Trauma leaves many survivors feeling many emotions and sensations in their body, leading to chronic tension, prolonged anxiety, and sleep disturbances. A supportive, gentle way to soothe your symptoms and feel inner calm is with yoga designed for effortless relaxation.
I invite you to join me in this post as we explore yoga for nervous system healing so you can release tension, reduce stress, and activate the calm response in your body to feel refreshed!
What Is Your Nervous System and How Does Trauma Affect It?
Your nervous system is your body’s ultimate control and communication center. It includes your brain, spinal cord, and nerves.
There are two main parts of your nervous system:
- Central Nervous System (CNS): This includes your brain and spinal cord.
- Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): This includes all the nerves outside the brain and spinal cord. This also includes your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the part of your body responsible for fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. These reactions are part of the autonomic nervous system, meaning these reactions happen automatically (and also include bodily functions like digestion and your heart rate).
After trauma, our bodies continue to look for signs of danger to protect us. We can develop long term effects if we’re not consciously aware if this is happening.
Here’s an example of how past traumas can lead to current tension and stress:
If you experienced a sexual trauma, and there was a specific smell (candle, perfume, etc.) during your trauma, your body will react in the present moment if you experience that same smell. Your sympathetic nervous system might activate, leading to tension in your body to prepare you for fight or flight, increase your heart rate, and you might experience anxiety and not fully understand why you feel this way.
If you don’t release this trauma or notice your triggers or subtle associations, your body will continue to hold itself in a protective response, leading to longer-term issues like chronic stress, tension, and never feeling fully rested.
How To Find Balance In Your Nervous System
Because our bodies’ subtle reactions to trauma fall within our autonomic nervous system, it’s difficult for many survivors to logic their way into safety. You might tell yourself you’re safe now, but your body must feel this or you’ll still experience symptoms.
To communicate this safety, you can do gentle exercises that incorporate your body, including:
- Breathwork
- Mindfulness
- Breath to movement exercises like yoga
- Certain yoga poses
How Yoga Promotes Nervous System Healing
These exercises activate your vagus nerve, which activities your parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest system). When this happens, your body receives signals that your surroundings are safe and you can relax and release tension and stress.
Related Post: 7 Quick Yoga Poses for Vagus Nerve Stimulation to Release Sexual Trauma
Not all yoga is the same, and some styles may cause more activation than relaxation. A slower, more mindful yoga style supports more focus and relaxation. These styles include:
- Restorative yoga
- Yin yoga
- Hatha yoga
- Trauma-informed yoga. This is a way of teaching the above styles that offers more emphasis on a safe and supportive atmosphere for trauma survivors
Related post: Trauma-Informed Yoga: Exactly How These 6 Pillars Support Sexual Trauma Survivors
The beauty of these exercises is you don’t need to retell or relive your trauma in order to calm your body. You are sending your body the gentle message: we’re safe now, and we can rest.
It may be difficult when you’re first beginning these exercises, but with time, you’ll improve your body’s ability to return to a neutral state. This is referred to as your window of tolerance, a concept originally developed by Dr. Dan Siegel, MD, and is a widely popular reference for how our bodies are resilient, meaning we’re entirely capable of healing and moving past our symptoms, leading to:
- A more balanced and resilient nervous system
- Less stress and anxiety
- Released tension in your body
- Mind and body reconnection and embodiment
- Improved sleep and sleep quality
5 Pose Sequence: Gentle Yoga for Nervous System Healing After Trauma
This quick but effective yoga sequence includes poses that support regulating a dysregulated nervous system. The cues I include are trauma-informed, meaning they offer choice and agency for you to choose how to best explore the poses.
These poses focus on common techniques to restore your nervous system, like grounding, inversions, and deep breathing. Including breathwork in your practice is optional because this may be triggering for some survivors. I welcome you to cater this sequence however you choose to feel best in your body.
Gentle Yoga Sequence
Optional: If you’re adding breathwork, I welcome you to breathe slowly and deeply into your belly on your inhale, expanding your torso on all four sides, before gently exhaling completely. You might draw your belly button to your spine to press all the air out. This diaphragmatic breath invites calm and also stretches and releases tight pelvic floor muscles.
When you’re ready, I invite you to begin in Mountain Pose (tadasana). – This grounding pose invites presence and awareness to shift from busy life to your calming practice.
Steps:
- I invite you to stand at the top of your mat, feet either together or hip width distance apart.
- You might choose to invite a soft bend in your knees, lengthening your tailbone toward the mat.
- Create soft engagement in your abdomen and lengthen your spine, softening your shoulders. Your hands can rest open by your sides or take any arm variation you prefer.
- I welcome you to soften in your face and jaw, and you might choose to focus on your feet’s connection with the earth.
As you’re ready, gently fold forward, placing your palms on the ground. Step one foot back and the other, coming into a tabletop shape. I invite you to stay here as long as you like or explore the next pose.
