Get to know your nervous system
What is the Nervous System?
The nervous system is your body's command center. It regulates your body's systems and guides your thoughts, feelings, and actions. It sends signals all over your body and it affects all areas of your health.
Your autonomic nervous system is the part of your nervous system that controls actions and functions that you don't need to think about and are done automatically. Examples of these functions are your digestion, heart rate, sweat, and blood pressure.
Within your autonomic nervous system is your parasympathetic nervous system and your sympathetic nervous system.
Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn
You may have heard of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) as your "fight or flight" response. It is the body's arousal response, a natural alert and defense system. It engages when your safety or survival are at risk. It can also turn on when there is merely a perception of risk. The sympathetic nervous system is looking out and preparing you for danger. The SNS helps you to act or think quickly by releasing adrenaline, speeding up your heart rate, delivering blood into your muscles, dilating your pupils, slowing down your digestion. This boost in endurance, strength, and reflexes can save your life!
If the sympathetic nervous system is over-active or active for too long, it can put strain on the body and lead to chronic stress. The SNS works in partnership with the parasympathetic nervous system to create balance in the body.
Rest and Digest
Your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is often called your "rest and digest" response. If the sympathetic nervous system is the gas petal, your parasympathetic nervous system is the break pedal. Its function is to balance out the sympathetic nervous system, to calm the body, and promote functions of self-preservation. It prepares the systems of the body for rest. This can only happen when the body feels safe and relaxed. The PNS can lower your heart rate, produce silva, help with digestion, relax muscles to aid with waste removal, and improve sexual function.
Your parasympathetic nervous system is working when you are awake or asleep without you thinking about it because it is a crucial part of your body’s long-term survival.
Create Balance and Calm
A high-stress role, job, or season of life can over-activate your sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Our brain is wired to keep us safe. It is looking out for danger. Our body does not necessarily know the difference between a predator chasing us in the wild and a triggering email, a new story, a deadline. A high pressure job, a big performance, a hurtful conversation, a social engagement, can all activate our stress response. And as our brain looks out for danger ahead, we can start to look into the uncertain future with fear and negativity.
Learning tools and techniques to activate your parasympathetic nervous system can help you to come back to balance and find calm in the storm. This helps to mitigate the impact of chronic stress on the body and to foster a positive mindset in your life and your roles and responsibilities.
Shift Your Mood and Your Mindset
As your brain looks out for danger ahead, you can start to look into the uncertain future with fear and negativity. To create a positive outlook on life and an optimistic vision for your future, you can work to replace fear of what might happen, with excitement for what could happen. This shift begins from a place of calm. You can shift from feeling uncertain and anxious about the future, to feeling excited, optimistic, and hopeful for the possibilities that lay ahead.
Head on over to the Calming Techniques article to explore practical ways to engage the parasympathetic nervous system. Here, your body and mind can enter into a relaxed and calm state where clarity, peace, and insight can arise.
In addition to engaging the relaxation response, physical activity and social support are two other crucial areas to give attention to when it comes to mitigating the impact of chronic stress.
For more tools to help reduce stress and anxiety:
Create calm ASAP: Tools and practices
Journal and Reflect: Download the Bright Future Guide
Get 1:1 Support: Connect privately with me
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