How Yoga Stimulates Your Vestibular System

A while back I wrote a post on 4 Ways to Hone Your Balancing Skills. In the post, I describe different ways our bodies and minds help us to stay balanced. Yoga is uniquely suited to one aspect of balancing in particular: stimulating the vestibular system.

What Is the Vestibular System?

The vestibular system is integral to keeping us upright, not only in yoga practice, but also in simply standing and walking in our everyday lives. According to the Cleveland Clinic, here’s what our vestibular systems do for us:

“Your vestibular system is a key part of a complex sensory system that keeps you in balance. Walking, running and even remaining upright without falling are all activities you can do thanks to your vestibular system.

“Vestibular organs inside your inner ear sense your head movements and send this information to your brain. The movements provide information about your position and orientation within your surroundings. Your brain integrates this data with sensory information from your eyes, muscles and joints. Your eyes help you orient based on what you see, while your muscles and joints provide sensory information as they make contact with your surroundings.

“Based on these three inputs (vestibular system + eyes + muscles and joints), your brain sends signals that tell your body how to remain in balance.”

How Can Yoga Help?

Yoga is unique among physical practices in its ability to stimulate the vestibular system. Each time we change our head position, we create vestibular input. In most forms of physical practice—running, walking, bicycling, Zumba classes—our head remains upright. In a typical yoga practice, we change our head position many times, in a variety of ways.

Basic poses such as Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward Facing Dog Pose), wide-legged standing poses such as Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), standing and seated forward bends, backbends such as Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow Pose) and of course, all the inversions require that our heads be in positions other than upright.

Increase vestibular input. Practice yoga poses that place your head in different positions. Here are a few examples:

Head down: Downward Facing Dog Pose, Uttanasana (Standing Forward Bend), Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Standing Forward Bend)

Head sideways: Trikonasana (Triangle Pose), Parsvakonasana (Side-Angle Pose), Ardha Chandrasana (Half Moon Pose)

Facing the ground: Parsvottanasana (Pyramid Pose), Virabhadrasana III (Warrior III) and all seated forward bends

Head back: Ustrasana (Camel Pose), Urdhva Hastasana (Upward Hands Pose)

Upside down: Sirsasana (Headstand), Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand), Pinca Mayurasana (Elbow Balance), Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand), Upward Bow Pose