Sympathetic vs Parasympathetic Nervous System
I love talking about these partners in mental and physical regulation. I talk about it in my counselling sessions all the time. Once you get a handle on these, your perspective of your ability to manage your triggers can shift greatly.
Okay, so what are they and what do they do?
For the sake of simplicity, let’s think of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems like this:
sympathetic nervous system = recognises potential danger and mobilises for response
parasympathetic = recognises safety and parachutes in to soothe and calm
From here on out, I’ll just refer to them as symp system and para system for short.
Imagine you’re walking down the hallway of your home and a family member or roommate jumps out from a doorway to startle you, just for fun. What happens in your body? Your muscles tense up, you gasp, you might shriek, and your eyes widen. This is your symp system in action. Your senses tell your brain that there’s immediate danger, and your brain tells your body to get ready to fight, flee, or freeze. In other words, it causes your body to ready itself for self-defence.
Muscles tense to get ready to run or hide and be still. You gasp in order to take in oxygen quickly, energy you’ll need as you defend yourself. The shriek signals to others nearby that there is danger and warns them or attracts attention for help. Your eyes widen and your spatial awareness is heightened so you can process the source of the danger, as well as identify potential routes for your escape.
Other things happen as well on a deeper level. For example, your digestive system instantly slows down to make sure all energy goes to your voluntary functions; your heart beats faster so that oxygen pumps more quickly and effectively to your muscles; your saliva production decreases; and your breath quickens.
You see, when we’re in danger, there’s no time to eat, digest, take in deep breaths, or relax.
Once your senses perceive and communicate to your brain that the danger is not real and that it was just somebody playing a trick on you, your brain tells your para system to kick in. At that point, you will relax and release the muscle tension, your pupils will revert to their normal state, you may emit an audible sigh indicating your well-being, and your salivary glands and digestive system will resume their usual functions.
These responses are hard-wired in our ancient lizard brain and have been crucial to our survival and proliferation of the species. We had to be aware of and run or hide from predators in our primitive environments. These days, we rarely need to escape the assault of a saber-toothed tiger; however, we are inundated with daily stressors that incite anxiety and worry about our worth, our finances, our relationships, etc. The problem is that our brains aren’t processing the situation, they’re processing the signals from our senses (or thoughts in this case). Our brain doesn’t know that it’s anxiety we’re experiencing, all it knows is that it’s meant to keep us safe and so it engages the symp system. Hence, we feel tense, awake at night, and over-stimulated, ready to run but unsure from what. Without knowing what the danger is and therefore identify safety, our para systems don’t automatically engage, and we don’t get that release from fight/flight/freeze mode.
The good news is that we can activate the para “manually,” if you will. Tell your body you’re okay by faking a big yawn or take a big stretch to elicit relaxation; eat a sour candy to prompt saliva production, shake out your hands and feet (otherwise known as “stimming”) to release some of the tense energy your muscles are holding; put your wrist under cold water to trigger a shock response and slow everything down.
These tricks will obviously not fix any problems, but they will allow you to gain a better sense of calm and safety, which will help you gain mental clarity, which will in turn help you to more clearly assess your situation and perhaps find a real solution. At the very least, it will hopefully give you a brief sense of relief, and that is a great place to start. We’ll talk more about these techniques in future posts.
