1. The Autonomic Nervous
System and Yoga Practice
Lisa Schmidt
Pacific Yoga Teacher Training 500 Hour Program
Final Anatomy Project
May 1, 2010

2. ABSTRACT
Different methods of breathing and yoga practice can affect
the autonomic nervous system and have an impact of the
functions we ordinarily consider to be under unconscious
control. Abnormal breathing and movement patterns can
stimulate autonomic reactions associated with
anxiety, panic, and other nervous system stimulation. By
contrast, quiet breathing and introspective yoga postures
influence the autonomic circuits that slow the heartbeat and
reduce blood pressure, producing calm and a sense of
stability. Our ability to control respiration consciously gives
us access to autonomic function that no other system of the
body can boast.

3. The Nervous System
Divisions

4. What is the Autonomic
Nervous System?

5. Function of ANS
Primary Function Automatic? Controls
• Controls • Operates below • Cardiac
Involuntary consciousness Muscle, Smooth
Body Functions Muscle, and
Glands

6. Two Divisions
Sympathetic Parasympathetic
Fight or Flight Rest and Digest
Short term Long term
survival, prepares survival, SLUDD
for action Functions

7. Sympathetic NS
Stress Response
Heart Rate Blood Pressure
Respiration, voluntary
Clotting Mechanisms Blood Sugar Level
muscles

8. The Stress Response

9. What Causes the Stress
Response?
 Initial Fight or Flight
Response
 Mobilizes body for immediate
action
 Slower Resistance Reaction
 Stage of Exhaustion

10. What Happens Next?
Fight or Flight Response Chronic Stress & Cortisol

11. Parasympathetic NS
Let it
Conditioning and Practice go!!
 Activates the Rest and
Digest System
 Benefits include
resting, digesting, healing
 Powerfully affected by
respiration rate, levels of
Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide

12. Parasympathetic Stimulation
• slowing down of the heartbeat
• lowering of blood pressure
• constriction of the pupils
• increased blood flow to the skin and viscera
• peristalsis of the GI tract
• returns the body functions to normal after they have been
altered by sympathetic stimulation
• The vagus nerves also help keep inflammation under
control.

13. Role of the Vagus Nerve

14. How Yoga works
Physiological changes to the nervous system
Stimulation of the Vagus nerve through breathing practices
Activation of the Parasympathetic NS
Induction of the relaxation response
Yoga practices repetition which rewires deeply embedded
physical, psychological, or emotional patterns
Meditation observation of behavior patterns
Change, and cognitive learning, becomes realized
Yoga Sutras
III.9: “When after a moment of stability, the mind ceases its fluctuation and
remains naturally quiet, it begins its transformation to stability”

15. Simple
Pranayama/Pratyahar
a Practice
① Use the breath in order to
concentrate on marman points
② Big
toes, ankles, midcalves, knees, mi
dthighs, perineum, navel, heart
center, throat well, middle of the
eyebrows, forehead, and crown-
follow like a ladder up and down
③ Anchor each center with
awareness, using breath
④ Invoke a favorite
deity, teacher, mantra

16. Meditation
Turning mind to positive qualities
Positive qualities become dominant
Negative qualities become dormant, weakened
Negative reactions (fear, anger, anxiety, resentment)
that trigger the sympathetic NS less likely to occur
awareness – self-observation - repetition

17. Study: Iyengar Yoga and
Cardiac Rehabilitation
 Scientific Study on Yoga’s biological
effects
 Improves Vagal Tone
 Significantly improved cardiac
autonomic nervous tone
 The effect produced on the heart
when only the parasympathetic
nerve fibers (which are carried in the
vagus nerve) are controlling the
heart rate. The parasympathetic
nerve fibres slow the heart rate from
approximately 70 beats per minute
to 60 beats per minute

18. Yoga Poses for Cardiac
Rehabilitation
Savasana with support
Suptabaddakonasana with
support
Purvottanasana on bench and
support
Trikonasana with a trestle
Parshvakonasana with a trestle
ArdhaChandrasana with a trestle

19. Yoga Poses for Cardiac
Rehabilitation
PrasaritaPardottasasana, concav
e back
Bharadvajasana, sitting on
chair, hands on trestle
AdhoMukhaShvanasana with
support
Shirshasana
ViparitaDandasana with bench

20. Yoga Poses for Cardiac
Rehabilitation
Dhaanurasana with or without
support
Sarvangasana with chair
Halasana with support
Bhismacharyasana with support
SetuandhaSarvangasana with
support

21. Yoga Poses for Cardiac
Rehabilitation
ViparitaKaranionaSetubandha
Bench
Shavasana with support
From Iyengar Yoga Increases Cardiac
Parasympathetic Nervous Modulation
Among Healthy Yoga Practitioners
Kerstin Khattab,1 Ahmed A. Khattab,1Jasmin
Ortak,2Gert Richardt,1 and Hendrik
Bonnemeier2
Evidence Based Complement
Alternative Med. 2007 December; 4(4):
511–517.Published online 2007 October 27.

22. Common thread through
these poses
Safety
and
support
Quiet
relaxation
Working
Opening
at limits of
of space
physicality

23. How Should I Practice?
 Sit each day for five minutes
 Deeply rest (restorative pose) each day
for twenty minutes
 Practice each day three poses

24. Birdwings by Rumi
Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror
up to where you are bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be
paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birdwings