Yoga to Improve the Nervous System

Autonomous Nervous System

• The autonomic nervous system runs your internal clockwork and organs – your heart, liver, intestines, respiratory rate, digestion and reproductive organs. It’s a two-part system. The sympathetic nervous system works with stress hormones, such as adrenalin and cortisol, to elevate your heart rate, blood sugar levels and blood pressure in response to a threat. The para-sympathetic nervous system kicks in after the threat has passed. It lowers your heart rate and blood pressure, slows breathing and returns circulation and the activity of your organs to normal. Your muscles relax, digestion and sleep improve, immunity is stronger. Yoga asanas that stretch and strengthen your muscles, and Pranayama exercises that promote deep, calm breathing, activate the para-sympathetic nervous system to help you combat stress. Forward bends, sitting, prone and supine poses and hip openers, as well as inversions, slow breathing and meditation work best to stimulate the para-sympathetic nervous system.

Killer Stress

• Stress can kill you, and it undermines your health in countless ways. When your stress response is running the show, you are prone to ulcers, migraines, irritable bowel syndrome, depression, epilepsy, chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. You are at higher risk for diabetes, heart attacks, osteoporosis and fibromyalgia. Reliable studies about yoga’s effect on stress and related conditions, evaluated by Harvard Medical School, show that yoga lowers stress levels and hypersensitivity to pain. It also improves depression and anxiety disorders significantly, up to a 67-percent remission rate in one study of patients hospitalized for depression. Harvard Medical School characterizes post-traumatic stress disorder – PTSD -- as a “maladaptive nervous system arousal.” Yoga relieves PTSD symptoms in war veterans so dependably that Walter Reed Army Medical Center now offers yoga deep-relaxation therapy to affected combat veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Heart Rate Variability and the Vagus Nerve

• Heart rate variability is the balance of the stress reaction and recovery response caused by the nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system triggers rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure and faster breathing to deal with stress. The para-sympathetic nervous system lowers the heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate when the stress is over. A healthy heart has a high variability rate – while low variability indicates poor cardiac function -- and yoga practitioners tend to have higher heart-rate variability than their non-yoga-practicing peers. Vagal tone is also higher in yogis. The vagus nerve connects the respiratory, digestive and nervous systems to the brain and is critical to regulating major body functions, such as heart rate, breathing, information processing and digestion. A strongly toned vagus nerve makes you more resilient under stress. High vagal tone is a significant health marker, indicating good digestion, lower heart rate, emotional stability and reduced anxiety, depression and pain sensitivity.

Get It Right

• Avoid, ameliorate or heal your health problems with the help of yoga, but be smart about it. Choose quiet yoga with an emphasis on reflective poses, the slower breathing exercises and meditation and guided imagery to activate your para-sympathetic nervous system. Remember that yoga will even moderate the effects of diseases not directly linked to stress, like cancer, by easing the anxiety of surgery and aggressive treatments. Find a few favorite do-anywhere poses and learn slow-breathing techniques to lower your stress levels and calm your nerves in the middle of a crazy -- or typical -- day. Enjoy your vigorous yoga sessions -- they offer stress-reducing benefits as well -- but realize the greatest stress-relief by ending each session with relaxing poses. Check with your health care provider before starting a yoga program aimed at subduing excess stress in your life.