Among healthcare professionals, the Alexander Technique is recognised as helping people with hypermobility. More information on this is available on the hypermobility page of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique.

For a very personal view, you might like to watch the following video created by Jess Albertine, which has just been released. Jess has hypermobility and is an Alexander Technique teacher, and she has many years of experience living with it and helping others.

I’ve summarized below some of the main points of her video below:

There is a spectrum of hypermobility disorders which also includes Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
There are different tissues in the body, such as bones and muscles. One type of tissue is connective tissue which includes cartilage, ligaments, tendons and fascia.
Hypermobility is a connective tissue disorder. The protein that builds connective tissue is collagen, and in people with hypermobility the DNA structural instructions for how to build collagen is different to other people’s.
With the right teacher, the Alexander Technique can help. Ask questions of your Alexander Technique instructor to see whether they have experience working with hypermobile people.
Finally, hypermobility is possibly the only diagnosis that fundamentally changes how Alexander technique teachers work with their students.

The final point is important, and so here is part of Jess’s explanation of that below:

So the fundamental differences in working with a hypermobile person versus someone who’s not hypermobile is in ‘how do we direct’? [See here for my guide to Alexander Technique Direction]

Instead of directing for lengthening and going away from the core, I find that my best use of myself comes from directing in. That basically creates reassurance on a neurological level, on a muscular level – that I’m not going to come apart, I’m okay, here’s that connection, I have that softness and connection between my neck and my head, between my ears and behind my nose, and that actually creates the secondary effect of lengthening and widening.

So the way that I think of it is this: with hypermobility we’ve got some prerequisites that we need to first get a handle on. Before we can think about letting go at all, we need to first stick with connection and safety and reassurance. So, my main directions that I use and that I also use with students who are hypermobile (and frankly also I find this really helpful with students who have anxiety as well) is to talk with connection language.