Everyday stress doesn’t seem that big of a deal if you look at it from a general perspective. When you’re given a task, you do everything in your power to get it done so that you may relax later. But is that always the case? Not really.
As a certified yoga & meditation teacher, I offer an insightful perspective through my services at Teja Valentin. I want you to know this: chronic stress traps the nervous system in high-alert states, which elevate muscle tension, heart rate, and inflammatory markers.
Your body is a temple; what you do and how you do it affects your body. Breathwork has been shown to improve mood, reduce respiratory rate, and curb negative emotions. Pair this with yoga, the gentle movements uniting your body, breath, and mind, and you create the perfect environment allowing your nervous system to heal. Let’s explore how it works.
What Happens to the Nervous System During Stress?
Anyone can advise you to try yoga, but only a few would tell you why it actually matters. A major part of understanding its relevance entails what happens to the body without it.
When you’re stressed out beyond measure, your mind detects a threat, sends a distress signal, and launches the fight-or-flight response, immediately driving you into survival mode. Typically, a rest-and-digest response is triggered when the threat passes. But when stress remains chronic, it locks the nervous system in a heightened state of alert.
Besides emotional patterns and tension, the physical signs of stress also begin with the secretion of two hormones, norepinephrine and epinephrine.
Their interaction with receptors in the central nervous system creates a series of events that result in muscle cell contraction, increased blood pressure, heart rate, skeletal muscle blood flow, increased sodium retention, increased levels of glucose, and a lot more.
How Breathwork Influences the Body’s Stress Response
Breathing is more than the involuntary interplay between inhalation and exhalation. Intentional breathwork influences the body’s stress response by shifting control from the fight-or-flight system to the rest-and-digest system. Here’s how:
- Slow breathing indicates to your brain that you’re safe, lowering blood pressure and reducing cortisol production.
- Gentle exhalation acts as a brake, slowing down your heart rate and calming the body.
- Breath awareness stops your mind from racing, calms your thoughts, and brings you back from a state of panic.
- The relaxation response helps drop your blood pressure, loosen up your muscles, and prompts the body to repair itself.
- Present moment focus drives your concentration away from regrets of the past and worries of the future.
Breathwork Techniques for Different Stress Responses
The interesting thing about breathwork is that it exists in many forms. Whether it’s a slow-paced exercise or an active method, the right technique helps shift your body chemistry and consciousness for good.
Take a look at this table to see what practices my clients have trusted to heal their nervous system.
Stress Responses |
Breathwork Techniques |
How They Work |
| Feeling overwhelmed | Box breathing
(inhale 4s, hold 4s, exhale 4s, hold 4s) |
Resets the nervous system, clears mental clutter, stabilizes adrenaline levels |
| Racing thoughts | Alternate nostril breathing | Balances left and right hemispheres of the brain, diverts focus from a hyperactive mind to physical sensations, promotes mental clarity |
| Physical tension | Deep diaphragmatic breathing
(belly breathing) |
Directly stimulates the vagus nerve, forcing the ribcage, shoulders, and chest to drop and soften |
| Difficulty unwinding | The 4-7-8 breathing technique
(inhale 4s, hold 7s, exhale 8s) |
Slows down a racing heart rate, tricks the brain into believing there’s no threat |
| Mental restlessness | Extended exhalations (1:2 ratio) | Triggers parasympathetic dominance, lowering blood pressure, signals the body to calm down |
Working with a diverse range of clients over the years has taught me a lot as a yoga teacher. That’s precisely the reason why my yoga classes are your best shot at healing your nervous system. I can guide you with targeted breathwork techniques specific to stress responses.
Curious how it works? Connect with me, and I’ll tell you everything.
4 Yoga Practices That Encourage Nervous System Regulation
A little bit of determination, consistency, and strength is all your body needs to reap the benefits of breathwork and yoga. With my online classes, you’ll be able to regulate your nervous system, prepare for actual rest, and consciously adapt a lifestyle that transforms you for the better.
While not every yoga practice is created for nervous system regulation, a few surely are. In the sections below, you’ll find what each yoga practice is, how they work, and the impact each movement has on your nervous system, body, and vagal nerve.
1. Child’s Pose (Balasana)
The child’s pose is a gentle, resting, and grounding posture where you’re going to kneel on the floor, sit back on your heels, and fold your torso forward, with your forehead resting on the mat. It helps the body create a secure, cocoon-like boundary.
- How It Works: The pose forces a slow shift away from external stimulation, prompting physical surrender with the earth’s natural pull gently pressing the torso toward the floor.
- Impact on Your Nervous System: The movement triggers the body into a parasympathetic state, actively reducing cortisol levels and calming the brain’s stress response.
- Impact on Your Body: It gently stretches and releases tension in the lower back, hips, thighs, ankles, and shoulders.
- Vagal Stimulation: A rested forehead on the ground with deep diaphragmatic breathing directly stimulates sensory receptors linked to the calming branch of the nervous system.
2. Cat-Cow Pose
The cat-cow pose is a fluid, synchronized movement on all fours where you’re supposed to arch your back and assign a specific breathing pattern to a specific movement. When you lift your chest, you’re embodying a ‘cow’ pose, prompting an ‘inhale’. Similarly, tucking the chin prompts a ‘cat’ pose with an ‘exhale’.
