How Yoga & Sound Healing Bring You Back to Yourself

By Rose-May (Rosie) Payette

When your nervous system finally slows down: How Yoga & Sound Healing Bring You Back to Yourself

There is a moment I notice in almost every class at the beginning when everyone arrives. A little in their head, thinking about the day and all that happened. What’s next, what hasn’t been done? The body has arrived to class but the mind is not fully there yet.

Things slowly start to shift as they arrive on the mat and take a few breaths. During their practice, movement softens the tension in the body, the breath deepens and slows, and awareness starts to come back.
When the body is still and the sound of the bowls is vibrating through the body, something deeper happens. The shoulders drop, the jaw unclenches and the breath changes on its own. The mind (often after putting up a little fight), begins to quiet.

Sometimes emotions come up, other times deep sleep, body twitches, even a little snore. The body feels safe to rest and release.

They wake up, sharing how relaxed they feel. “I feel so light,” they say.

I’d like to ask you, how long has it been since you truly felt that? This is our natural vibration – the frequency of wellbeing.

We were not meant to feel stressed, on edge, wired or heavy all the time.

Most people are living in a constant state of stress. Our cortisol (stress) levels are meant to rise and fall, but when stress becomes constant, it starts to affect the body. This can show up as anxiety, poor sleep, lowered immunity, inflammation or even longer-term issues like heart problems and metabolic disorders.

High stress is not always obvious but always there in the background: thinking, doing, responding, moving from one thing to the next without ever really stopping.

Your nervous system is constantly scanning your environment, in reality asking: am I safe or do I need to protect myself?

Did you know: Your body can respond to everyday stress the same way it responds to real danger.
Traffic, emails, loud environments, emotional pressure, overthinking… even a lion chasing you can all activate the same fight or flight response.

In your body you might notice this as:

Over time if it isn’t managed, this becomes your ‘new normal’. Most people don’t even realise how much their system is holding until it finally gives in.

And what that often looks like is the body reaching its limit.

Stress hormones like cortisol stay elevated for too long, the nervous system remains in a constant state of activation, and the body doesn’t get enough time to properly rest and recover.

Eventually, it starts to show up as anxiety, panic attacks, emotional overwhelm, burnout, or getting sick more often because the nervous system has been under strain.

Yoga is not just ‘stretching’, but a way to quiet the mind.

Yoga is often seen as stretching or exercise but traditionally it’s a practice that brings us into stillness.

The yoga sutras say: yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind. Not stopping your thoughts completely but rather creating space between them and learning to observe rather than be consumed by them.

An important part of Yoga practice is Pranayama (the conscious, rhythmic regulation and expansion of the breath, or our prana/life force. Breathing is central to regulating our nervous system.

Slow, steady breathing signals safety to the body. It tells your nervous system that it can come out of that constant state of alert. This is why yoga feels grounding because it is not just about movement, but awareness, breath and giving your body the space to settle.

Over time as we release unnecessary effort and tension in the body (through Yoga Asana – physical postures and other practices), the system begins to soften. The breath deepens, the heart rate regulates, the body feels safer and naturally, the mind begins to quiet.

The nervous system begins to shift out of survival mode.

How beautiful is it that we have everything we need already to heal the body? We heal the body through the body.

Sound and the nervous system: Why it works

“I can’t relax, my mind doesn’t stop.” “I wake up in the morning but feel like I did not rest. My mind does not shut up”, things I have felt myself, or hear very often.

This is where sound meditation (or sound therapy) becomes really powerful because it doesn’t require you to “do” anything. It works directly with your nervous system.

Let me ask you something: have you ever noticed how certain sounds instantly relax you and how others instantly stress you out?

For example, compare the sound of waves, birds, soft music to…traffic, alarms, a crying baby, or loud unpredictable noise. That’s your nervous system responding.

Your body is made up of around 60–70% water, which means sound travels through you very easily. As it moves through the body, it stimulates your tissues, your nervous system and even the vagus nerve.

So your body is constantly responding to sound, whether you realise it or not.

Why some sounds calm you and others don’t

Not all sound affects the body in the same way. Some sounds are smooth, rhythmic and predictable, like singing bowls, chimes or any sounds of nature. These kinds of sounds send a signal of safety to the brain.

They help:

Other sounds are chaotic and unpredictable like traffic, sirens or lots of overlapping noise. The nervous system is wired to treat unpredictable sound as potential danger.

