The Psoas & Your Nervous System

What Your Body Remembers, It Holds

There’s a reason why certain Pilates exercises feel grounding, calming, and even emotional—especially the ones that involve deep breathing, leg lifts, or gentle movement at the hips and pelvis. You may not realize it in the moment, but often what you’re sensing is the behavior of your psoas—a muscle so deeply connected to your nervous system that it has been called the “muscle of the soul.”

The psoas doesn’t just flex your hips. It’s part of your body’s most primal responses to the world around you. And when your nervous system is stuck in a loop of stress, the psoas is often caught there too.

A Deeper Connection: Muscle Meets Mind

Anatomically, the psoas major originates from the lumbar spine and attaches to the femur. But more importantly, it passes through the deepest core of your body—nestled close to the diaphragm, the kidneys, and the spine. This intimate proximity to your autonomic nervous system—especially the sympathetic ganglia, which govern the fight-or-flight response—means the psoas doesn’t just respond to stress. It embodies it.

When the nervous system senses danger, it prepares the body to move: to run, to fight, to freeze. The psoas contracts to bring your knees toward your chest, tighten your posture, and guard your most vulnerable structures. This is a natural, protective reflex.

But when the stress doesn’t pass—or when we live in a world that constantly triggers vigilance without release—the psoas can remain in that contracted state. Over time, this muscular tension becomes less about physical function and more about emotional memory.

What It Feels Like When the Nervous System Can’t Let Go

You might not know your psoas is involved at first. Instead, you might feel anxious but fatigued, wired but tired. You may have trouble sleeping deeply. Your breathing might be shallow, especially under pressure. You might feel persistent tension in your low back, hip crease, or belly that no amount of stretching seems to touch.

You might catch yourself standing with your pelvis tucked under, or walking with your ribs flared and spine compressed. You might notice your steps feel short and guarded. The body moves, but not freely. It’s bracing.

These are symptoms not just of tight muscles, but of a nervous system that hasn’t had permission to fully exhale.

The Psoas as a Barometer of Safety

What’s powerful—and hopeful—is that the psoas doesn’t just hold tension; it also lets it go. And it’s highly responsive to signals of safety. When we move gently, breathe deeply, and allow the spine and pelvis to reorient themselves in space, the psoas can begin to soften. Not collapse, but return to a state of responsiveness—ready to engage, but no longer on high alert.

In Pilates, we often train this process without even realizing it. Conscious breathing paired with slow spinal movement, pelvic articulation, and mindful hip mobility creates a dialogue between your physical and neurological systems. Exercises like bridging, leg lifts, side-lying work, and breath-focused stretching invite the psoas to do something it may not have done in a long time: release its grip.

Over time, this retrains the nervous system itself. Deep, full breaths activate the parasympathetic response—the “rest and digest” side of the nervous system. As your body learns to trust these moments, the psoas begins to release chronic tension patterns, restoring your natural alignment and calming your internal state.

What “Healing” Can Look Like

Clients sometimes report feeling emotional after certain Hanna Somatics and Pilates sessions—teary, light, washout, or even unexpectedly joyful. This is not unusual. As the psoas begins to relax and the nervous system recalibrates, the body shifts from protection to restoration and openness. The result can feel like something between a physical exhale and an emotional reset.

It’s important to approach this process with patience. A chronically tight or “guarded” psoas may have been in that state for years. Progress doesn’t always look like perfect posture—it may start with a deeper breath, a new sense of grounding in your feet, or a moment of quiet after class where your body feels truly at ease.

A Path to Integration

The psoas is not something to force or fix—it’s something to befriend. When we work with it gently, through aligned movement and breath-based practices, we offer it a new job: not to brace, but to balance.

If you’ve been feeling chronically tense, reactive, or emotionally stuck, the path forward might begin deeper than you thought—not in your mind, but in the tissues of your own body.

And that’s where Pilates shines—not just as exercise, but as a space to come home to yourself, one breath and one movement at a time.