#2 A Quick Tour of the Nervous System

As a craniosacral practitioner, I thought I’d write a blog about the nervous system and touch upon why it’s so vital that we can regulate ourselves. Some of you who have landed here might already know this (and more); for some, it may be brand new. Either way, I hope you enjoy the read.

So the first thing to say is that I know what it feels like to have a dysregulated nervous system. It’s a struggle, and its impact is seen in many ways, some not so pretty. But it can change. For me, it has, though it’s always a work in progress, but progress is excellent!

So, going back to biology, we’ve all probably learnt the nuts and bolts of the nervous system in school. But the impact of a dis- or unregulated one was never a part of the syllabus; perhaps that is what education needs to include. But let’s start with the basics. The central nervous system is your brain and spinal cord, originating all nerves. They communicate messages to and from the through some very cool electrical and chemical magic which we don’t need to go into. In fact, there are more nerves (afferent) that send information from the body to the brain than from the brain to the body (efferent nerves).
Our nervous system has two main parts – the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PSN). The PNS has two parts, too – the somatic nervous system (SNS), which governs volunteer movements and the autonomic nervous system (ANS), which is in charge of involuntary activities like breathing, digestion etc. That’s the one we are interested in.

The ANS has two branches – the sympathetic (SANS) and the parasympathetic (PANS). The sympathetic system, quite unlike its name, is where our stress response sits, where our fight and flight responses switch on. Say you are walking down a street, minding your own business, when you suddenly encounter a ferocious dog. The SANS will kick in. It will, amongst other things, pump up your heart rate, send blood to your extremities (arms and legs), and flood your system with hormones like adrenaline and cortisol so that you can either pick up a stick and fight the dog or if you think that unwise, try to run away to safety. This whole reaction is because your system’s key concern is keeping your body safe. The ANS also makes you feel pumped up, aggressive, and action-oriented. It can save our lives, but if we can’t get out of this state, we can get ‘locked into’ being in a state of alert which can play havoc with our bodies and minds. The hormones keep pumping, stressing the heart and other functions, and the body always feels unsafe. This is where you can see PTSD, hypervigilance, inability to focus, and a quick startle response, for example.

The parasympathetic system is the opposite. It is our system of rest, restoration and digestion. And just because biology loves branches, this is divided into two as well – the ventral vagal and the dorsal vagal, which focus on the Vagus nerve in the body. There is a whole theory on this by Stephen Porges (The Polyvagal Theory); briefly, when we are in a ventral vagal state, we have a sense of being calm, compassionate, connected to others, joyful and have good resiliency to everyday ups and downs. It’s our safe place and one we want to return to often. Much of it has to do with communication as it impacts facial features and is outward looking. So in the dog example, you may first look around to see if someone will help. That is the primary response in humans. To connect, communicate, and make contact. The dorsal vagal works with the most primitive part of our brain and is our oldest threat response system. It is when we freeze – when we don’t think you can fight or run away but are immobilized and frozen. Where you hope the ferocious dog quietly walks past you as you stay rooted to the spot or faint (sometimes called ‘flop’). It will completely shut down or collapse in more severe situations, like chronic anxiety, great danger or stress. We see this often in cases of depression and dissociation (more on this later, but simply a ‘zoned out’ state).

More recently, a fourth F (in addition to fight-flight-freeze) has been added to our nervous system responses – the fawn response. It is the ‘please and appease’ response commonly seen when there is trauma. For example, with childhood trauma, a child may have had to constantly read a caregiver’s erratic moods and emotions and appease them to navigate life and feel safe. It often looks like people-pleasing as we grow older. It gets complicated because there may also be some sympathetic activation in suppressed stress and dissociation.

See, pretty messy. But it’s okay because no state is in itself good or bad. We need sympathetic activation to get us out of danger and be safe or to make us move and feel motivated. A strong ventral vagal system is essential for us to build relationships. We can have mixed states too – when we have immobilization without fear which is, say, intimacy or be in a higher sympathetic system when we are playing sports. What is essential is to be able to move through the states easily and not get stuck in either one. That is true resiliency. When there is a lot of stress and trauma, we can get stuck in perhaps being hypervigilant or shut down, but there is always a way out. There are many techniques to do that, but the first step is to be aware of your states and how you navigate them, as we all do so differently. But those are for another blog. Tune in.