So these sounds can:

So it’s not always about how loud sound is, but also about rhythm and predictability. Your nervous system is always listening.

The vagus nerve and why sound helps regulate the body

One of the main reasons sound is so effective is because of the vagus nerve ( a nerve that runs from the brain down the whole body, connecting to the heart, lungs and digestive system). It helps regulate functions in the body you don’t normally control like your breath, heart rate and digestion.

You’ve probably experienced this naturally. Have you ever sighed when you felt overwhelmed, or hummed without thinking? This is your body trying to regulate itself. In particular, vibration, especially slow, steady sound, naturally stimulates the vagus nerve.

When the vagus nerve is activated, your heart rate slows down, your breath deepens, your stress hormones drop to a normal level. The body shifts out of stress and into a calmer, more balanced state.

This is why practices like slow breathing, humming, chanting, or sound baths feel so calming.

How sound shifts your brainwaves

During a sound healing practice, there is also something happening in the brain.

In your daily life, your brain operates in different states depending on how you feel.

Most of us spend a lot of time in beta, always thinking and processing.

Sound helps guide the brain out of this state, through something called brainwave entrainment. This is when your brain begins to match the frequency of what you’re hearing.

So when you listen to slow, rhythmic sound, your brain starts to slow down too, often moving into alpha first and then into theta. Theta is connected to our subconscious mind, where a lot of our ‘programming’ lies. This is also where the body really begins to reset.

The most beautiful part is there is nothing to be done for you to get there. Simply lay down, and the system naturally follows.

Why yoga and sound together work so well

Yoga helps you to get ‘out of your mind’ and arrive in your body. It releases tension, slows the breath and brings your awareness inward. Sound takes you deeper into stillness, into a state where your nervous system can fully let go.

You move, breathe, become present and then you receive. This is why the body, mind and nervous system can feel so different at the end of a practice, because you have not only practiced relaxation but your nervous system has become regulated and the body has come back into balance.

A simple way to support your nervous system this week

You don’t need a full session to begin, but just a few minutes of your time. This week, I invite you to try this simple exercise:

Stay there for 5–10 minutes, and just notice: does your breath change? Does your body soften even slightly? You don’t need a big shift. Even a small difference means your nervous system is responding.

That moment at the end of class…

When you feel calm, regulated… “light” or “zenned out,” the feeling of balance and wellbeing…is our most natural state.

It’s really not about doing complicated things, but about creating space for your body to feel safe enough to finally slow down.

We have an innate intelligence within us. The body knows what to do, it is simply waiting for you to give it the time and space to “do its thing”.

Contributor Bio

Rose-May Payette is a sound healer and yoga teacher who helps people slow down, reconnect and find a sense of calm in their bodies. Her own practice of yoga asana, pranayama and meditation has supported her in regulating her nervous system, managing stress and staying grounded through everyday life.

She combines yoga and Himalayan sound healing to help the body shift out of stress and into a more balanced, relaxed state. Her approach is simple and accessible, focused on helping people feel safe in their bodies and reconnect with themselves.

Her journey began in Nepal and continued in Rishikesh, India, where she completed over 750 hours of training. Based in Seychelles, she offers private sessions, workshops and retreats.

Connect with her on Instagram @soundjourneyss or WhatsApp (+248) 2557301

Letting Go While Holding On

By Enda Gilbert

The Morning He Left

I dropped him off at the airport, walked him to where his friends and teachers were gathered, gave him a hug and watched him slot seamlessly into his group.

And then I left.

I could not stay to see him off. I just could not. So I turned around, walked back to my car, sat down, closed the door, and completely fell apart.


There is no other way to describe it. I was paralysed. A strange kind of brain fog settled over me, and I could not move, could not think, could not quite locate myself in the moment. My baby, my boy, was about to board a flight to Japan. Without me.


He was going skiing in the mountains with his school. A perfectly organised, well-supervised excursion. I knew he would be safe. I knew he would be well looked after. I knew all of this in my head.

My heart, however, had not received that memo.

Thank goodness for the deep breathing practice I have built over the years. In moments like that one, when the fog rolls in and the ground feels unsteady, I come back to my breath. Slowly, it brought me back. Clarity returned, enough to start the car and pull out of the car park.

I drove around for far too long before I finally found the exit.

