By Rory Carter Wellness 18.05.2026

This Is How to Self-Regulate Your Nervous System, According to a Yoga Teacher

Feeling overwhelmed? From breathwork to gentle movement, these simple techniques can help calm your nervous system and bring your body back into balance.

With every new year it’s as though we’ve never had more pressure on us to maintain a thriving social life, stay healthy, and pursue a successful career. On their own, these aspects of our lives are all important and can bring us happiness, but in our chaotic modern world, things can quickly begin to feel out of hand.

We’re yoga fanatics here at Bed Threads, so we decided to sit down with yoga teacher and mental health worker Rosie Jean to learn more about the natural ways we respond to stress, and how we can take ownership and control of our mind and body when faced with trying times.

We asked Rosie whether stress was a common complaint amongst the people who attend her yoga classes, and she was quick to respond with a “yes”. She goes as far as saying that it’s the number one thing people struggle with in her inner-city area of Melbourne, where she teaches. While we’re not surprised, it’s definitely eye-opening to hear from someone who deals with this problem first-hand that so many people are struggling with excess stress in their lives. There’s no way of eliminating stress completely – and we wouldn’t want to anyway.

As Rosie mentions, stress is completely normal and even healthy – “It’s our body’s way of protecting us and helping us cope with life’s challenges”. When you’re going through a breakup or in the middle of moving house, you’ll naturally feel a rise in stress levels, which should settle once the situation eases. The problem arises when stress becomes chronic and begins to affect your day-to-day life. Rosie explains, “This is when our stress levels don’t get the opportunity to lower, so they stay consistently high and leave us feeling physically and psychologically exhausted”. The answer? Yoga and self-regulating practices.

So, how exactly are stress and yoga related? According to Rosie, “Yoga helps us build self-awareness and self-regulate our stress levels, so we can take on life’s challenges with greater ease”. The best way to prevent cycles of stress – and potential spirals – is to know yourself deeply and understand how to care for yourself when you’re feeling the pressure. We have both a parasympathetic (calming) nervous system and a sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system, and they work alongside each other to keep us feeling alive and connected. “However, sometimes one system dominates more than the other, leaving us feeling overstimulated or lethargic,” Rosie adds. This is where yoga can help bring balance back to the mind and body.

By regularly practising yoga, you’ll naturally learn to control your breath and use movement and meditation to gain perspective and clarity. One of the main ways yoga can help relieve stress-related symptoms is by “allowing us to release pent-up energy and learn to soften our muscles”. Rosie also tells us that yoga is a fantastic tool for reigniting social connection on an interpersonal level. As humans, we crave connection and a sense of community, which yoga classes can offer. It’s called neural synchronisation, whereby the social and emotional parts of your brain light up when you breathe and move together in a shared space.

Breathing is such an important part of self-regulating your nervous system, and it’s central to Rosie’s teachings. She explains that when we take deeper, longer breaths, “the stretch receptors on your lungs stimulate the vagus nerve, which encourages the parasympathetic nervous system to release calming hormones throughout the body”. When we inhale, our heart rate increases, and when we exhale, it lowers again. The next time you feel overwhelmed, try calming your mind with a couple of minutes of deep breathing.

As well as yoga and deep breathing exercises, Rosie has listed a few other methods that are helpful in times of stress – techniques that can pull you out of a spiral and ground you back in your body.

Free writing

Use a journal to write down everything that is on your mind – everything that is worrying you. If your mind is racing, or you’re having repetitive thoughts or worries, this can be a helpful way to acknowledge what you’re thinking. Once it’s written down, you won’t forget it, and it may give your mind more space by letting it go on the page. It’s a simple way to validate what you’re feeling, rather than suppressing it.

Self-holding

Our hands are a really useful resource for self-regulating our physiology. A more technical term for this is interpalmal self-regulation. Simply place your hands somewhere on your body – for example, your stomach and chest. You can close your eyes or soften your gaze, then apply gentle pressure to ground into these points. Notice the temperature beneath your palms and soften the areas beneath. Notice how the sensations change or move beneath your hands.

Gentle inversion

A simple pose you can do in bed is legs up the wall (exactly as it sounds). This position uses gravity to lower your heart rate, as pressure from your legs shifts towards your chest and head. You can feel this grounding effect through your head, chest and back body as you sink into the bed. It’s a great one to try before sleep – just add a few slow, deep breaths to help your body wind down.

If you or someone you know needs help, please call Mind's support line on 0300 102 1234. In an emergency, call 999. If you are concerned about your health, wellbeing or sleep, you can also speak to your doctor, who will advise a correct treatment plan.