Nervous System Regulation,
with Esther Ekhart

In our busy lives, rest is often overlooked yet crucial for healing our nervous system; it is a practice of love and a necessity for a balanced life. In this session you’ll learn why rest is the essential first step to reconnecting with your core self and working with your nervous system. You’ll discover practical steps to slow down, take naps, do nothing, and check in with yourself to access deep emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being.

In this 45-minute introductory talk, we will explore the fascinating world of Polyvagal Theory and its profound impact on our well-being. Developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, this theory provides a biological framework for understanding how our nervous system responds to stress, safety, and connection.

You will learn about the three core principles of Polyvagal Theory:

• Hierarchy: Discover the three levels of autonomic nervous system responses—sympathetic, parasympathetic, and the ventral vagal social engagement system—and how they influence your state of being.
• Neuroception: Understand the body's subconscious ability to detect safety and danger, and how this shapes your emotional and physiological responses.
• Co-regulation: Explore the importance of social interactions in regulating your nervous system and promoting a sense of safety and connection.

By the end of this talk, you will have a deeper understanding of what happens in your body and nervous system when you feel anxious, stressed, relaxed, or peaceful. This knowledge will motivate and empower you to engage with the practical exercises throughout the course, enabling you to activate your vagus nerve and regulate your nervous system. These techniques will help you transition from states of protection to states of connection, bringing greater resilience and emotional well-being.

This talk is about emphasising the importance of listening to the signals of your body and nervous system. Learn how to recognize and listen to your body and how it speaks to you, to help you understand your autonomic state. This session covers practical examples like hunger and bathroom signals, social cues, and emotional awareness. Discover techniques for internal check-ins, mindful responses, and adjusting your environment to maintain a sense of connection and safety. This self-awareness is crucial for healing and well-being.

In this guided meditation you’ll explore a life where you are fully rested, deeply connected to your body's signals, and anchored in a state of safety and connection. By envisioning this state, you help your body recognize its destination and begin to work towards realising it. This practice helps enhance your overall well-being and resilience.

In this session, we will explore how to recognise cues of safety and danger. Understanding these cues helps us navigate our environment, manage interactions, and maintain a balanced autonomic state. We will briefly remember the concept of neuroception – how our nervous system detects safety or danger below our conscious awareness. Through guided examples and a personal reflection exercise, you will learn to identify your own cues of safety and danger in various situations. 

This guided practice helps you to deepen your understanding of safety and unsafety within your body, and to practice returning to a state of safety. Through mindful awareness and visualisation, you will learn to identify sensations of unsafety and shift to memories of peace and comfort. This practice helps cultivate a sanctuary of safety within, allowing you to navigate life's challenges with a sense of inner peace and security.

In this talk, I introduce three categories of exercises designed to regulate the nervous system, based on my personal experience and insights gained from teaching over 1,000 participants in retreats. These categories are helpful guidelines to understand what techniques might work best in different situations, depending on the capacity you feel to engage with them. There are no rigid rules. Each person is unique, so feel free to modify and adapt these techniques according to what works best for you.

This session explains the techniques in Category 1, which are designed to gently bring the nervous system into a more regulated state without overwhelming it. These foundational grounding techniques include the physiological sigh, orienting yourself, the basic exercise, self-massage, nature exposure, and more. These exercises serve as helpful starting points for calming and grounding, but feel free to adapt them to suit your own needs.

This session explores the techniques in Category 2, which are designed to actively engage and regulate the nervous system when there is some capacity for more involved techniques. These practices include exercises like U-turn, state assessment, yoga, conscious connected breathing, deep breathing, co-regulation activities and more. These techniques help to further balance the nervous system, promoting a state of calm and readiness for connection. Please adapt these exercises, if needed, to best support you.

This session delves into the techniques in Category 3, focused on maintaining and deepening a state of calm, safety, and social engagement. These techniques include practices like widening your gaze, daily balance, flower meditation, journaling, safe place visualisation, co-regulation and more. These exercises are designed to anchor you in the ventral vagal state and support ongoing nervous system health. Again, feel free to personalise these techniques to best suit you..

The physiological sigh rapidly calms the nervous system, reduces stress, and promotes relaxation by signalling to the heart to slow down, activating the parasympathetic response.

The Basic Exercise by Stanley Rosenberg involves simple movements that engage the cranial nerves (of which the vagus nerve is one) to promote relaxation and balance in the nervous system.

The Salamander Exercise by Stanley Rosenberg consists of gentle spinal movements designed to stimulate the vagus nerve. This technique helps release tension, promote relaxation, and enhance nervous system regulation.

Self-massage involves applying gentle pressure to specific areas of your body to soothe muscles, stimulate the vagus nerve, and promote relaxation. This technique helps to reduce stress, improve circulation, and enhance overall nervous system regulation, supporting a state of calm and well-being. Give this a try; it really is amazing!

Rhythmic, whole-body shaking helps to release tension and regulate the nervous system. This simple yet effective practice can be done anytime you feel stressed or overwhelmed, helping to discharge built-up energy and promote relaxation.

Pull Down Heaven is a calming exercise inspired by Qigong. This gentle, flowing movement helps to centre and ground your energy, promoting relaxation and balance in the nervous system. 

This exercise helps to regulate the nervous system by connecting with the earth, the horizontal field around you, and the sky above. This exercise encourages a sense of stability and connection, and invites openness and a feeling that you are part of something larger.

Progressive relaxation is a technique that involves tensing and then slowly releasing each muscle group in the body, starting from the feet and working up to the head. This helps to reduce physical tension and aid deep relaxation, making it an effective way to calm the nervous system and alleviate stress.

Bhramari, or humming bee breath, involves inhaling deeply and then exhaling slowly while making a humming sound. This practice stimulates the vagus nerve and promotes relaxation by calming the mind and enhancing nervous system regulation.

This is a mindfulness practice that involves focusing on your breath and counting each inhale and exhale. This simple technique helps improve concentration, reduce stress, and promote relaxation by anchoring your attention to the present moment.

Deep, rhythmic breathing triggers the body's relaxation response, calming the nervous system and lowering levels of stress hormones such as cortisol. Breathwork can cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness, mindfulness, and embodiment, leading to greater alignment and harmony.

This guided 10-minute meditation takes you through a journey within your body to help you settle and find inner peace. The practice also encourages awareness of the space around you, promoting a sense of connection and grounding. Perfect for daily practice, this meditation supports relaxation, reduces stress, and enhances overall well-being.

This soothing class is designed to help you shift from a state of high stress and agitation to a calm and connected state of being. With some qigong-inspired movements, balancing breathwork, and a relaxation exercise, you'll disperse energy and release tension and leave feeling calm, centered, and deeply connected to yourself and others.

In this class, you'll learn techniques to move from feeling stuck and disconnected (freeze/fatigue) to a state of presence and deep connection. Through breathwork, asana, some Sun Salutations, and grounding exercises, I'll guide you in reawakening your inner vitality. Experience the joy of feeling fully alive, engaged, and connected, leaving the class with a renewed sense of well-being and harmony.