Stress is rampant and it’s creating many health problems. Each day in the office I’m talking to patients about “dialing down” their stress response. We can’t avoid every stressful situation, but we do have some simple and powerful tools to minimize the impact stress has on our mental and physical well being. The key is to balance the two competing parts of our nervous system that have to do with stress – finding the nervous system “sweet spot”.
Every moment of every day, your body’s internal command center, the autonomic nervous system, is working subconsciously behind the scenes. It’s made up of two main branches: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which drives the classic “fight or flight” response, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which governs “rest and digest.”
Both are vital. Your SNS gives you the ability to respond to danger, mobilize energy, and sharpen focus. Your PNS restores, repairs, and regenerates. The trouble is, in modern life, many of us get “stuck” in sympathetic overdrive, living in a constant low-level fight-or-flight mode without enough time in restorative parasympathetic states. Over time, this imbalance contributes to stress-related illness, cardiovascular strain, digestive issues, anxiety, insomnia, and even inflammation.
The good news? You can actively train your nervous system to shift toward balance. In integrative medicine, we use tools such as breathing techniques, yoga, and tai chi to help patients reconnect with their parasympathetic system and build resilience
Understanding the Sympathetic–Parasympathetic Dance
Think of your autonomic nervous system as a seesaw. On one end is the SNS, the “gas pedal” which releases adrenaline and noradrenaline to raise heart rate, increase blood pressure, shunt blood to muscles, and heighten alertness. On the other end is the PNS, the “brake pedal” which uses the vagus nerve and acetylcholine to slow heart rate, promote digestion, enhance nutrient absorption, and stimulate immune repair.
When these two are in rhythm, the seesaw gently tilts back and forth as needed – up for action, down for recovery. Problems arise when one end stays weighted down for too long. Chronic SNS dominance means your body doesn’t get enough rest cycles to repair tissues, regulate hormones, or process emotions. PNS underactivity may show up as digestive sluggishness, immune dysregulation, or chronic fatigue.
Why Modern Life Tips the Balance
Our nervous systems evolved for acute threats, such as the tiger in the bushes, followed by recovery time. But today’s “tigers” look more like constant news alerts, packed schedules, financial stress, poor sleep, too much digital stimulation, inflammatory diets and lack of movement.
This steady drip of stress hormones can make SNS activation the default mode. Over months and years, the body begins to normalize high heart rate, shallow breathing, muscle tension, and mental hypervigilance.
Reclaiming Parasympathetic Tone
From an integrative medicine perspective, restoring balance means training your nervous system to find the parasympathetic state more easily and more often. We can’t, and shouldn’t, eliminate sympathetic activation entirely. Instead, we want to strengthen both sides of the system and improve flexibility, so you can shift smoothly between action and rest. Here’s where breathing, yoga, and tai chi come into play.
Breathing: Your Direct Vagus Nerve Access
Breathing is one of the rare automatic processes you can consciously control, making it a powerful tool for autonomic regulation.
Slow, deep breathing, especially with prolonged exhalation, stimulates the vagus nerve, increasing parasympathetic tone. Just a few minutes can lower heart rate, ease muscle tension, and calm the mind.
One doesn’t have to follow any specific technique, but here are several that may work for you:
- Box Breathing (popularized by Navy SEALs): Inhale for 4 counts → hold for 4 → exhale for 4 → hold for 4
- 4-7-8 Breath (Dr. Andrew Weil’s approach): Inhale for 4 counts → hold for 7 → exhale for 8
- Resonance Breathing: Breathe at a steady rate of ~6 breaths per minute
I’ve seen patients lower blood pressure and improve sleep within weeks of daily breath practice. The key is consistency, even 5 minutes, twice a day, makes a difference.
Yoga: Sympathetic–Parasympathetic Cross-Training
Yoga isn’t just stretching. It’s a whole-body, mind-body practice that alternates between gentle activation and deep relaxation. This rhythm trains the nervous system to handle stress and recover quickly.
- Asanas (postures) improve circulation, flexibility, and proprioception, while certain poses (child’s pose, forward folds) inherently down-regulate the SNS.
- Pranayama (breath control) directly engages the parasympathetic system.
- Savasana (final relaxation) teaches the art of full release – something many patients realize they haven’t truly experienced in years.
Regular yoga practice has been shown to reduce cortisol levels, lower resting heart rate, and improve autonomic nervous system balance as measured by heart rate variability. One 12-week study found significant reductions in anxiety and perceived stress among participants practicing 3x/week.
