When "listen to your body" is the wrong advice

We can't always trust what we feel

“Listen to your body”. It is one of those phrases you probably heard so often as a student that once you started teaching it just popped out of your mouth.

The eight limbs of yoga* is such a sophisticated practice, with opportunities to train the mind through body, before we try to master the art of deeper meditation. We do this by centring the mind on present moment felt experience, we move, we breathe, we focus- all helping to settle these restiless minds.

The felt sense of stretch, of breath can bring clarity and calm, settle an overwrought nervous system, and draw us from our mental ramblings and into the moment.

But a recent study, on Stretching by Barrett et al. (2026) shows that we are not as good at really listening to the body as we think! We misjudge how far it can stretch. And it had me think of the other ways in which these body are not able to always decipher the whole truth. Because of course what we are really talking about is nervous system training. The nervous system is the body's command centre, it sends instructions out to every muscle, organ, and tissue, and it also listens, constantly gathering information from the body and carrying it back to the brain. When we stretch, breathe, or hold a posture with focused attention, we are not just working the physical body. We are training the system that interprets and responds to every sensation we have.

Eight limbs of yoga: the framework laid out in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras (approx. 400 CE), describing a complete path of practice. 

*The eight limbs are yama (ethical principles), niyama (personal observances), asana (physical posture), pranayama (breath regulation), pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (absorption or integration). Asana is the third limb, not the whole path.

Stretching - “listen to the body” is not accurate: what the research shows

Barrett et al. (2026), Participant and Researcher Perceptions of Stretching Intensity and Muscle Tension in a Hamstrings and Shoulder Stretch in Healthy Young Adults, looked at something deceptively simple: how accurately can people judge how far they are stretching?

Researchers worked with participants in two stretches- a hamstring stretch and a shoulder stretch. The participant was passive throughout, lying or sitting while the researcher moved them slowly into the stretch. Two things were recorded simultaneously: what the participant reported feeling, and what the researcher could feel happening in the muscle from the outside, specifically the point at which the muscle reached its maximum tension.

Then they compared the two.

Finding 1: People consistently thought they had reached their limit before they actually had.

When participants said "that's as far as I can go," the researcher's hands were telling a different story. The muscle had more range available. The participant was not at their limit. They were at the edge of what felt familiar, which is not the same thing at all.

Finding 2: The less experience someone had of stretching, the bigger the gap.

In people who were new to stretching, the gap between what they felt and what was actually happening in the muscle could be as large as 18 degrees. In experienced athletes with years of flexibility training, the gap was less than one degree. Nearly nothing. Experience does not just make you more flexible. It makes you more accurate. The map catches up with the territory.

Finding 3: Body awareness is a skill, not a fixed trait.

Interoception, the technical term for the felt sense of the body from the inside, is not something you either have or do not have. It develops over time. Beginners are working from an early draft of a map that gets more accurate the more they move, stretch, and learn to sit with sensation. When a beginner says "I can't go any further," they may well be right for right now, but not right in the way they think they are.

But what about injury? 

The curious world of Pain Science. 

I can already hear the question. If we are encouraging people to go further than their felt sense is telling them, are we not risking harm? As teachers we are often convinced that students should always “feel” where it is best for them to stretch to so that they are “kept safe”.

But pain is not a direct signal from the tissues. It is an output of the brain, an alarm designed to protect you, and like any alarm it can be oversensitive. 

Research from Moseley, Butler, O'Sullivan and others over the past two decades has thoroughly dismantled the idea that pain equals damage. 

People can have significant findings on a scan with no pain at all. People can be in severe pain with no detectable tissue damage. Pain is real, but it is not a straightforward readout of what is structurally happening in the body.

For most musculoskeletal discomfort, the evidence points toward graduated movement as the medicine, not rest and avoidance. Moving in new ways is not risky. Staying still and reinforcing the nervous system's existing comfort zone is often what sustains pain over time.

This is not about any acute pain- sharp, sudden, or severe pain is always a big sign to stop and get medical advice. But when it comes to the stretch sensation, this can be see an as invitation to explore. Not something set in back and white. 

When "listening in" is overwhelming

Anxiety + Neurodiversity

One of yoga's great strengths is helping students settle the citta vritti, the mind's constant chatter, by anchoring in present moment body sensation. And for many students, it works beautifully.

For some, though, it might not be calming at all.

For people with anxiety, trauma histories, or neurodivergent nervous systems, turning attention inward can sometimes be as calming and centering for the next person. But often the felt inner experience is ALREADY intense. Listening in for someone with health anxieties might reinforce the pattern of searching for ailments.

For some we want the yoga practice to shift the attention away from an inner landscape that is already so loud or overwhelming. Being asked to listen to it more carefully can tip someone into dysregulation rather than ease.

I have had students tell me that feeling into their breath made their anxiety significantly worse. 

Research supports this. Studies on interoception and anxiety (Garfinkel et al., Mehling et al.) consistently show that increased interoceptive focus can amplify distress in anxious individuals rather than reduce it. In neurodivergent populations, including autistic people and those with ADHD, interoception works differently, often less reliably, and the assumption that inward attention is inherently regulating does not hold.

For these students, an external focus is often far more useful: a clear physical target, a rhythm to follow, a teacher's voice providing structure and continuity. Coming at embodiment from the outside in, rather than the inside out.

What we need to know as teachers

1. First, when a student says they cannot go any further, it might be worth exploring rather than just accepting. A pause and exploration with the breath and focus. Part of what we are teaching is body literacy, as a way to also train the nervous system, and this takes time and needs to be actively developed.
2. Second, hands-on adjustments have a genuine and meaningful purpose. A skilled, consensual adjustment is not about putting someone into a shape. It is about providing external information that a student cannot yet generate for themselves, showing the nervous system what further actually feels like. Over time that gets internalised, the felt sense becomes more accurate, and the gap closes. Neuroplasticity in action.
3. Third, how we cue sensation matters. Giving options for a more inward OR outward focus. For example: noting the connection to the ground, or if it feels helpful, let your awareness  move up into …. This gives students a chance to alternate where they rest the awareness. To pendulate between inner and outer experiences while discovering what does help them feel safe and regulated. Teaching people to listen better, and offering more than one way to do it, is compassionate teaching.

From Practice to Being Yoga

The yoga practice is very clearly laid out. It gives us a step by step path to experience our bodies and one layer of our experience (think of the koshas, blog here). When we share yoga in a way that helps students find ease in the nervous system and mind, yoga becomes a lived and felt experience: a deep sense of connection, expansiveness, and ease. The practice that transforms lives, and even the world we live in.

Want to go deeper?

All of these themes, stretching and interoception, hands-on adjustments and neuroplasticity, trauma-sensitive cueing and nervous system diversity, run right through three of the courses in the spring sale.

Adapt and Adjust Asana explores the art and science of hands-on teaching, including how to work with the gap between what students feel and what is actually available to them.

Restorative and Somatics goes deep into nervous system regulation and how we create conditions for genuine rest and felt safety, including for students who struggle with inward attention.

Inclusive Yoga for Our Time looks at the full spectrum of who comes to our classes and how we teach in a way that genuinely works for all of them, neurodivergent students, anxious students, students with pain histories and all.

Teach Intro to Yoga a clear framework for getting students off to the best start and coming back for more.

The spring sale is open now- places limited and only until Sunday 3 May.