How Your Brain Activates Regulation

I’m sure you’ve heard of regulation; being regulated is when we feel balanced and calm, we can process thoughts and feelings and respond to the rationally.

People often need time to regulate themselves throughout the day doing little things we probably don’t even think about - drinking, eating foods we crave, taking time away, exercise, reading, watching tv.

Any activity you find relaxing and calming will be regulating you throughout the day.

But what is our body and brain actually doing to regulate us?

That’s where the nervous system comes in..

Definitions:

1. The nervous system : this is made up of the brain, spinal cord and nerves. It’s a system that picks up on cues from the environment and sends messages back and forth between the brain and the body.

2. Sympathetic nervous system: controls the body’s response to a threat (commonly known as the fight or flight response). This is an involuntary bodily response, so we have very little control over it. When this is active too often it can lead to hormonal imbalance, reduced energy reserves and adrenal exhaustion.

3. Para-sympathetic nervous system (PNS) : controls the body’s response whilst at rest. This is caused by feeling inner peace and relaxation. When triggered it restores and regenerates the body. This means a slow heart rate, muscle relaxation, improved digestion, energy and happiness.

So when we are doing activities that regulate us and make us feel calm, we’re activating the PNS.

In order to have optimal health, feel at ease and decrease stress, we want to try and increase parasympathetic activation as much as possible! Over the next few blog posts I’ll be going through things we can do to ‘up-regulate’ the PNS.