The Style of Yoga I Teach, Part II
For the blog this month, I am continuing to write about the style of yoga I teach. Last month, I gave you a high-level primer on the nervous system and how my aim is to give you tools to train your nervous system to practice the relaxation response. This month, I’ll give some specific examples of what I teach and how it relates to nervous system resilience.
As I mentioned in the blog last month, I have learned much of what I teach from Kristine Kaoverii Weber of Subtle Yoga. I completed both my 200-hour and 500-hour yoga teacher trainings with Subtle Yoga. Another major source of what I teach comes from my 10 year career in the mental health field. I work as a Peer Support Specialist, which is a person in long-term recovery from mental health or substance use challenges who works with others just starting their recovery journey. I have done this work for the better part of 10 years, and along the way I have learned much from both my clients and the mental health clinicians I’ve worked with.
One tool that I learned about in the mental health field and incorporate into my classes is called grounding. According to the Berkeley Well-Being Institute, “Grounding techniques are coping strategies that reconnect you with the present, a self-regulation mechanism for times of stress and anxiety.” These skills are very useful to practice when you are already calm, so that when anxiety hits you remember how to get yourself back to a calm place.
“Grounding techniques are coping strategies that reconnect you with the present, a self-regulation mechanism for times of stress and anxiety.”
I start most of my group sessions and yoga coaching sessions with grounding using the senses. We focus on the small details of what we feel, hear, smell, and see, turning our attention back to our senses when our mind starts to wander. I usually spray essential oil blends while we focus on the sense of smell, to add an element to focus on. I find that practicing this skill at the beginning of class allows people to get grounded and ready to move their bodies.
Another strategy that increases parasympathetic (relaxation response) activity is moving in and out of a single pose multiple times. This I learned from Kristine Weber. She says, “the nervous system loves smooth, fluid movements”. This is common sense even if you don’t know anything about the nervous system. Babies loved to be rocked when they need to be soothed, and children (and adults!) tap their legs or bounce when they’re anxious in order to calm down. Repeating poses with smooth, fluid movements encourages the down regulation of the nervous system aka calming down.
Those are just a couple of concrete examples of skills and tools I teach to encourage a relaxation response in the nervous system. Practiced consistently over time, vagal tone improves and the relaxation response happens more quickly. I have been grateful for the opportunity to teach yoga at work in the mental health field, to offer these tools and strategies to individuals with mental health challenges who really need them. That is one of the reasons I started Spectrum Yoga!
