Nervous System Regulation

One of the greatest gifts yoga has given me beyond physical strength and flexibility is the ability to understand my nervous system and regulate it when needed. This has quite simply changed the quality of my life.

As our yoga journey unfolds, it often leads us through many wonderful paths helping us learn what we need to heal, to grow and to thrive. My personal journey has led me to many meaningful and incredible experiences. Through reiki, sound, restorative and yin yoga, breath work and mindfulness I am deeply drawn to practices that support my nervous system.

For so many years I felt not good enough, found myself people pleasing and making myself small,

For years I mistook low grade anxiety, worry and shallow breathing for being just how I was. Years later as I educated myself in yoga, the nervous system and mindfulness I understood that my nervous system was disregulated much of the time. This disregulation can manifest in so many ways, for me it showed up as people pleasing, tiptoeing around, walking on egg shells and constantly worried. Each of us have our own experiences and part of the journey is recognising when our nervous system is disregulated and of course building easy to use tools to bring us back into a balanced state.

Nervous system regulation is not about fixing ourselves but learning how to support the body with more awareness and care.

If you’re thinking this sounds like a full time job, I have good news, it’s not, however it does require becoming intentional about noticing our state of being, our reactions and getting curious.

What Nervous System Regulation Actually Means

It’s important to understand our nervous system on a basic level, in order to understand how simple actions can have such a huge impact on our wellbeing.

The three states that our nervous system can be in are

• • fight / flight = stress response, hyper-alert, tension, rushing, overthinking
  • freeze/fawn = shutdown and withdraw
  • rest / digest = calm, grounded, able to rest and respond more clearly

All of these states are important and necessary for our survival and a well functioning nervous system can move between these state effectively when needed. However, it’s not uncommon that many people spend years functioning in low level stress without realising it, just like I did. That state is often the fight/flight state and when that state becomes our default it can be damaging to our health and happiness.

How Yoga Helped Me Notice My Body

Yoga helped m become aware of:

• • shallow breathing
  • tight shoulders/jaw
  • busy mind, unable to switch off
  • rushing
  • difficulty resting
  • always anticipating things.

Before we can regulate the nervous system, we first have to notice how the body is actually feeling. Practices like guided meditations and a somatic based yoga flow can really help here. Often we just ask in our heads, learning to listen to the body is a powerful first step.

Where to Start?

Small Daily Practices Matter More Than Perfection

Nervous system care can be quite easily woven into daily life, rather than something complicated.

Over the years, nervous system care has become less about adding more to my life and more about noticing what helps me feel grounded, calm, and connected to myself again. Most of the practices I return to are incredibly simple, but done consistently they make a noticeable difference in how I move through each day.

Simple Ways I Support My Nervous System

Sometimes it looks like slowing my breathing when I notice myself rushing or feeling overwhelmed. A longer exhale has a way of bringing me back into my body quite quickly, especially during stressful periods or busy days.

Movement has also become an important part of this. Not intense movement, but gentle yoga that helps release tension and settle my mind at the same time. Forward folds, slow spinal movement, legs up the wall, or even taking a few conscious breaths in child’s pose can completely shift how I feel.

Nature is another huge part of my nervous system care. Walking in the forest, listening to birds, sitting quietly by the sea, or simply noticing the feeling of fresh air on my skin helps me slow down in a way that feels very natural and uncomplicated.

I notice how much the nervous system responds to small sensory shifts. Soft music, self reiki , tapping practices, candlelight in the evening, or creating quieter moments in the day all help signal safety to the body.

None of these practices are about creating a perfect routine or never feeling stressed again. They are simply ways of supporting ourselves more intentionally and learning to recognise what helps us feel more balanced.

I start my days with a structured and lengthy morning routine that I love! It’s an important part of my day when I’m home, but when schedules change our routines need to adapt too.

This is where consistency over intensity supports us. When our routines have become habits, we can naturally access them regardless of where we are, we will find moments to check in with ourselves, take some longer exhales or get grounded, we get good at noticing what we need in any given moment.

Developing a well regulated nervous system is available to you. To build a stronger more resilient nervous system, start by noticing what you are feeling in your body and then ask your body what it needs. This is a powerful step of getting out of your head and your ever increasing to do lists. Simply pause, place a hand on your chest and notice what you are feeling physically – shallow breath, tense jaw, tight shoulders or something else. Then give. yourself what you need, don’t put it off, a long exhale or unclenching your jaw are easy in the moment practices.

In their book Glimmers sisters Nadia Narain and Katia Narain Philips explain the nervous system with simplicity and clarity and relate it to everyday human experiences that we can relate to. Glimmers is full of tiny moments to transform you life and really sum up what I’m writing about here, read it for inspiration on accessible ways of using small moments to soothe and support  your body. Check out the book here

Getting to understand your nervous system and building easy habits to support it, really is quite simple,. So why not try some of these ideas and enjoy the amazing benefits of a regulated nervous system.