- How It Works: Inhaling expands the front body and chest; exhaling engages the core and arches the spine, altogether creating a predictable, meditative cadence.
- Impact on Your Nervous System: The rhythm acts as an internal regulator that interrupts continuous, anxious thought patterns and restores a sense of control.
- Impact on Your Body: It refreshes the vertebrae and melts away the stubborn stiffness along the spine.
- Vagal Stimulation: Synchronizing a slow, extended exhale with the spinal movement mechanically stimulates the vagus nerve to down-regulate heart rate.
3. Legs-Up-the-Wall
When it comes to the legs-up-the-wall pose, the name gives it away. It’s a passive inversion where you lie flat on your back and swing your legs straight up against the surface of the wall. But the pose doesn’t stop there. Your hands should also remain open at your sides.
- How It Works: Gravity’s natural pull allows a smooth flow of venous blood and lymph fluid toward the core and heart.
- Impact on Your Nervous System: It signals the brain to dial down hypervigilance and panic responses by assuring an absence of threat.
- Impact on Your Body: It eases the feeling of tired, heavy legs after a long day of sitting or standing, also allowing your back and legs to relax without requiring much muscular support.
- Vagal Stimulation: Pairing this posture with slow, comfortable breathing helps you become more aware of your body’s response to stress, slowing down the heart rate and relaxing the blood vessels.
4. Corpse Pose (Savasana)
The corpse pose is the final posture where you lie completely flat on your back, let your feet fall open, rest your arms beside you with palms facing up, and fully immerse yourself in the experience by closing your eyes.
- How It Works: The pose removes the need to hold any muscle against gravity, which prompts the mind to divert attention inward, helping you notice areas of tension, observe your breathing, and let your body settle without trying to control anything.
- Impact on Your Nervous System: It shifts your baseline activity from high-alert sympathetic dominance into deep parasympathetic repair, which lowers cortisol.
- Impact on Your Body: The supported position allows the release of tension in the shoulders, jaw, back, and legs.
- Vagal Stimulation: Sustained quietness combined with passive belly breathing maximizes vagal tone, teaching the nervous system how to rest without dropping into sleep or anxiety.
The gentle restorative poses are all forms of mindful movement meant to keep your nervous system regulated. With my expertise, you’ll be able to immerse yourself in a guided relaxation session, where breath-synchronized yoga will help encourage nervous system regulation.
But remember one thing. There’s no need to perform every pose perfectly. Over the years, I’ve had many wonderful clients to work with, even those who never tried any form of yoga. I won’t force you to perfect the art.
As your trusted guide in the entire process, I’m confident that your body will settle into the routine. Hop on to the next section to learn why.
Building a Daily Yoga and Breathwork Routine
When people think of yoga, they often get the idea that it’s an ‘impractical’ solution to their elevated stress levels. And that can be the case if it’s a physical studio you’re required to show up to. Zero in my online yoga classes, there’s no barrier between you and consistent practice.
You can build your own daily yoga and breathwork routine across different points of the day. Check out which one fits your schedule the best!
- Morning Practice: A combination of cat-cow pose with box breathing is excellent to gently wake your body from general grogginess, requiring as little as 5 minutes.
- Midday Reset: Pairing child’s pose with 4-7-8 breathwork offers the break your mind and body need in the midst of a hectic workday.
- Evening Wind Down: A legs-up-the-wall pose with belly breathing notifies the brain to stop thinking about work or anything that usually stresses you out.
Teja Valentin understands the struggles you face when trying to integrate something meaningful into your packed daily routines. You don’t have to carry the baggage of rigid, hour-long sessions with me. My coaching sessions are all about supporting consistency without pressure.
Start Your Morning Yoga & Breathwork Routine With Teja Valentin!
Sometimes, the greatest change in your life doesn’t come with leaving a stressful job, but from a simple change of routine. If you’ve spent the longest time in survival mode, let yoga be the guide to help you rest well.
I’m Teja Valentin, your trusted online yoga teacher, helping you create safe spaces for emotional release and allowing the transformative power of yoga to heal your nervous system. Connect with me today, sign up according to your schedule, and witness the change unfold!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. What are the 7 signs of a dysregulated nervous system?
A dysregulated nervous system is distinguished by seven signs, namely: chronic fatigue, heightened irritability, anxiety, sleep disturbances, digestive issues, brain fog, and emotional numbness.
2. Does breathwork regulate the nervous system?
Yes, breathwork is known to directly regulate the nervous system. Slow, controlled breathing helps stimulate the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system, which allows the body to shift out of a fight-or-flight response.
3. How does yoga support the nervous system?
Yoga is a practice defined by physical postures, breathing control, and meditation, all for uniting the mind, body, and spirit of an individual. Breathwork is a part of yoga, which altogether stimulates the vagus nerve and boosts parasympathetic activity.
4. Who should avoid breathwork?
Breathwork is good, but it’s best to avoid it if my clients have specific medical, physical, or psychiatric conditions. Some of these conditions include, but aren’t limited to, cardiovascular disease, aneurysms, epilepsy, pregnancy, asthma, severe PTSD, etc.
