Fight or Flight

Last time we talked about stress and started to unpack what stress really is: a biological reaction to stimuli. Or the stress response, or Fight or Flight. So what actually happens when this response gets triggered?

Let’s imagine your nervous system is like a busy 1940’s black and white movie style newspaper. Your Central Nervous System (CNS) is the like the Chief editor. He is receiving information and sending out commands, he sees all, knows all, and is in charge of all (or so he thinks).
Your Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) are the two second in command editor types. One guys is a busy body in charge of all of the moving parts of the paper, and the other guys (the Autonomic Nervous System: ANS) is kind of quiet and doing all the stuff it takes to keep a paper going; paying bills, ordering paper and ink, making sure the thermostat stays at 62 degrees, etc. Each of these gentlemen have teams working under them. Everyone is very busy doing their thing, reporting back, keeping it moving.

Your Sympathetic Nervous system works for the quiet editor. He is the guy who spends his time looking for headline news and when he sees it, he bursts into press room and screams “STOP THE PRESSES!,” at the top of his lungs, and he has a handy lever to pull that actually does stop the press and puts the breaking news guys in motion before his boss, or his boss’s boss even knows what happens.

The breaking news guys are out the door, and the presses are at a dead stop, and the front page editors are already redesigning the Headlines before the ANS editor or the CNS big boss editor even poke their heads out of their offices.
In many ways the Sympathetic Nervous system is the most important guy in the room because he has ultimate control whenever he sees fit.

In your body, the Sympathetic Nervous System has direct pathways to your major organ systems and a superhighway to them as well, so the impulse doesn’t even have to take the slower route via the Spinal Cord. It is faster than thought.

So what does the Sympathetic Nervous System tell your body to do?
Increase heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. Release adrenaline into the system along with extra glucose. Your pupils with dilate, your sweating will increase, and your digestion will slow down and/or stop. You will also need to go to the little boy’s or girl's room.

This is a super important skill because if humans had to think through every response to danger, we wouldn’t make it. We need the reflex, and fast action of fight or flight to survive. The problem is, for most of us we have a jumpy little guy for our Sympathetic Nervous System, and our modern world has far more stimulants in it.  Back in the days of the caveman the newspaper headline would read:
SAW A BEAR!
Now a days it reads:
ALMOST HIT A SQUIRREL!
GOT A MEAN EMAIL!
LOST MY KEYS!
WATCHED C.S.I.!
FOUGHT WITH MY BOSS!
DROPPED MY PHONE IN THE TOILET!!!!!!!
JUST READ A CONFUSING BLOG ABOUT STREESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

What used to be a one line situation is a full on page. And believe it or not each of these things causes the the Sympathetic Nervous System to kick into gear.

The antidote? Stimulating the Parasympathetic Nervous system or the guy in charge of rest and digest. Maybe he is a soothing advice columnist or the the hippie who delivers lunch but that is for next time.