01/09/2021
I repeat 👏🏻 the pause is just as important as the pose itself 👏🏻
Awareness is key for neuroplasticity. When you stop and notice how you feel - body and mind, you use the prefrontal cortex to tune into the body, which then sends messages up to the brain, including the insular cortex, telling it how your body is doing. When you are aware of your body, you can make good behavioral decision in caring for it. (like when you know you are hungry, you eat, tired, you go to bed, etc.) Awareness practicing like pausing between poses creates neuroplastic changes in the prefrontal cortex as well as limbic structures. You develop a stronger capacity to inhibit the stress response via the the HPA axis. Stopping and noticing (when you're practicing yoga as well as throughout the day, is key to tuning the nervous system and brain towards greater awareness and psychological flexibility, not to mention towards greater parasympathetic homeodynamic balance. Additionally, pausing and noticing affects the insular cortex which is involved with creating a sense of self. Stronger self of self correlates with greater capacity to self-regulate, as well as to understand who you are and what the meaning and purpose of your life is.
