Fight & Flight or Rest & Digest
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You choose.
Stress, panic, racing heart rate, inability to sleep, need for exercise, coffee, fatigue, overwhelm—do any of these resonate with you? Our current lifestyle and environment tend to push us to operate more on our sympathetic nervous system than our parasympathetic nervous system.
But what are these nervous systems? You may think “WAIT! I have 1 brain and 1 spinal column and nerves—that’s my nervous system right?” True it is, but it can respond in two different ways depending on the input of your lived experiences.
Sympathetic State
Consider you are being chased by a bear: you are running, your muscles working, your heart pumping, eyes focused on where you can go to get away. This is your sympathetic nervous system in its prime. It is designed to help you survive. It will get you the energy you need to keep going- at the expense of other bodily functions—like healing, repair or reproduction.
Activate your Calm
Take a walk
Hum or take some calming deep breaths
Make time for friendship, laughter and time with others
Gratitude journaling
Parasympathetic State
Or consider you are all caught up on your work, you have had a delicious meal, the lights are dim, you are reading a funny book or playing a game with a friend and laughing- this is your parasympathetic nervous system at work. You are not running, you are not in a state or panic or stress. This is when our bodies heal, repair, digest, and prioritize reproduction.
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Unfortunately our body cannot tell the difference between the looming deadline and the bear chase. And our body is not designed to be chased by a bear day in and day out. That bear chase may look different for everybody – chronic infections, emotional stress, work stress, environmental stress. All of these result in the same increase in adrenaline and cortisol. When that increase in adrenaline and cortisol become “normal” or on going- we start to see chronic disease crop up. It may be in the form of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, depression or anxiety, fatigue, hypothyroidism.
Chronic stress may not be the only cause of your health concerns, but it certainly is not helping your body heal. Taking time to help your body move into a parasympathetic state will help your body heal and find balance. The more you are able to use short bursts of stress to accomplish your goals and then take time for deep relaxation and healing the more resilient you will be.
Want to learn more about activating the parasympathetic nervous system—check out the Vagus nerve!