Let’s enjoy some “rest and digest”!
Last week on the mat, we worked on activating our body’s parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is what turns off our stress response and tells our body to relax. Mentally, humans as a population have been becoming accustomed to living in a state of chronic stress. Physically, this can have serious tolls on our health.
The Autonomic Nervous System
Our autonomic nervous system controls the body’s unconscious and involuntary processes, like breathing and heartbeat. It’s broken down into two parts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. While the sympathetic nervous system prepares your body for danger, the parasympathetic nervous system allows your body to calm down after a threat has passed.
The Sympathetic Nervous System
The sympathetic nervous system triggers our “fight or flight response”. This response is what prepares our bodies for imminent threats. Our heart rate quickens. Our digestion stops. Our senses heighten. It was originally intended to help us ward off dangers of the natural world, such as nearby predators. However, our “fight or flight” response can also be triggered by modern day problems, like looming work deadlines, financial responsibilities, or family troubles. Our body reacts to these everyday stressors as if they were life threatening. How can we convince our body that everything is safe when these stressors are constantly present?
The Parasympathetic Nervous System
Your parasympathetic nervous system is the exact opposite. It is the system that returns your body to homeostasis, or balance, after a threat has gone away. Your heart rate begins to slow down and digestion resumes. Also called the “rest and digest” system, our parasympathetic nervous system allows our body and mind to finally relax.
Why activate your parasympathetic system?
The constant stress of modern day life is causing many people to live in a chronic state of sympathetic nervous system activation. In other words, our body’s stress response is constantly turned on. This can present itself to us as chronic stress, anxiety, or in some cases depression. Over time, living in a state of chronic stress begins to have negative health effects on your body. To avoid this, we need to actively work on turning our body’s parasympathetic nervous system to calm down our body’s stress response and allow ourselves the space to relax.
To activate our body’s relaxation response, we can use deep belly breathing techniques and a slow yoga practice to calm our minds. Join us on the mat Wednesday and Sunday at 6:30 pm to enjoy some “rest and digest”!
