All of Yoga

30. How yoga increases nervous system resilience

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In this episode of All of Yoga, we explore how yoga helps you recover from stress faster, stay calm during challenging times, *and* feel more emotionally balanced over time. (Yes, really!)


Whether you’re navigating the everyday stresses of life, or you're coming back from a period of burnout and overwhelm, yoga offers so many powerful tools to help your nervous system  build resilience. 



We’ll cover:

  • What “nervous system resilience” means (and why it matters)
  • How yoga so profoundly helps regulate the nervous system
  • What the science says
  •  Next steps if you are looking to reduce and reverse the impact of chronic stress


By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why yoga works for stress relief and how to use it to build real-life resilience.


If this episode helped you, please leave a review and share with someone who needs it. Every share helps more people access these important insights for their wellbeing (and we do a happy dance) 🧡



Useful resources: 

2️⃣ Episode 2 - Ujjayi pranayama, the what, why and how. Listen here 

💻 Free workshop - Yoga & the brain: The neuroscience of stress. Save your spot here

👀 See the shownotes here

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[00:00:00] Hi, and welcome back to the All of Yoga podcast. I'm Holly, and in today's episode, we are looking at something that's really powerful and reassuring; yoga [00:01:00] doesn't just help you feel better in the moment. It helps you build long-term nervous system resilience.

Whether you are dealing with day-to-day stress or coming out of burnout and overwhelm, this episode is all about how yoga can help your body and mind return to homeostasis, return to balance.

So this is where we're going in today's episode,

we will take a look at what nervous system resilience is.

We'll look at how yoga helps nervous system regulation.

Then we'll look at what the science says about this, so you don't just have to take my word for it.

And then finally, we'll cover next steps if you are looking to reduce and reverse the impact of chronic stress.

So let's get cracking.

 Nervous system [00:02:00] resilience. So first, what do we actually mean by nervous system resilience? In simple terms, it's your body's ability to return to a state of balance known as homeostasis after a stressful time.

It really, really does not mean to not ever get stressed because that's just not realistic. We live in quite a challenging world, a fast-paced world, so avoiding stress is completely unrealistic. And stress is often involved in challenges in which we grow and in things that we enjoy too.

So to recap, we are not talking about avoiding stress, but we are talking about recovering quicker from a stressful period, self-regulating, feeling safe, not [00:03:00] becoming stuck in overwhelm.

And this is all down to the autonomic nervous system, which has two branches.

One is the sympathetic nervous system. This is your fight or flight mode. The other is the parasympathetic nervous system. This is your rest and digest mode. A healthy, resilient nervous system can shift between these modes reasonably fluidly.

In an ideal world, when you are faced with a stress trigger, you mobilise fight or flight, but then when this time passes, you settle, rest and digest, but, and it's a huge and very ugly but; when we're constantly stressed, juggling responsibilities, we're under pressure, we are not getting rest, this ideal world system becomes completely dysregulated, [00:04:00] and this is where yoga comes in...

How yoga helps regulate the nervous system.

Yoga supports nervous system regulation in so many ways. This is something that never ceases to blow my mind. Here are just a few, but if you wanna know more about any of these or you want to know about any that, don't get to mention, keep your ears peeled at the end of this episode for details about our free masterclass, about the neuroscience of stress, but for now, back to how yoga helps regulate the nervous system.

One breath awareness.

Even noticing your breath helps activate the parasympathetic nervous system. The rest and digest response, I mentioned this in our last podcast episode, but in simple terms and [00:05:00] kind of a bit silly, but it works, right? Think about it this way. Anything that you wouldn't do if a saber tooth tiger was in the same room as you. If you do that, you are telling yourself you're safe, right? So if a saber tooth tiger was in the same room as you, then you would not be paying attention to your breath. You wouldn't close your eyes. You wouldn't put an emphasis on relaxing the tension around your shoulders.

And so when you are doing these things, you are telling yourself you are safe. You're not in survival mode, and this helps bring the body and mind back to balance. So always remember your breath is always with you, and it's always something simple that you can pause and notice and start to activate that calming response.

And then taking this a step further into [00:06:00] pranayama breathing techniques, practices like the ujjayi pranayama, the ujjayi breath. Listen to episode number two if you have no idea what I'm banging on about here, can really help to activate the calming part of the nervous system. Or if in doubt simply extending your exhale will over time, train your system to come back to balance even during daily stresses.

Two, mindful movement.

Whether it's a strong vinyasa flow or a gentle yin yoga session. Moving with awareness helps discharge stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline. With regular yoga over time, you train your body to feel safe while moving, which can help rewire this initial response to challenging times.

Three: the relaxation response.[00:07:00] 

Practices like yoga nidra, restorative yoga, or simply lying in Savasana in our relaxation pose at the end of class, give your nervous system some incredibly important recovery time.

These are not lazy. They are medicine for overworked nervous systems. If in doubt, aim for three minutes minimum to be still without input through your senses.

Herbert Benson or Mr. Relaxation response as I fondly call him, has conducted a huge amount of research and concludes that three minutes is the minimum for activating the relaxation response, which is the calming part of the nervous system.

Four: interoception and self-awareness. Yoga really helps you tune into your [00:08:00] internal cues. Things like your heartbeat, your breath location and rhythm, tension levels, even how hungry you are, whether you are angry or sad, and so much more. This is interoceptive awareness and research shows that interceptive awareness is absolutely key for regulating emotions and for stress recovery.

Think about it. When you can feel yourself getting stressed, you are more able to do something about it, to stop it in its tracks and to reduce and reverse the impact of stress.

Five: Body wide tension reduction. You may have heard of fascia, a tissue in the body that connects and supports absolutely everything in the body. When we're in a state of stress, and I talked about this in the last episode, our musculoskeletal [00:09:00] muscles tense up, ready for action. But what I didn't mention then was, so does the fascia. Yoga then reduces this tension, which yes, makes muscles feel more relaxed and less tense, but because fascia is a part of every system in our body, this reduction in tension will likely have a positive impact on things like our respiratory system, our digestive system, reducing headaches, helping us sleep, and so, so much more.

 What the science says.

There is solid science behind yoga, helping nervous system resilience. Studies show that yoga increases vagal tone, a key marker of parasympathetic activity. Simply put, if you have higher vagal tone, then you have better [00:10:00] resilience, therefore more calm, improved digestion, and even stronger interoceptive awareness.

Neuroscientist Amy Arnsten has shown that chronic stress weakens the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in executive function, in focus, planning and emotional regulation. But yoga practices help to restore prefrontal function whilst reducing overactivity in that fear network in the amygdala.

So practicing yoga means supporting your brain, your mind and your body in bouncing back from stress. And it doesn't have to be a 90 minute session at 5:30 every single morning. Remember, everything that you do adds to the whole.

Next steps if you are looking to reduce and reverse the impact of chronic [00:11:00] stress.

If you are curious to explore this more, I'd love to invite you to join our free masterclass, Yoga and the Brain: the Neuroscience of Stress Recovery. We'll have time to break down many of the mechanisms mentioned in this episode and look at what the evidence says about reducing the impact of stress, and building nervous system resilience.

So in summary, yoga doesn't just help you feel better today, although it most certainly does make you feel better today.

A regular yoga practice builds your nervous system resilience, meaning that you are more able to cope in stressful times and more able to come back to balance after the stressful time too. That is nervous system resilience.

Thank you so much for listening. If this episode helped you, please do share it with a friend or leave a review. It really helps more people to find this information and [00:12:00] as always, happy practicing.