Your heart’s racing. Your palms are sweating. Your eyes scan the room. Your body courses with adrenaline to help you flee.
Even reading that may have stirred an uneasiness in your gut. These physiological responses and sensations result from experiences we find stressful, from public speaking to life-threatening situations.
Without you being consciously aware, our bodies are constantly assessing the world around us, particularly what could be dangerous or harmful. As protection, our bodies have an automatic response known as “fight-or-flight.”
Why does this happen? If it’s an instinctual response from the body because of stress or feelings of danger, what does that mean for individuals with chronic stress?
The answers to these questions, and more, begin with the main system that drives “fight-or-flight”: the sympathetic nervous system.
The Sympathetic Nervous System
Part of the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is responsible for mechanisms in the body that you don’t necessarily have control over.
Including (not limited to):
Heart rate
Blood pressure
Digestion
Urination
Sweating
The SNS’s main role is to use these physiological effects to support you in handling and overcoming stressful situations for short-term survival.
For example, your body may respond to a stressor such as seeing a wild animal while hiking by dilating your pupils to improve your vision, increasing your heart rate to deliver more blood to areas of the body that need more oxygen to help you escape the situation, and slowing your digestive tract to divert energy to parts of the body that need it most.
It’s important to note that a perceived threat to the body doesn’t always have to be life-threatening. An argument, an intense workout, or deadlines at work can also activate the SNS to help you overcome the stress short-term. Lifestyle choices like poor sleep, emotional toll, and a poor diet can contribute to a chronically activated “fight-or-flight” state too.
When a stressor persists or isn’t managed, the SNS is unable to regulate, and the stress hormone, cortisol, remains high.
This can lead to:
Insulin resistance and difficulty in maintaining stable blood sugar
To read more about blood sugar and metabolism, check out my previous blog, “The Importance of Balanced Blood Sugar.”
Think about the moments in your day when you feel bombarded with tasks, overworked, and overstimulated. How do they make you feel physically and mentally? Tuning into those moments and finding ways to calm yourself into rest and recovery mode will allow you to not only calm down, but to pay more attention to what your body may be trying to tell you.
Our bodies are smart, and they know how to heal when we give them the right tools. In order to combat this chronic stress state, you need to focus on ways to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.
Sympathetic Vs. Parasympathetic Nervous Systems
Think of sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous systems (PSNS) as opposite sides of a coin. As described earlier, your SNS is responsible for increased bodily responses to be on high alert, while the parasympathetic nervous system is about relaxing those symptoms. Some experts call it the “rest and digest” state.
Activating your parasympathetic nervous system can be practiced by engaging in activities like mild exercise, meditation, yoga, deep breathing, and spending more time in nature. Other ways to relax could be reading, journaling, drawing, crocheting, cooking, or other hobbies you enjoy. It’s about finding ways that can allow you to decompress, relax, and tune out the senses.
In the rush and go, go, go of the world today, it’s important to slow down enough to where you can come back to yourself and feel safe in your body.