Anatomy of the Nervous System
The Nervous System is vastly complex and highly sophisticated. For the sake of this article, I’ll just cover the basics. It can be understood by separating into two main components, the Central Nervous System (CNS), which consists of the brain and spinal cord, and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), which consists of all the other nerves extending throughout the rest of our body.
The nerves that exist within the PNS can be categorized into two other categories: Somatic and Autonomic.
Somatic nerves govern conscious, voluntary actions. They communicate sensory information about external stimuli to the CNS. The CNS then considers how to respond to the environment and sends Motor information to muscles fibers. For example, it tells us when to chew food, walk, make facial expressions, or wave.
Autonomic nerves govern our internal organ functions. They are generally considered involuntary, meaning we do it without thinking about it.
The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) can be further explained by dividing it into two more systems: Sympathetic and Parasympathetic.
The Sympathetic nervous system response prepares the body for stress related activities. Physically, it dilates pupils, inhibits salivation, increases heart rate, dilates bronchi, inhibits digestion, inhibits contraction of bladder, and causes a surge of adrenaline, glucose, and cortisol. It’s a highly beneficial adaptive behavior that increases our chance of survival.
However, threats today are more psychological, rather than physical but we respond the same way. Our health suffers when we are constantly triggered by ongoing stressful events. Stress causes a staggering 90% of diseases by impairing the function of all our systems including the immune system.
The second response, Parasympathetic, is the state in which our ability to heal, process, and regenerate is optimized. Physically, it has the opposite functions of the Sympathetic Nervous System. It constricts pupils, stimulates salivation, slows heart rate, constricts bronchi, stimulates digestion, causes the bladder to contract.
The two are complementary, and ideally we easily oscillate between both to maintain homeostasis, equilibrium, or balance.
The modern world puts most people in a sympathetic dominant state. Trauma or ongoing stressors, can cause us to get “stuck” in this state. Stress hormones such as cortisol are actually addictive and even when it’s time to relax, we might even seek environments and situations that put us back into a hyperarousal state because we’re so used to it that it’s become what’s most comfortable and familiar to us.
So, it’s vital to our health and wellbeing that we have practices that help us activate the parasympathetic nervous system and access states of relaxation so that our body can repair and regenerate itself. All of the practices and modalities that I offer are intended to do just this. Massage and bodywork, specifically Craniosacral, and Vibrational Sound Therapy all work directly with the Nervous System, which is basically the command center for every other system in our body. When our Nervous System is functioning beautifully, the rest of our systems are regulated and working in harmony. When our own vessel is thriving, we tend to operate more harmoniously in our relationships. Health and vitality ripples out into the rest of the world.
