There are two main branches of your autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Ideally there is a healthy balance between the two.
The parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for the rest and digest response.
It tells your body to:
slow down
breathe and relax
the danger is over
cortisol levels falls back to normal
your body conserves energy
your heart rate slows
your digestion increases
However, most people chronically lean more towards the sympathetic response, which is responsible for the stress response.
We commonly know the stress response as fight, flight and freeze. It’s a survival mechanism. When you experience a threat—whether it’s real or perceived—your body tells you to take action in one of these ways.
Quickened breath and heart rate
Tensing muscles
Sweat
High blood pressure and more blood flow to your organs
Expanding blood vessels to allow you to get more blood flow and oxygen
Heightened senses
Release of blood sugar and fats from the body’s stores to be used for energy
Increased Cortisol levels (stress hormone)
If we remain in this sympathetic state longterm, we’re then in a chronic stress state, and this has longterm effects that we definitely want to avoid.
We’ve probably all experienced fight and flight states. We feel this when we’re afraid, angry, stressed, anxious and so on. We want to run and hide or we get confrontational.
Freeze is an interesting state. When we feel overwhelmed and can’t move forward, we feel stuck, we can’t get out of bed in the morning, we want to avoid people — these can all be freeze responses.
The fawn response, another sympathetic nervous system response, is when we unconsciously behave in a way where we please, appease, and pacify a person we feel threatened by in order to keep safe from further harm. Often we abandon our own needs and have a lack of boundaries. It can be confused with people pleasing, but it is actually a trauma response.
Those of us who behave in this way likely began during childhood in order to feel safe, and continue it in adulthood.
Havening Techniques® is a tool designed to help identify and calm of these sympathetic nervous system states and bring a person into a more balanced and regulated state.
The Feldenkrais Method® is another tool designed to calm your nervous system so that you can think more clearly and rationally during a stress response. It also helps relax the muscles in your body caused by chronic stress.