The longer I study the body and the yoga tradition, the more I realize that much of the physical, physiological, and mental suffering is caused by the nervous system gone awry.
Our nervous system is one of the most delicate and sophisticated creations with remarkable potential for learning and transformation. The nervous system doesn’t just deliver messages back and forth between the body and the brain; it tells all your organs and systems what to do, dictates how you feel from moment to moment, and decides how you view the outside world. Your nervous system directly or indirectly affects the functioning of every other physiological system in the body; it constantly tries to make sense of what’s happening inside and outside of you. And the way our nervous system interprets the signals from within our bodies and from our external environment depends on how safe it feels. This interpretation of our sensory stimuli can be accurate, inaccurate, or ambiguous and can put us either in a state of ease (sukha) or a state of unease (duhkha).
That state of dukha (as unease or disease) can spill out into any other physiological system. It’s no wonder that so many maladies are connected to chronic stress – it’s a result of our nervous system being stuck in an agitated state for long periods of time. Luckily, the yoga tradition has accumulated a wide variety of tools and techniques that help restore balance to the nervous system and, as a result, relieve pressure from other physiological systems to enable them to do their job properly.
In this yoga series, we explore every layer of our physiology to develop a better theoretical understanding and intuitive awareness of what’s going on “under the hood.”
- We take a look at your skeletal system and discuss the factors that affect bone growth and maintenance. We focus on strengthening your bones and use yogic strategies to improve calcium absorption.
- We cover your respiratory system and list strategies for improving your lung capacity, which is a reliable predictor of mortality. We use yoga practices to improve your lung compliance and elasticity, as well as the strength and mobility of your diaphragm.
- We discuss your digestive process and analyze its leading players: stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. We use specific yogic techniques to either move things along or retain nourishment in your system and use vagus nerve activation to settle your stomach.
- We also discuss how to support your immunity and zoom in on your lymphatic system and spleen function in our yoga practices.
- We take a look at your mighty heart and the incredible job it does, supplying every cell in the body with nourishment. We will also discuss what can go wrong in our cardiovascular system if we get stuck in fight-or-flight mode for too long. We get a sense of the heart’s activity and blood movement throughout the body in our yoga practices and connect to our metaphorical hearts, as well.
- And, of course, we take a deep dive into our nervous system to figure out how it impacts every other system and our view of the world. We discuss different ways of dealing with anxiety to calm our nervous system and make it feel safe. We try different ways of regulating your inner state in your yoga practice and tweaking your perception of yourself and the world.
- In addition, we continuously look at our physiology through the yogic and Ayurvedic lenses to better understand the whole-body balance or imbalance patterns. We analyze how your inborn constitution affects your predisposition to certain diseases and imbalances. We also discuss the actions you can take to correct the imbalances and live in a way that’s more attuned to your natural rhythms.
This yoga series teaches you how to tune into your physiology and better interpret its signals. You will use different yogic tools to bring energy and attention to different layers of your system, help you better understand your current issues, and move you toward restoring your inner equilibrium.
