Fight or Flight: Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)
Over the past few weeks, we have been going through parts of the brain and how they contribute to emotional regulation. It is now clear the engine that powers our bodies is the nervous system, and it’s made up of the brain and spinal cord. Having talked about the brain, we’re going to dive into the spinal cord...and I am SUPER excited to explore this with you!
The nerves that flow from the spinal cord to the rest of the body make up the peripheral nervous system (PNS). The PNS consists of the somatic nervous system (SoNS) and the autonomic nervous system (ANS). We won’t get into the SoNS, but we’ll get to see what the ANS is all about.
Relax, I know we’re not in a neurosurgery class so I’ll try my best not to throw you off with all the scientific jargon. Plus, this stuff is going to blow your mind!
The ANS is the part of the nervous system that we can’t control. Everything here operates without our conscious awareness - your liver processes, your heart beats, the intestines and digestive system. You get the drift. There are two divisions of the ANS. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. THIS IS IMPORTANT! One causes relaxation, while the other is all about initiating some excitement.
Think about this. You’re driving a car and you hear a screech of brakes behind you. What do you do? Your body goes to alert mode tensing up while waiting for something crazy to go down. However, when you check your rearview mirror, you see that the driver was able to stop just in time. Immediately, your whole body goes into relaxation mode. Crisis averted!
That is how the ANS parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems (SNS) function seamlessly. With no further ado, let’s dive into the sympathetic nervous system.
What is the sympathetic nervous system (SNS)?
It is the part of the ANS that is responsible for the flight or fight response. Basically, it’s responsible for heart rate increasing, blood pressure, mobilizing fat reserves, and adrenaline. This is the pathway through which we respond to danger. We need this to survive, and it’s the reason we have gotten this far as human beings. Cool, right?
You know those kiddos who are impulsive, tense, reactive, defensive? Well, those are your kiddos that live in the SNS. I happen to be one of them. As a child who was raised in a multi-abusive environment, my SNS was overworked and therefore became my default. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I understood why I was so defensive, sought adrenaline, and could never slow down. The good news is there’s a solution that I’m about to share, but first...a bit more about this SNS.
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What are the functions of the sympathetic nervous system?
Flight or Fight
Your body’s unconscious and involuntary response to emergency, danger, and stressful situations is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system. It’s like a flash flood of hormones that are released to boost the body’s heart rate and alertness, leading to a shot of extra blood being released to the muscles. Remember how I spoke of that tenseness? Your breathing rate increases feeding the brain more oxygen, and glucose is injected into the bloodstream giving you a new high - a short energy boost. Sounds fun, right?
The problem is that when you constantly enter into this mode, it becomes your default. Can you imagine always being tense, always being defensive, and never being able to slow down? It’s exhausting, and I can speak from lived experience. Imagine what that might be like for children.
According to a study by Harvard Medical School ("Understanding the Stress Response"), the response is so fast that we often don’t realize it is happening. Have you ever jumped away from the path of something falling even before you fully register it’s toppling towards you? That’s how fast it happens.
Temperature Regulation
Remember when you learned about homeostasis in Biology? If you’re like me, probably not because you were too busy searching for other useless information in Biology class. Ironic that I now teach people about biology!
Forget I asked that. Instead, here is the short definition:
“Homeostasis is the process through which the body maintains balance.”
One of the ways is by regulating body temperature. It does this in two ways: 1) mobilizing fat reserves so as to encourage heat production, or 2) by controlling the blood flow to the skin. Ever notice how your veins are closer to the skin when it’s hot and you can barely see them when it gets cold? That’s the SNS at work. Y'all will have a degree in human biology after this blog post!
There are a few other functions of the SNS, but we’ll stop there for today. I want to keep you around long enough to hear how to respond to this SNS overdrive!
How do you respond to sympathetic nervous system overdrive?
Have you ever heard of yin and yang? You know, the Ancient Chinese concept of dualism. It describes how opposite forces may be interconnected and interdependent on each other. That’s our answer!
When your body is in overdrive all the time, the way to fix it is to do the opposite. For example, I described how I like to go fast, do HIIT workouts, have a million things on my plate at one time. That’s living in the SNS - a place in which I feel very comfortable living. The problem is, as I stated earlier, it is exhausting and takes a serious toll on the body. Hence, the development of my autoimmune disorder.
So, in order to correct my default, I started doing things of the opposite nature like yoga, Tai Chi, cooking, walks, meditating, reading, etc. All of these slow moving things help me to balance, reduce stress, and move out of the SNS.
For kids, this might look like stretching, minutes of silence, micro meditations, or mindfulness activities. A few of my favorite kid-friendly mindfulness activities are:
Drawing/painting everyday objects
Savoring the flavor (see who can eat the food the slowest, savoring the flavor)
Blindfold taste test (try to figure out the food without seeing what it is)
So, back to yin and yang. For all the functions of the SNS (“yin”), the parasympathetic nervous system (“yang”) is the antagonist that helps the body recover from all the excitement. We’ll talk all about it in the coming weeks.
ANS, SNS, PNS……...Oh My! If you need help applying this information to your situation, please get in touch. I am here to help!
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