I'm a mom and yoga teacher. These are the yoga techniques I've used to become a better parent.

In this adapted book excerpt the author shares how yoga has helped with her anxiety, and even more so now that she's a parent.

• Sarah Ezrin is a world-renowned yoga teacher and the author of "The Yoga of Parenting."
• She has had generalized anxiety disorder most of her life, yoga has been a source of connection. 
• Observing your heart rate and breath are simple ways to notice if you are in under stress.

The nervous system was one of those elusive things I remember studying repeatedly in my undergraduate psychology classes but for some reason never being able to retain. Perhaps because I was in the throes of my own nervous system upheaval, drenched in anxiety, severely anorexic, chain-smoking two packs a day, and so tightly wound, I would literally shake for no reason. This was also when I discovered yoga.

Though it took me until my 30s to remember what part of the nervous system did what, I have been ruled by my nervous system my entire life. Having generalized anxiety disorder and being a highly sensitive person, I might as well be nicknamed "Fight, Flight, or Freeze," but it was my yoga practice that helped me understand it most intimately and the effects of my choices. Not unlike how I started to understand what my quadriceps felt like and that they would ache if I overstretched them. 

What I noticed while on the mat

For example, on the mat, I noticed that when I did a bunch of backbends in a row, poses where you arch your spine, I felt amped up. Or when I fell out of a pose or wobbled, my entire body would respond, as if I were falling off a cliff, though I was often only a leg's distance from the earth.

This helped me start noticing my nervous system off the mat, too. Suddenly it seemed like every choice I used to make no longer served me. Like smoking two packs a day or watching scary movies. I could hardly read the news at any time of day, but especially in the evening, lest I be left with imprints of the horrors in my dreams. I also started noticing that certain people made me feel like I was on high alert, while others left me calm and almost sedated. 

How I use yoga to parent

As a parent, my nervous system continues to rule. Being intimately connected to it helps me make wiser choices (well, some of the time). I feel it immediately when my toddler is being super resistant to something or tantrumming. My heart rate increases, the "butterflies'' in my solar plexus go wild, and I need to take a deep breath. My nervous system also clearly tells me when I need time alone. If I am extra jumpy about every little thing, from the sound of a toy going off to a misinterpreted comment from my husband, that's a clear sign that I need a few hours off duty, somehow. 

Becoming intimate with my nervous system on the yoga mat has not only helped me understand when I may be going into a heightened state, but it has also helped me learn how to calm down. The more I face my fears in balance poses and handstands, the better I seem to get at being able to face my anxiety in external settings. Please note I did not say "the more I mastered" handstand. I still use a wall even 20 years into practice.

I 100% credit my yoga practice for staying (mostly) calm when my toddler stuck a coat hanger through his eyelid. Were this to happen during a time I was not doing yoga regularly or during a period of severe anxiety (when I'm in a highly anxious place, the rules change), I would have completely lost it — crying uncontrollably or frozen by what to do next. Instead, after crying and freezing for a few seconds, I got calm and was able to support him and seek medical treatment. He's completely fine, of course. He basically healed in the car ride to the hospital, and yet I have a cut on my leg from two months ago that I don't even know where I got it, but I digress. 

The more we understand our nervous system, the more we can understand ourselves. While some of us are a little more prone to fight-or-flight responses, particularly if we are facing things such as anxiety disorders or postpartum mood disorders, all parents "lose it" at times, so it helps to have a baseline knowledge of what exactly is happening inside of us so that we can take ownership of how we are responding outside. 

You don't need to learn any anatomy. All that matters is that you get to know yourself a little bit more intimately with this information and one of the best ways to get to know ourselves is through observing our breath. This is really a practice of deep inner listening. 

Let's take a deep breath and notice what you are feeling as you are reading these words. 

Do you feel agitated? That's your nervous system. 

Are you taking it all in, in stride? Also, your nervous system. 

Inhale…pause. 

Exhale…pause. 

Any shift? 

Thank you, nervous system. 

Adapted from "The Yoga of Parenting" by Sarah Ezrin © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO. www.shambhala.com