And on the way home? I took the wrong route entirely. Got completely lost.

I was, to put it plainly, a mess. And I think that is worth saying out loud because we do not say it enough.

When the Reality Check Hits

But as I finally drove out of that car park, something else was sitting with me. Something quieter than the anxiety. Something I had not quite expected.

Because it was not just the trip that unsettled me. It was what the trip represented.

My son turns 18 in a couple of months.

And somewhere in that fog, that realisation landed. Not gently. Like a wave you do not see coming.

He is becoming an adult.

I found small comfort in the fact that we had visited Japan together as a family before. He knew the culture. And for a notoriously picky eater, he at least knew what to expect from the food. These small things helped. A little.

But the real noise was happening inside me.

Had I raised this young man to be independent of me or dependent on me? Had I raised him to be who he is truly meant to be, or who the world told him to be? Was I ready to accept that he now has his own friends, his own social calendar, his own life unfolding on weekends without me in it?

And perhaps the most confronting question of all was, was I preparing myself enough to ensure that we could both grow individually while still growing together?

These are not small questions. They sat with me long after the plane took off.

What Letting Go While Holding On Actually Means

Letting go does not mean disappearing from your child’s life.

It does not mean pretending you are not anxious when they board a plane without you. It does not mean switching off the love or silencing the worry. Of course, I thought about him every single day he was away. I am a mother. He was always on my mind.

But letting go means releasing the grip. The tight, white-knuckled grip of control that we sometimes mistake for love.

It means trusting the roots you spent years planting.

It means believing that the values you poured into him, the conversations you had, the boundaries you held, the love you showed up with even on the hard days, that all of that lives inside him now. He carries it with him. Even to Japan. Even without you.

For so long, I think I equated closeness with proximity. If I could see him, know where he was, be available at every turn, then I would be a good mother.

But Ubud taught me something different. Closeness is not about proximity. It is about connection. And connection does not require control.

The mothers I work with often describe a similar turning point. The moment their teenager starts pulling away, they panic, interpreting the distance as rejection rather than growth. But that pulling away? It is not your child leaving you.

It is your child practising. Practising independence, practising identity, practising who they are becoming. And our job, as hard as it is, is to make sure there is always a warm, safe place for them to land when they come back.

And holding on? Holding on means staying connected. Not through control but through flow. Through ease. Through a relationship that has enough space in it for him to grow and enough warmth in it for him to always want to come back.

Less grip. More trust. Less hovering. More presence when it counts.
That is the shift.

Your Practical Takeaway

This month, I want to invite you to sit with one question.

Just one.

“Am I holding on out of love, or out of fear?”

You do not have to answer it out loud. You do not have to share it with anyone. Just sit with it honestly. Because the answer will tell you everything about where you might need to loosen your grip and where you might need to deepen your connection instead.

There is a difference between the two. And learning to tell them apart is one of the most important things we can do as parents of growing children.

He Came Home

My son returned from Japan in one piece, full of stories, glowing with the kind of confidence that only comes from doing something independently and discovering that you are more capable than you thought.

He had a fantastic time.

And I came home from Ubud with something too. A quieter mind. An open heart. A new willingness to parent with flow rather than force.

We had both been away. We had both come back changed. And somehow, that felt exactly right.

This trip was a pivotal moment in our journey together as mother and son. Not because something dramatic happened, but because something quietly shifted. In him. In me. In the space between us.

Letting go while holding on is not a destination. It is a daily practice. Some days I get it right. Some days the grip tightens again, and I have to consciously breathe and release.

But I know now what it feels like on the other side.

And it feels like freedom. For both of us.

About Enda Gilbert

Enda Gilbert is the Founder of Ebb & Flow Coaching & Inclusive Learning, an educator, school leader and specialist in Learning Difficulties and TESOL with nearly 30 years of experience.

She works with mothers and educators who are raising or supporting children with learning difficulties or special needs, holding space for them and guiding them with compassion and clarity.

If the parent-teen relationship feels like it is slipping away from you, or you simply want to strengthen what you already have, the Parent-Teen Bond Builder Audit is your personalised roadmap to reconnection. It is a heart-led assessment of your unique relationship followed by a tailored blueprint of strategies designed specifically for your family.

Take the Audit at audit.ebbandflowlearning.com. Connect with Enda on Instagram @ebbandflowlearning or send her an email at [email protected]