why you should embrace those wobbles…

The Neuroscience of Balance in Yoga: Why Wobbles and Falls Help You Learn 

When I’m teaching or practising, I wobble and fall out of poses — some days more, some days less. Sometimes, my inner critic creeps in and tells me, “I shouldn’t be wobbling. I should be better than this,” and I start to feel discouraged.

Whether you’re a teacher or student, in these moments it’s important to remember when you wobble or fall:

Perfection isn’t the goal — adaptability is.

Wobbles and falls show your brain where it still needs to learn. 

Every wobble is your nervous system practising stability.

Every fall is feedback, not failure.

It’s not about avoiding frustration entirely, but learning how to sit with it, reframe it, and use it, along with a sprinkle of curiosity, to try again. The feeling of being challenged (but not overwhelmed) activates the most powerful teaching tool your body has: neuroplasticity. 

Here is how it works… 

Balance and the Brain

Your brain relies on three key sensory systems to maintain equilibrium. The visual system helps you interpret position relative to your environment, which is why fixing your gaze on a drishti (a still object) can instantly support stability. The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, detects head movement and spatial orientation. Finally, the proprioceptive system, made up of receptors in muscles, joints, and fascia, provides real-time feedback about where different parts of your body are in space.

All this sensory information flows into brain regions such as the cerebellum and motor cortex, which coordinate the fine-tuning of posture through rapid neural signalling (Massion et al., 2004).

Understanding the Wobble

When you waver or shake in a pose, it may feel like instability, but it’s actually a sign that your nervous system is hard at work. Those “wobbles” are small corrective movements as your brain responds to shifting body weight and works to keep your centre of gravity over your base of support.

At first, these corrections are reactive; your brain notices the sway and responds afterwards. With repetition, the system becomes predictive. Rather than waiting for instability, your brain learns to anticipate it and correct your posture before you tip (Morton & Bastian, 2004). This shift from reactive to predictive control is a key marker of improved balance efficiency. 

Neurotransmitters at Work

Several neurotransmitters play essential roles in balance practice and learning.

Glutamate, the brain’s primary excitatory neurotransmitter, strengthens neural pathways for new motor skills through a process known as long-term potentiation (LTP). GABA, the main inhibitory neurotransmitter, provides balance by preventing excessive neural firing, allowing movement to feel smoother and more coordinated.

Dopamine supports motivation and reinforces successful corrections, especially in early learning when the brain is recognising progress. Acetylcholine sharpens attention and fine motor control, helping you stay focused and engage the right muscles. Meanwhile, serotonin helps regulate mood and reduce anxiety-related tension that can interfere with stability, and noradrenaline keeps you alert and responsive to postural changes. 

Together, these neurotransmitters underpin neuroplasticity; the brain’s ability to adapt and reorganise through repeated experience (Kleim & Jones, 2008).

Why Falling Improves Balance

When you fall out of a pose, your brain registers what’s known as a prediction error — a discrepancy between what it expected and what actually happened. These moments of “failure” are essential for learning. They prompt the cerebellum to update its movement strategies, leading to more accurate control next time (Shadmehr et al., 2010).

Falling also refines reflex responses, improves timing, and sharpens proprioceptive awareness. In essence, every fall provides your nervous system with valuable data — feedback it uses to enhance stability in the future.

Proprioception 

With consistent practice, proprioceptors in the muscles and joints become more sensitive, sending faster and more precise feedback to the somatosensory cortex, which represents your body’s internal map. As this map becomes clearer, your body begins to make smaller, more efficient micro-adjustments that feel intuitive rather than forced.

Steady Breath, Steady Mind, Steady Body

Your emotional state plays a major role in balance. When you feel anxious, rushed, or self-critical, the sympathetic nervous system activates, often increasing muscle tension and tremor. Deep, steady breathing stimulates the parasympathetic response, enhancing GABA and serotonin activity and calming neural reactivity (Streeter et al., 2012).

As your breath steadies, your mind quiets. Muscles engage more efficiently, and fine motor control improves. Balance becomes less about effort and more about ease.

Wobbling Is Learning in Motion

With repetition, balance becomes more efficient at the neural level. Myelination of neurons allows signals to travel faster, and muscle groups begin firing in synchronised patterns. Control gradually shifts from conscious effort in the prefrontal cortex to automatic systems in the cerebellum and motor cortex.

This is why experienced yogis appear still even in dynamic or complex poses — their nervous systems have rehearsed and refined stability through thousands of tiny adjustments.

Balancing is not about being perfectly still; it’s about intelligent adaptation. Wobbles are your nervous system recalibrating. Falls reveal where refinement is needed. Each moment of imbalance contributes to neural growth and more resilient stability.

With curiosity, persistence, and breath-led calm, every wobble becomes an opportunity for neuroplastic growth.

Happy practising!

Sophia 

References

Kleim, J. A., & Jones, T. A. (2008). Principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity: Implications for rehabilitation after brain damage. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51(1), S225–S239. https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2008/018)

Massion, J., Alexandrov, A., & Frolov, A. (2004). Why and how are posture and movement coordinated? Progress in Brain Research, 143, 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(03)43002-1

Morton, S. M., & Bastian, A. J. (2004). Cerebellar contributions to locomotor adaptations during splitbelt treadmill walking. Journal of Neuroscience, 24(36), 8009–8015. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1695-04.2004

Shadmehr, R., Smith, M. A., & Krakauer, J. W. (2010). Error correction, sensory prediction, and adaptation in motor control. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 33, 89–108. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-060909-153135

Streeter, C. C., Gerbarg, P. L., Saper, R. B., Ciraulo, D. A., & Brown, R. P. (2012). Effects of yoga on the autonomic nervous system, gamma-aminobutyric-acid, and allostasis in epilepsy, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Medical Hypotheses, 78(5), 571–579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mehy.2012.01.021