular reflex, a built-in system that detects shifts in your position and automatically adjusts muscle tension to maintain your balance.
When your core muscles are imbalanced or weak, this reflex can become overactive, causing persistent muscular tension—especially in the lower back and hips—as your body struggles to stay aligned.
By understanding how the vestibular reflex influences posture and tension, we can begin to unravel chronic pain patterns, restore true core balance, and unlock the body’s natural capacity to heal and move with ease.
‘Stuck, Stagnant, and Unbalanced’ is not healthy.
Every human body comes equipped with two deeply embedded reflexes—ancient, automatic responses that kick in without conscious thought.
One is the startle response to sudden loud sounds.
The other?
The instinct to catch ourselves when we fall.
The body is always working to keep itself upright—constantly adjusting, like a spring that naturally returns to center after being bent.
This built-in reflex doesn’t just activate when we fall—it’s always on. Tiny shifts in posture, movement, and balance are being corrected every moment, even when we’re standing still.
The instinct to catch ourselves when we fall is just the most dramatic example of this deeper truth:
Our bodies are wired to stay upright, balanced, and safe.
It’s a continuous conversation between gravity and the nervous system—one that keeps us moving through space without collapsing.
No one simply hits the ground flat—we reach out, twist, brace, protect. This is the vestibular reflex in action: the body’s built-in balancing system working to preserve safety and orientation in space.
But there’s a powerful exception.
When the nervous system senses we’re holding something precious—like an infant—we override that reflex. Instead of throwing out our arms to catch ourselves, we instinctively protect what we carry, even if it means we take the hit.
That’s the sophistication of the vestibular system: not just reacting, but adapting.
It’s a primal intelligence that governs how we move, balance, and respond to gravity—and when stuck in a continous adaptation loop, it can shape everything from posture to pain patterns.
How It Works:
Sensing Falling: The semicircular canals and otolith organs in the inner ear detect changes in head position and movement, such as the sensation of falling.
Immediate Response: The vestibular system sends signals to the brainstem, which then coordinates a rapid muscular response to stabilize the body and prevent falls.
Postural Adjustment: Muscles in the neck, trunk, and limbs are activated to realign the body and regain balance almost instantaneously to prevent injury.
Examples:
- Stretching Out Arms: If you trip or stumble, your arms instinctively stretch out to break your fall. This is a component of the protective extension reflex.
- Neck and Head Realignment: The vestibular system triggers muscles to keep the head upright, even when the body is off balance.
- Leg Adjustments: The stepping reflex occurs when the legs adjust to reposition the feet for stability.
This reflex is essential for maintaining balance and preventing injuries from falls, highlighting the intricate coordination between the vestibular system, the nervous system, and the musculoskeletal system.
The Berry Method® supports rebalancing the body's core musculature to unravel this chronic background tension.
This class is coming to Truckee on June 8th.
