Trauma-Informed Yoga: How Trauma Shapes Body & Brain

Trauma-Informed Yoga Series – Part 1

Stress is part of being human. It’s our body’s way of responding to change, challenge, and demand. But trauma is different. Trauma is what happens when we’re overwhelmed by stress that feels inescapable—especially when it involves threats to safety or survival.

In this first post of my trauma-informed yoga series, we’ll explore how trauma impacts the brain and nervous system, why it affects the body long after the event, and how this understanding can lead us toward compassionate, body-based healing.

Stress vs. Traumatic Stress

In 1936, Hungarian endocrinologist Hans Selye defined stress as “the non-specific response of the body to any demand for change.” This includes any situation that requires the body or mind to adapt—whether positive or negative.

When we face a challenge, the body mobilizes the sympathetic nervous system (SNS)—our built-in fight or flight system—so we can meet that challenge with action and energy.

But traumatic stress is different. Trauma results from exposure to life-threatening or overwhelming stressors. These might include:

• Directly experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event

• Learning that a close friend or family member has experienced trauma

• Repeated or intense exposure to the details of traumatic events

Unlike ordinary stress, traumatic stress overwhelms the nervous system. It’s not just hard—it’s too much, too fast, or too soon.

What Is Post-Traumatic Stress?

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a long-term response to trauma. Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD, but for 8–20% of trauma survivors, the effects persist and become disruptive to daily life.

Common symptoms include:

• Re-experiencing: flashbacks, nightmares, and intrusive memories

• Avoidance: of reminders, people, emotions, or places

• Negative thoughts and mood: hopelessness, self-blame, emotional numbing

• Arousal dysregulation: hypervigilance, insomnia, emotional volatility

PTSD is a physiological response—not a mental weakness. It represents a nervous system that’s stuck in survival mode, long after the danger has passed.

Human neurons cells close up.

The Brain on Trauma: Triune Brain Model

To understand trauma’s impact, we can look at the triune brain model, which breaks the brain into three functional layers:

1. Reptilian brain (brainstem) – governs survival functions: breathing, heart rate, and instinctual responses like fight, flight, or freeze

2. Limbic system – processes emotion and memory

3. Neocortex – the thinking brain: reasoning, language, decision-making

During trauma, the lower brain regions (reptilian and limbic) take over. The neocortex goes offline. That’s why people may react instinctively, freeze up, or feel "not themselves" during or after trauma—it’s not a choice, it’s a protective reflex.

The Autonomic Nervous System and Polyvagal Theory

Dr. Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory offers a powerful framework for understanding how trauma shapes the nervous system. It identifies three major neural pathways within the autonomic nervous system (ANS):

1. Ventral Vagal Complex (VVC)

   • Supports calm, connection, and social engagement (rest/digest mode)

2. Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)

   • Activates fight or flight responses

3. Dorsal Vagal Complex (DVC)

   • Engages the freeze response (immobilization, collapse, shutdown)

In a healthy nervous system, we move fluidly between these states. But trauma can disrupt that flexibility.

Dysregulation Patterns:

• SNS overactivation: racing heart, shallow breath, muscle tension, irritability

• VVC underactivation: difficulty calming down, feeling isolated, numb, or disconnected

• DVC unpredictability: sudden shutdowns, dissociation, or emotional collapse

The nervous system becomes more like a faulty dial than a working switch—fluctuating between extremes without regulation.

Hormonal Responses to Trauma

When the nervous system is stuck in a survival state, it’s also flooded with stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones are vital in short bursts—but when trauma lingers, so do they.

This can lead to:

• Unpredictable emotional reactions or shutdowns

• Chronic muscle tension or pain

• Sleep disturbances and fatigue

• Impulsivity and reduced self-awareness

Over time, these body-based symptoms become part of the trauma itself.

Stressed middle- aged woman experiences sleep disturbances from trauma dysregulation.

How Trauma-Informed Yoga Can Help

The good news? The nervous system can change. With support, safety, and time, we can restore balance and rebuild a sense of regulation.

This is where trauma-informed yoga becomes a powerful tool, especially when taught by a teacher with specialized training.

Using the Four R’s from trauma-informed care:

1. Realize the widespread impact of trauma

2. Recognize signs and symptoms in yourself or others

3. Respond skillfully—especially in movement or healing practices

4. Resist re-traumatization by honoring agency and safety

A trauma-informed approach in yoga might include:

• Moving slowly and intentionally

• Teachers offering choices like “if you’d like” or “when you're ready”

• Prioritizing grounding the more inward the experience becomes

• Encouraging sensing and noticing over achieving

• Reflects space for agency, control, and consent - no lyrical music, no photography, no hands-on physical touch by teacher to student (especially children)

In Closing

Trauma isn’t just something that happens in the mind—it’s something that reshapes the nervous system. When we understand this, we stop asking people to “just relax” or “get over it,” and instead offer tools that meet them where they truly are: in their bodies, in their breath, and in the reality of their lived experience.

In the next post, we’ll explore how yoga therapeutics and mindfulness-based movement can support nervous system regulation, emotional resilience, and embodied healing.