Child’s Pose (balasana) – This pose calms racing thoughts and provides a gentle hip stretch – a common area for stored emotional and physical tension.
Steps:
- From tabletop, I welcome you to bring the soles of your feet together and knees as wide as feels comfortable (the wider they are, the more intense of a stretch in your legs and hips).
- In your time, send your seat toward your heels, maybe reaching your arms forward, resting your head and heart toward the mat. Option here to place blocks under your head or a bolster under your chest or between your seat and feet for comfort.
- Remain here as long as you like, or join me for the next pose.
To exit the pose, gently walk your hands toward your face, lifting up. You might choose to return to tabletop with your wrists under your shoulders and knees under your hip points. Option here to add a blanket under your knees and wrists for more cushion and support.
Cat/Cow (Marjaryasana/Bitilasana)- This breath to movement practice creates breath awareness and gentle spinal movement.
- (Cat) On your inhale (or exhale – some prefer opposite breathing for cat/cow), gently broaden in your chest and lift your gaze to the sky or ceiling. I welcome you to invite length in the back of your neck as you drop your belly.
- (Cow), as you exhale (or inhale), softly round through your spine, creating a rainbow shape. You might choose to press into the mat and bring your gaze in between your knees.
- Repeat the first two steps for three cycles, moving with your breath. Option to repeat more or less, depending on your preference.
When you’re ready to move on to the next pose, I welcome you to sit back on your mat, sending your feet and legs out long. Gently roll onto your back so you’re in a lying position.
Legs Up The Wall (Viparita Karani) – Inversions support nervous system regulation and deep relaxation.
Steps:
- You have the option to do this against a wall, by holding your legs, using a chair to rest your legs on, or to prop your hips on a bolster.
- When you’re ready, gently lift your legs and rest them on a prop, wall or hold them with your arms, softening your face and shoulders.
- Remain here as long as you like, maybe adding deep breathing.
To exit, gently lower your legs and give them a few moments to rest. As you’re ready, send your legs out long and rest your arms by your sides.
Savasana – This pose offers a moment for unapologetic rest and relaxation. You might choose to rest lying on your back or find another version you prefer.
Steps:
- For more detailed guidance on trauma-informed savasana, I invite you to read this blog post.
- Remain in your savasana as long as you prefer.
- Gently awaken your body from savasana with a few deep breaths, rolling your wrists and ankles, and rolling to your right side for a few moments before coming to a seat.
- You might take a moment to notice how you feel now compared to the beginning of your practice, being kind to yourself for taking time to nurture your nervous system.
Thank you for joining!
How to Practice Through A Somatic Lens For More Profound Healing
Somatic practices aim to connect our unconscious and conscious mind to release negative beliefs and restore harmony between our bodies and mind. This creates a deep understanding of your body’s cues and subtle responses to past traumas.
An example of this from my own practice is that I learned that every time it snows, I have pelvic floor tension because of past fears and reminders of trauma. This allows me to know that I need to include more safety focused practices, work on my root chakra, and bring my focus to this area before it leads to further, more painful tension later on.
To create this for yourself, there are a few ways to tweak your practice so you can shift from going through the motions of a yoga class to fully understanding your intelligent body’s messages:
- Make sure you’re comfortable. A comfortable and safe practice is the first step to any somatic practice.
- Begin to communicate with your body. If you’re beginning to notice you have shoulder tension, you might choose to explore this. It may just be pain from an injury, but if you still have a full range of motion and just feel tightness, you can explore these sensations more deeply. Is this feeling connected to a thought? What arises if you bring gentle awareness to this area?
- Presence over deep analysis. It’s easy to start ruminating on an area of tension. You might find yourself on a thinking loop of endless questions, like: What does this mean? Is it because of this trauma or another? What am I thinking? I invite you to do your best to not overthink each area during your practice. Answers may arise or they may not. You might choose to journal after your practice to explore your thoughts further, but presence in your practice is how you’ll improve over time and answers will arise more easily.
- Start small. If you notice your practice has shifted mostly to living in your head and dissociating, I invite you to gently come back to the practice. If this is becoming difficult or overwhelming, it’s okay to find a good stopping point. It’s much better to have a focused, quick practice than going beyond your comfortable limit, which can lead to self judgment.
- Be kind to yourself. This is difficult, but gets easier over time. You can’t judge yourself into healing, and becoming your own best friend during practices will transfer into daily life as well.
Overview
Reclaiming your body and balancing your nervous system after sexual trauma takes time and often additional resources to have the most well rounded, curated care plan. I invite you to explore practices you enjoy because they’ll be much easier to return to!
These gentle yoga poses support stress relief, leading to better overall health and a more holistic approach to healing. I wish you the best on your healing journey and yoga practices, and take good care.
Begin rebalancing your nervous system with gentle, trauma-informed classes
If you’re ready to begin feeling safe and at home in your body again, I invite you to join my free private yoga library. Inside, you’ll find practices tailored specifically for survivors to release tension, soothe anxiety, and reclaim your inner calm!
