Breathwork for Nervous System Regulation - by Courtney Johannesen

COURSE

Breathwork for Nervous System Regulation

With Courtney Johannesen

Your breath is the most powerful and portable tool you have to manage your stress levels. When your nervous system is regulated, your body can digest the nutrients it needs and restore its processes to keep your organs functioning well at the cellular level. You have the mental ability to think, choose, be productive with purpose and focus. You’re able to build better boundaries and disengage from unhealthy relationships. You have the emotional capacity to engage in healthy connections with empathy and care. Suitable for beginners to breathwork and nervous system care, this course gives you tools to adjust internal state and regulate your stress response. You will learn about how the nervous system relates to your stress and emotions, how to interpret your nervous system patterns, and how to manage states of dysregulation. Each lesson includes a breathing practice to practice self-regulation and build your sense of internal safety and peace. You will gain an understanding of your personal patterns regarding stress and emotions. With this self-awareness, you’ll discover how to work with feelings of overstimulation or withdrawal and be able to find your optimal state of feeling connected, safe, and resilient. You’ll create a personalized nervous system care plan for when you’re feeling imbalanced that will help you ease the stress and return to your optimal state.


Meet your Teacher

Courtney is a yoga and meditation teacher who works with clients to regulate their emotions, care for their nervous system, and unlock their potential. Her work gives you the transformative holistic yoga tools and teachings to integrate emotional experiences into deep understanding and self-mastery. She offers programs, online sessions, and coaching to support your healing and growth.

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12 Days

3.1k students

4.8 stars

15 min / day

Grounded

English


Lesson 1

What is the Nervous Sytem?

The nervous system is the command center of your body, influencing how your whole body functions. One of the major roles of the nervous system is to moderate the body’s stress response. The most accessible and portable way to regulate your nervous system is using the breath. Breathwork is a powerful tool you can use, anytime and anywhere, to shift your stress, energy, and emotions within a few minutes. This lesson concludes with a breath awareness practice to explore what happens in your body and mind through the breathing process.

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Lesson 2

How Stress Affects the Nervous System

The breath is one of the first indicators we have that a stress response is beginning. Stress becomes problematic when the body’s stress response system stays activated long-term. We can learn about ourselves by finding patterns in our stress triggers so that we can better understand our mental and emotional patterns. This lesson concludes with a mindfulness breathing practice to help you bring focus to different areas of the body and the sensations present.

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Lesson 3

Nervous System Patterns and Your Emotions

We will explore your two ways your brain operates and how they each create different types of mental and emotional patterns. We will also look at the nervous system stress patterns (fight, flight and freeze) that happen automatically as a reaction to threats. This lesson gives you the opportunity to practice a deep breathing technique that helps to shift you out of the reactive mode and relax.

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Lesson 4

Creating New Nervous System Patterns

Everyday you are changing your brain through your actions and thoughts. You have the power to change your brain for the better, with positive habits, or worse with unhealthy habits. We will look at how these patterns are created and how to create more positive patterns that help you feel content and fulfilled. This lesson will end with a breath technique to build mental strength and create separation from distracting thoughts.

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Lesson 5

The Breathing Process

This lesson dives into the science of how the breathing process works. You will understand how the inhalation and exhalation work and how your breath impacts the activation and relaxation in your nervous system. We will wrap up with a breathwork practice that’s great to restore physical and mental balance after a stressful event.

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Lesson 6

Breath Stress Self-Check

The easiest way to identify how the energy is flowing through your body is to explore how the breath is flowing through the nostrils. This lesson will guide you through a simple breath self-check that will help you understand your level of stress. We will conclude with a 4-step breath practice that will build your mind-body connection by taking your mind away from racing thoughts and help you anchor into the present moment.

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Lesson 7

Understanding Nervous System Dysregulation

Stress, adverse experiences, and trauma can make it hard to manage our experiences and emotions. Nervous system dysregulation happens when the body stays in a stress response longer than needed. We will look at the nervous system states of high activation, low activation, and optimal activation to understand how your level of nervous system stimulation affects how you function in daily life. This lesson concludes with a practice of three part breath to feel grounded and feel in greater control of your stress responses.

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Lesson 8

Managing Hyperarousal

Hyperarousal is a state of being stuck in activation and heightened responses. You feel excessive energy, often anxiety, fear, or emotional overwhelm, because your internal systems are stuck in an activated state. After looking at strategies to decrease your energy and find balance, this lesson concludes with a breathwork practice to ease the feelings of hyperarousal and bring you back to a more optimal state.

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Lesson 9

Managing Hypoarousal

Hypoarousal is a state of shut down and disconnection. Your energy is lower than the optimal zone. You might feel withdrawn, numb, and sluggish. After looking at strategies to increase your energy and come back to your optimal zone, this lesson concludes with a breathwork practice to ease the feelings of hypoarousal and boost your alertness so you can feel more alive and energized.

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Lesson 10

Expanding Your Optimal Zone

The optimal zone is where you are able to think, experience, and function without becoming overwhelmed. The natural ups and downs of your emotions are manageable. We’ll look at what can pull you away from this state and how you can expand your optimal zone and increase your resilience and your capacity to handle what comes your way with greater ease. This lesson includes a breath mantra practice that you can customize for your needs in any given moment.

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Lesson 11

Creating Your Nervous System Care Plan: Part 1

This lesson guides you through part 1 of an interactive activity to create your own personal nervous system care plan. This will help you have a more personal understanding of your experience of being in states of hyperarousal, hypoarousal, and the optimal zone so that you can have more awareness of your personal patterns.

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Lesson 12

Creating Your Nervous System Care Plan: Part 2

This lesson guides you through part 2 of an interactive activity to create your own personal nervous system care plan. This will help you better understand what pushes you outside of your optimal zone and what in your environment can give you a sense of safety and comfort. You’ll think about the resources you have to regulate yourself and how outside support can help you find balance.

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4.8 (24)

Recent Reviews

Rachel

Rachel

January 17, 2026

🙏💖🦋

Tel

January 13, 2026

Loved this course. Very interesting and informative.

Kim

May 2, 2025

This course really helped me and I'll likely go back and listen to it again more than once. The structure is especially useful to me because understanding the physiology of anxiety and it's forms makes the practices she teaches to deal with it after the "lecture" part of each lesson, make sense. But beyond that, I found by asking me to process my own experiences of each state and the things I do in response to them, it made me more aware of patterns, good and bad, I've developed and there's a lot of food for thought in there. I think she's a very clever teacher.

Sally

March 19, 2025

Great course. I learned a lot and it was useful to turn it into a practical plan. Thank you!

Anne

May 16, 2023

A really helpful course. I value the knowledge I have received thank you.

Geoff

April 19, 2023

I appreciate how simple you make this practice.

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