For patients in chronic stress, I often recommend starting with restorative or yin yoga, which emphasizes longer holds, deep breathing, and gentle floor-based postures. We have a private studio in our office where our health coach teaches one-on-one to help patients develop a home program.
Tai Chi: Moving Meditation for Nervous System Harmony
Tai chi, often called “meditation in motion,” is a centuries-old Chinese martial art focused on slow, flowing movements coordinated with breath and mental intention. I love doing tai chi – it reminds me of the flowing “katas” I enjoyed so much in Sho Rin Ru karate training.
Why it works:
- Slow, controlled motions promote mindful awareness and discourage the rushed pace of sympathetic overdrive
- Weight shifting and gentle twisting enhance proprioceptive feedback, grounding the body
- Coordinated breathing fosters vagal activation
Studies show tai chi can lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, improve balance, and even boost immune markers. Its gentle nature makes it accessible for all ages and fitness levels, and it can be practiced anywhere without equipment. I’ve had patients with hypertension who saw marked improvements simply by replacing 20 minutes of nightly TV with tai chi practice.
There are lots of great online tai chi routines one can easily follow. I recommend Every Morning Tai Chi with Dr Adam Potts, PT. as a great place to start.
Combining the Three for Synergy
While each of these practices independently supports parasympathetic tone, the real magic happens when they’re woven into daily life together.
For example, I enjoy doing my daily 22 minute yoga routine followed directly by about 15 minutes of tai chi. During that entire time focus is on breathing. On days I’m in the office I always meditate for about 20 minutes after lunch with a focus on breathing. Easy peasy.
Another way to combine might be 5 minutes of breathing exercise before breakfast, then a mid-afternoon brief yoga sequence to reset between meetings, and an evening 15–20 minutes of tai chi as a mindful wind-down before bedtime.
Yet another example is a 10 minute routine with 3 minutes of breathing, 3 yoga postures and 3 tai chi movements. Total time ~10 minutes. It’s approachable, doable, and often leads to longer practice once benefits are felt.
This layered approach conditions the nervous system much like interval training for the heart, alternating gentle activation with deep recovery, so transitions between states become smooth and automatic.
Signs Your Nervous System Is Rebalancing
These changes aren’t just “in your head” – they reflect real shifts in neurotransmitter patterns, inflammatory signaling, and hormonal rhythms. Patients often report:
- Lower resting heart rate
- Improved digestion
- Deeper sleep
- Less reactivity to stressors
- More moments of “calm alertness” during the day
- Higher heart rate variability scores on wearable devices
Honorable Mention: Neurofeedback
We offer a special type of neurofeedback, called neuroptimal, in the office as a powerful tool to help regulate the autonomic nervous system by teaching the brain to balance its stress and relaxation responses. By providing real-time feedback on brain activity, it encourages the nervous system to reduce excessive sympathetic activation and strengthen parasympathetic function. This shift improves resilience, often shown by higher heart rate variability and better control of stress-related physiology.
The process works through brain regions that influence autonomic output, such as the prefrontal cortex and insula, allowing for smoother top-down regulation. In practical terms, this means neurofeedback can help calm anxiety, improve sleep, lower blood pressure, ease chronic pain, and enhance overall stress recovery by retraining the body to use its “gas and brake pedals” more effectively.
The Take-Home Message
Your autonomic nervous system isn’t fixed, rather it’s trainable. By intentionally practicing techniques that activate the parasympathetic branch, you can buffer against the wear-and-tear of chronic sympathetic dominance.
Breathing, yoga, and tai chi aren’t just relaxation tools, they’re forms of nervous system conditioning. Over time, they restore your body’s natural rhythm which includes a healthy balance and flow between “fight or flight” when you need it, and “rest and digest” when it’s time to repair.
In my integrative medicine practice, the patients who commit to these daily nervous-system training often experience not only better stress resilience, but also improvements in blood pressure, digestion, mood, and sleep – a cascade of benefits from simply giving their bodies permission to rest.
Author
Scott Rollins, MD, is Board Certified with the American Board of Family Practice and the American Board of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine. He specializes in bioidentical hormone replacement for men and women, thyroid and adrenal disorders, fibromyalgia and other complex medical conditions. He is founder and medical director of the Integrative Medicine Center of Western Colorado (www.imcwc.com) and Bellezza Laser Aesthetics (www.bellezzalaser.com). Call (970) 245-6911 for an appointment or more information.
