How to Reset your Nervous System
5 Minute Nervous System Reset.
🌿 How to create a calm and relaxed body, breath and mind.
1. Standing Shake (Spondana):
Begin by standing tall and gently shaking out your limbs. This simple movement helps release stagnant energy, awakening your body's innate rhythm.
2. Somatic Shoulder Release:
Seated comfortably, elevate and release your shoulders with mindful awareness. This movement dissolves built-up tension, especially from prolonged sitting or stress.
3. Halo Breathing:
Drawing a small circle with your nose, synchronize this motion with your breath. This technique slows respiration, calming the mind and soothing the nervous system.
4. Somatic Arch and Flatten (Supine):
Lying on your back, gently arch and flatten your lower spine. This movement nurtures spinal flexibility and fosters a sense of grounding.
5. Somatic Twist:
With knees bent, allow them to drift to one side until the pelvis begins to rotate, turning your head in the opposite direction. This gentle twist massages the spine and encourages detoxification.
Visual Tip: Include high-quality images or short GIFs demonstrating each movement. Tools like Canva offer customizable yoga templates to create visually appealing graphics.
🌿 The Practice: A Journey Inward
Each movement in this sequence invites the body to soften and the mind to come home. Spondana, or shaking, isn't just a release—it resets the nervous system by loosening muscle holding patterns and inviting lymphatic flow. The shoulder release invites awareness to the places we carry stress without even noticing. Halo breathing is a subtle but powerful doorway to inner stillness, training the breath to flow evenly and lightly. Arch and flatten reconnects the brain with the spine, establishing a safe rhythm through the centerline. Finally, the twist gently wrings out tension while encouraging the spine and breath to harmonize.
🧠 Why It Works: The Science Behind the Serenity
When we engage the body in slow, mindful movement, we activate sensory pathways that speak directly to the brainstem and limbic system—where our emotional and physiological states are regulated. Practices like these gently interrupt the stress loop and bring us into the parasympathetic “rest and digest” state. This reset is especially important for people living with chronic tension or emotional overwhelm. Repetitive, conscious motion paired with breath builds new neurological pathways—meaning, with practice, your body begins to remember calm more easily.
🌌 Turning Inward: The Path to Sovereignty
In somatic yoga, we often say that "awareness is the movement." As we turn our attention away from the noise of the world and toward the quiet rhythm of our breath or the subtle sensation of a shoulder softening, we reclaim space. This is the foundation of pratyahara—the yogic sense of withdrawal—not as avoidance, but as agency. When we practice tuning into our inner world, we learn to pause before reacting, to breathe before bracing, to choose curiosity over contraction. Sovereignty comes from this space: the moment where presence replaces programming.
🌟 Embrace the Practice
This five-minute sequence isn’t just a technique—it’s a declaration. A declaration that your peace is worth cultivating, even in small doses. The more often you return to these movements, the more fluent your body becomes in the language of calm. And each repetition becomes a seed planted—toward resilience, toward presence, toward a life less driven by stress and more guided by awareness. Let this be your moment to pause, breathe, and begin again.
Try the 5 Minute Nervous System Reset:
