Why I Talk About the Nervous System So Much (As a Yoga Teacher)
If you’ve practiced with me, you’ve probably heard me talk about the nervous system — a lot.
More than flexibility.
More than poses.
More than performance.
That’s intentional.
Because modern neuroscience is confirming something yogic traditions have taught for thousands of years: the body is not separate from the mind, and regulation happens through physiology first — not willpower.
Understanding the nervous system helps explain why yoga works, why breath changes our mental state, and why working through the body can transform our emotions, relationships, and perception of life.
Let’s explore why.
The Brain Moves Before It Feels
One of the most important discoveries in neuroscience is that the brain prepares action before we consciously experience emotion or make a decision.
Research in cognitive neuroscience (including work by Benjamin Libet and later motor-preparation studies) shows that the brain generates motor signals milliseconds before conscious awareness. The nervous system detects input and immediately prepares a physical response — changes in muscle tone, breath, posture, heart rate — before we construct a feeling or narrative about it.
In simple terms:
We organize physically before we experience emotionally.
Before fear becomes “fear,” the body has already:
tightened muscles
shifted breath
oriented attention
prepared movement
Emotion is partly the brain’s interpretation of these physiological changes. The psychologist William James proposed this over a century ago — that we feel afraid because our body changes — and modern neuroscience continues to support this embodied view of emotion.
This is why yoga begins with the body.
If experience is organized through physiology first, then working with posture, movement, and breath directly influences how we feel and think.
The yogis understood this long before brain scans.
The Nervous System Doesn’t Categorize Experience the Way We Do
We tend to divide life into categories:
physical pain
emotional stress
mental overwhelm
relational conflict
But the nervous system does not experience reality this way.
From a neurobiological perspective, the nervous system is simply receiving and processing information. Signals arrive through many channels — touch, sound, sight, internal sensation, social cues — but they all become electrical activity interpreted by the brain.
Your nervous system is constantly asking one question:
“Is this safe or not?”
Neuroscientist Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory describes how the nervous system continuously evaluates safety through a process called neuroception. This evaluation happens automatically and shapes:
muscle tone
breath patterns
emotional states
capacity for connection
perception of reality
Importantly, the system does not strictly distinguish between:
tactile information
auditory information
emotional information
relational information
It simply processes signals and organizes a response.
This means something profound:
Different kinds of input can be processed through different kinds of output.
You can move through emotional tension.
You can breathe through mental overwhelm.
You can regulate relational stress through physical grounding.
This is not metaphorical — it is neurological.
Why We Can Change the Mind Through the Body
If the nervous system organizes experience through physiological states, then altering those states changes perception, emotion, and cognition.
This is why yoga practices work so reliably.
Research in contemplative neuroscience and psychophysiology shows that practices like slow breathing, mindful movement, and interoceptive awareness can:
regulate the autonomic nervous system
increase vagal tone
reduce stress reactivity
improve emotional regulation
enhance attention and resilience
Breath practices, for example, directly influence the vagus nerve, heart rate variability, and brain regions involved in emotional processing. Posture affects mood and perception. Gentle movement shifts stress chemistry.
We don’t calm down by thinking our way to calm.
We calm down by changing our physiology.
Yoga gives us tools to do exactly that.
The Yogic Insight: Body and Mind Are One System
What neuroscience is discovering, yoga philosophy has always assumed.
Classical yoga describes human experience as layers of interwoven experience — physical body, energetic body, mind, and awareness — each influencing the others. The Yoga Sutras describe yoga as the stilling of mental fluctuations (chitta vritti nirodha), yet the practices offered to reach that stillness begin with the body and breath.
Why?
Because the body is the most accessible doorway into the system.
You cannot directly command the mind to be quiet.
But you can lengthen your exhale.
You can soften muscular holding.
You can change your posture.
You can feel sensation.
And when physiology settles, the mind follows.
Modern neuroscience would describe this as bottom-up regulation. Yoga described it as practice.
Regulation Before Realization
Much of our suffering comes from dysregulation — a nervous system stuck in patterns of defense, urgency, or shutdown.
When the system is dysregulated:
perception narrows
reactivity increases
connection decreases
clarity becomes difficult
Trying to solve this through thought alone is like trying to calm a storm by reasoning with the wind.
Yoga offers another approach:
Regulate the body.
Stabilize the nervous system.
Then clarity emerges naturally.
Stillness is not forced. It is revealed.
Why This Matters in Practice
This is why, in my teaching, you’ll hear me talk about:
breath patterns
sensation awareness
pacing
nervous system states
internal experience
Not because yoga is becoming clinical or mechanical, but because understanding the nervous system helps us practice more compassionately and effectively.
It removes shame from struggle.
It explains why we react the way we do.
It gives us tools for real change.
And most importantly, it bridges ancient wisdom with modern understanding.
Yoga as Nervous System Training
At its core, yoga is not just stretching or exercise.
It is training in how to:
receive experience
respond rather than react
regulate internal states
cultivate presence
access stillness
We practice shapes and breath not to perform them perfectly, but to learn how experience moves through them.
Because when the nervous system settles, the mind quiets.
When the mind quiets, awareness becomes clear.
And from that clarity, life is lived differently.
→ Learn About how this relates to Somatic Healing at Somavia
