The Rhythm of your Nervous System

Emotional regulation might seem complex or dull, but essentially, it's about handling your emotions healthily. To demystify this, let's explore your remarkable design and Superhero, your nervous system. Consider it your life guide, shaping how you experience and react to life's highs and lows.

Getting to Know Your Nervous System:

• Central Nervous System (CNS): Serves as the body's control center. It includes the brain and spinal cord, which process information and oversee all bodily functions such as thought, movement, sensation, and essential processes like breathing and heart rate. It governs everything from conscious thought and decision-making to involuntary actions like digestion and muscle coordination.

• Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): This is the messenger system, sending signals between your brain and the rest of your body.

Emotional Regulation and the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS):

• Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS): The SNS's main function is to help your body respond to stressful or dangerous situations by temporarily prioritizing certain bodily functions over others. It’s like the gas pedal in your car. This is part of you where Fight/Flight/Freeze comes from. 

• Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS): This is the brake pedal. It helps you relax and recover after dealing with stress. 

How Your Emotions Dance with Your Nervous System:

• SNS Activation: When stress hits, the SNS jumps into action, making you feel emotions like fear or anxiety. This is totally normal – it’s your body’s way of dealing with challenges.

• PNS to the Rescue: After the stress passes, the PNS steps in, calming everything down and bringing you back to a balanced state. We activate our PNS when we exercise, take deep breaths, do yoga, dance etc. 

What Happens with Too Much Stress:

• Chronic Stress: If the gas pedal (SNS) is pushed too hard without using the brakes (PNS), it can lead to chronic stress. This may contribute to feeling overwhelmed or having a hard time managing your emotions. 

• When we remain in a continuous fight, flight, or freeze state, our bodies are consistently flooded with cortisol, the stress hormone. Excessive cortisol negatively impacts both physical and mental health, leading to problems such as weakened immune function, weight gain, digestive disorders, cardiovascular issues, impaired cognitive abilities, sleep disruptions, poor blood sugar regulation, muscle and bone problems, and reproductive health concerns. Clearly, managing stress and finding methods to activate our PNS is crucial for maintaining our health.

Easy ways to manage our stress:

• Mindfulness and Meditation practices help activate and calm the PNS, reducing stress.

• Breathing Exercises: Take a deep breath all the way in to where you see your tummy rise with your breath and exhale with an audible sigh nice and slow! Simple breathing exercises can shift your body from stress mode to total relaxation.

• Physical Activity: Moving your body regularly helps keep your nervous system in balance.

Your journey to feeling peace:

• When you understand your nervous system,

and how to regulate it, you gain the power to navigate life with all the ups and downs with some control.

• Try simple strategies like breathing exercises or mindfulness to support a happy, healthy nervous system. Just implementing a 2-minute-deep breathing exercise on your way to work can create positive change and balance out the clash of your SNS and PNS.

It’s all about finding the balance between your gas pedal (SNS) and brake pedal (PNS). If after reading this, you realize you spend a lot more time with SNS and need to incorporate some quality time with your PNS try to understand the rhythm of these systems. The more you understand this dance, the more equipped you become to lead a life filled with emotional well-being and resilience. It’s truly a beautiful dance!