The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) Part 2

PART 2/4

Making Your ANS Resilient

Another impressive feature of our autonomic nervous system is that it strives to balance itself naturally. In the previous post, it might have sounded as if our ANS is only capable of eliciting one response at a time. We either feel safe, mobilized, or immobilized – but that just isn’t the case! In fact, our ANS prefers to combine different responses at the same time to help us get through daily life experiences like socialising with friends, riding a bike in the park, relaxing on a hammock on a beautiful sunny day, playing soccer with friends, or reading a book to your child before they fall asleep at night.

In fact, there is even a term for this ability – and it’s called, “resilience.” When the ANS is functioning normally, it has the ability to move quite seamlessly from one stage to the other, often combining two stages together to ensure that our body is in the right state to handle a given situation/environment. 

How Does ANS Combine States? 

For instance, let’s take a look at an example from earlier. If you’re out on the field playing soccer with your friends, the ANS will combine the mobilised state and the safe state. Your body will require extra energy to score the big goal, so it will likely give you a bit of adrenaline to give you that extra boost, while also assuring your brain that you’re in a safe environment, with no real threat outside of losing the game! 

From there, going back to the example of reading a book to your child before they fall asleep at night, the ANS will combine the immobilised state with the safe state. Here, your child is immobilized, relaxed, and calm, while also feeling safe – and the same goes for you, the parent.

How To Achieve Resilience

When our ANS becomes resilient, we are able to manage and become more resilient to stress and negative events. It gives us a chance to bounce back from a stressful situation, and move on without residual mental or physical effects. A great book discussing the ability of animals to do this in greater detail is found in Robert Sapolsky’s ‘Why Zebra’s don’t get ulcers’ 

https://www.bookdepository.com/Why-Zebras-Dont-Get-Ulcers-Revised-Edition-M-Sapolsky/9780805073690?ref=grid-view&qid=1621096903244&sr=1-1

However, stress and traumatic events can hinder our ANS’s ability to achieve resilience. It can throw off its balance, and it can cause it to struggle to maintain a balance between the three states. Achieving resilience and maintaining it isn’t always easy, but one way to do it would be to eliminate stress and trauma from your life – but that just isn’t entirely realistic, is it? 

What Happens When We Aren’t Resilient?

When our ANS isn’t able to maintain resilience, it puts us into a constant survival state. Normal and ordinary situations become stressful and overwhelming. A socializing event becomes threatening, a stressful situation at work becomes traumatic. 

These survival states can cause havoc within our psyche on a daily basis, day after day, becoming debilitating long-term. When this happens, the stress caused by this constant survival state can and will manifest itself in a number of different ways namely disease and disorder if left unchecked.

To be continued...

Anke