From Reactivity to Radiance: How Yoga Rewired My Emotional Brain

I started practicing yoga when I was 16 at the YMCA. I did it because I liked the way. The yoga teacher looked, and I wanted a body like hers. I continue to do it because throughout my adult life it was the only exercise I could do that didn’t end up pissing me off at some point during the class.

Enter journey into power, power yoga teacher training of 2025 and the sneaky way that it changed my life.

See, since basically the entire world got turned on its head in 2020 I have living a nonstop, change, emotionally charged change cycle (both positive and negative) That had me in nearly constant state of nervous system activation.

Because of this, I live on the edge of emotional overwhelm.

Everything felt loud.

My inner world was a swirl of reactions—tears, tension, spirals, shutdowns.

I realized around 2021 that I wasn’t just “being sensitive” when I received a formal ADHD diagnosis validating my life experience. But no sooner could I get my feet under me did I run head on into and in navigating the hormonal rollercoaster of perimenopause, my nervous system was fried. Toasted.

I didn’t have the tools to hold space for my emotions—

let alone move through them with grace.

There were no pills for this. I mean, there are pills. But I found something else happened strangely. Late last year, I enrolled in a 200 hour yoga certification course after completing a life coach certification through LUMIA.

My goal was just to Life that felt interesting so I could get out of my funk. I knew I loved Yoga and I really really enjoyed this course.

One of the requirements was to meditate every day and practice yoga every day. With some proper training, I began to practice yoga by placing a primary focus on awareness of breath.

8 months later- I noticed remarkable emotional control that I’ve never had before in a situation that I know I would have reacted, irritated, bothered, and allowed to ruin my day.

So I dug in to figure out why.

🌿 The Wild Nervous System of an ADHD Woman in Perimenopause

Let’s be real:

Women with ADHD are already living with dysregulated dopamine and a hypersensitive nervous system.

Layer in perimenopause—when estrogen (a powerful neurotransmitter helper) starts to dip—and the emotional landscape can feel like a tidal wave.

What I didn’t realize at the time was this:

the hypothalamus—a small but mighty structure deep in the brain—is running the show.

It regulates stress, hormones, body temperature, hunger, and emotion.

When we live in constant overwhelm, the hypothalamus is stuck in overdrive.

It shouts at the adrenals. It disrupts hormonal rhythms.

It makes it nearly impossible to access emotional regulation.

🧘‍♀️ How Yoga Changed My Hypothalamus (and My Life)

Enter yoga—not just the poses, but the breathwork, the stillness, the presence.

When I began practicing yoga regularly and FOCUSING on breath and attention over getting skinny and lean- something subtle—but powerful—started to happen

• I stopped reacting immediately.

• I felt emotions without drowning in them.

• I could witness my inner experience with curiosity instead of judgment.

This wasn’t just a mood boost—it was a neurobiological shift.

💡 Studies show that yoga and meditation help calm overactivity in the hypothalamus, reduce cortisol, and improve emotional resilience over time (Sengupta, 2012).

💫 Yoga + Non-Attachment: Emotional Freedom Through the Body

As I practiced more, I began to understand what yogis mean when they talk about non-attachment.

It doesn’t mean numbing out.

It doesn’t mean spiritually bypassing hard feelings.

It means allowing emotions to rise and fall—without clinging, without pushing away.

Now, when I feel sadness, anger, overstimulation, or even joy…

I stay.

I breathe.

I listen.

And then I choose what to do next.

Sometimes that choice is to leave.

Sometimes the choices to stay, and make the most of the unplanned.

This, to me, is emotional freedom.

This is the dance between discipline and surrender.

This is Wildflower Flow.

🌸 Want to Try? Start Here:

A daily practice for hypothalamus healing + emotional regulation:

• Gentle asana: child’s pose, cat–cow, legs up the wall

• Breathwork: alternate-nostril (Nadi Shodhana), bee breath (Bhramari), or ocean breath (Ujjayi)

• Stillness: 5–10 min of Yoga Nidra, or simply lying down with one hand on your heart

You don’t have to force anything.

Just come to the mat.

Let the breath do the heavy lifting.

Let the nervous system remember how to soften.

You’re not broken, love.

You’re just wired to feel deeply.

And with the right tools, you can regulate—not suppress—your emotions.

You can move through this season with grace.

From reactivity to radiance, one breath at a time. 🌬️

That’s the power of yoga.

That’s the path of Wildflower Flow.