Breathwork for Nervous System Regulation: 4 breathing practices to guide the body out of a sympathetic nervous system response & back to a felt-sense of well-being.
As the master-regulator of the body, our nervous system is the key to creating a “felt-sense” of well-being that we experience in the body. Whether the nervous system is triggered into an intense stress response, or whether the body is dealing with long-term stress and adrenal fatigue, it can be difficult to get into the body out of this sympathetic nervous response and back to feeling calm and at ease.
As much as we have been trained to rely on the mind and our cognitive abilities, the mind cannot communicate directly with our nervous system. While we might try to convince our minds we are safe and all is well, it is much more difficult to convince the body. We cannot simply tell ourselves to ‘calm down’ when life events have triggered us into a stress-response.
The breath, however, has a direct line of communication with the nervous system. And because it is a semi-autonomous process, we can use the breath as both an honest measure of our stress levels and as a way to communicate directly with the nervous system and guide the body back to a felt-sense of well-being and safety.
Course Content
Presenter
Sarah Beth Hunt is a meditation and breathwork coach, yoga teacher and founder of Messy Luminous Being online platform. She received Ph.D. in Indian Studies from the University of Cambridge, and has trained in both the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhist meditation and traditional yoga through the British Wheel of Yoga. She currently works with clients using movement, breathwork and mind-training practices to harness the body’s physiology and the mind-body connection and transform their inner state.
