Stress, The Nervous System & Why You Should Care
Stress and the nervous system are so intricately tied in that when you talk about one you are talking about the other whether you realise it or not. The nervous system can be thought of as being similar to the electrical wiring system in your house. There is one big power source coming in to your house and then all kinds of divisions into smaller wires that go to your various appliances and power points. If you get power interruption to the main source everything is affected and nothing works properly. The brain is the main power source and the nerves in your body are the equivalent to the wires in your house. You need a healthy functioning nervous system and if it ceases to function properly you will have "short circuits" occurring in your body that you most certainly do not want. Stress affects your nervous system and you need to proactively manage your stress to be healthy.
There are many parts of the nervous system, but the part we need to understand, from the stress perspective, is what's called the autonomic nervous system. It is defined as the part of the nervous system responsible for controlling the bodily functions not consciously directed, such as breathing, the heartbeat, and the digestive processes. These are obviously pretty vital functions!
The important bit to understand is that there are two branches to this system.
1. Sympathetic (stimulating)
2. Parasympathetic (relaxing).
When you think of the stress response that a crocodile jumping out at you would cause, this is the sympathetic nervous system in action. In the diagram, you can see the effects it has. It's accelerating the heart rate, opening or dilating the lungs so we can get more air, opening the pupil so we can see more, increasing our glucose or blood sugar and, of course, stimulating the release of adrenalin.
The parasympathetics that you can see on the left are essentially the opposite of the sympathetic and are calming and relaxing. They slow the heartbeat and breathing and encourage digestion and healing.
Notice that the sympathetic nerves come out of the spinal cord in the middle of the spine, which is called the thoracic spine. Also note that the parasympathetics come out of the top and bottom or the crainial/cervical and the sacral area of the spine. This is important when it comes to what we can do to manage stress.
Another aspect to simply note at this point is that there is a nerve called the vagus nerve. It too is going to become important as we look at how to deal with stress. The vagus nerve essentially puts the 'brake' on the stress response.
The autonomic nervous system is all about balance just like so many other things in our bodies. One side of the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetics, stimulate and will speed up your heart rate for example and the other side, the parasympathetics will calm and slow it back down again.
This intuitively makes sense to most people. It is a system designed to keep your body functioning in the correct range of where it needs to be. When you need to, it speeds up and, when the stress is over, it slows down.
So what is the problem?
Most of us are stuck in the ON position, which is the STIMULATING side of it. When we are under stress of any sort (physical, emotional, or chemical) the fight or flight response kicks into gear and helps us deal with the stress. We know this is highly adaptive and good, as it is helping us deal with the immediate stress.
So, again, what is the problem?
The problem is that MOST of us live our lives in a constant state of low-level stress therefore overstimulating our sympathetic nervous system. If this is allowed to run unchecked by the parasympathetic nervous system, we will start to develop chronic degenerative stress diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, and many others.
Without balance in the nervous system, eventually we burnout the nervous system. When we do this we get sick.
So what can we do?
The following is a list of things that are specifically designed to relax the nervous system and in turn restore proper balance and in turn health. These are critical interventions that work best when applied synergistically AND consistently.
1. Near infrared Saunas
2. Deep breathing
3. Meditation
4. Chiropractic (Neck and low back for vagus nerve and parasympathetics)
5. Correct supplements as determined by hair mineral analysis
6. Correct diet
7. Enough quality sleep
Stress management with the above strategies will get your nervous system back on track. When it's back on track, it's truly amazing how well a person can be and function. We all know stress is bad for us but we don't all know or do what we can to manage it. Implement the above, create the habits and discipline, and ultimately reap the benefits.
Dr Todd Lizon
B.P.H.E., D.C.
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