Thank you for joining me again this evening for our nightly podcast. I am Dr. Harrison Campbell primary chiropractor at Restoration Health a premier sugar land chiropractors office. I do these podcasts in the hopes that you will be able to pull information from them and apply it to your life to help you. For tonights podcast let us look into the parasympathetic nervous system.
The parasymptathic nervous system is once part of what sugar land chiropractors call the autonomic nervous system. This autonomic nervous system is formed from the the previously mentioned parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. Combined these two systems are responsible for the non conscious actions required from our nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is what is commonly called the fight or flight system. The parasympathetic nervous system is the rest and digest system.
This rest and digest system is what performs the actions our body required when we are eating, absorbing nutrients, resting and repairing. We will break down each of these actions in regards to the parasympathetic nervous system tonight.
When we are eating the body must prepare itself for food in order to capture the nutrients it will need to sustain itself. To this end, the blood flow in the body must be diverted towards the gut as it is blood which will carry the nutrients to where it is needed. As sugar land chiropractors know the blood stream or cardiovascular system is the bodies main highway. As we have discussed in previous podcasts the cardiovascular system is a closed system meaning there is only a certain amount of blood. We cannot have large quantities of blood in the gut and flowing towards the muscles in the arms and legs simultaneously. This means the parasympathetic nervous system will constrict the arteries leading towards these muscles and dilate the arteries leading towards and inside the gut.
By balancing this blood flow and directing the blood where it is needed the parasymptathic system ensures that when we eat we can absorb all the nutrients we may need and transport it effectively. This is why the old wives tale of not swimming immediately after eating is applicable.
The same symptom is true for when we are resting. The parasympathetic system increasing preparing our bodies for sleep and repair. One reason people have a hard time resting for the night as sugar land chiropractors can tell you is their sympathetic system does not turn down keeping them in a constant state of fight or flight preventing them from resting. This leads people to having to utilize sleep aids in order to have a restful night sleep.
Let us side track for a minute to further explain this balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic. It can be said that the sympathetic nervous system can turn down the parasympathetic system thus allowing fight or flight in or time of need. The opposite however is not true. The parasympathetic system cannot turn down the sympathetic system. What happens is the sympathetic system allows the parasympathetic system to turn up. The way sugar land chiropractors describe this is mechanism is more the sympathetic system decreasing allowing the parasympathetic system to turn up.
Now back on track. With the knowledge that the parasympathetic nervous system cannot override the sympathetic nervous system we will relook at the sleep aspect of rest and digest. Should stress be over taking our lives the sympathetic nervous system will respond by increasing its activity level to help us cope with it. This elevated function in the sympathetic nervous system will repress the parasympathetic nervous system preventing sleep and proper nutrition through digestion.
This is important because most American live high stress lives and fail to properly deal with this stress. This is not to say all stress is harmful, but not managing the stress will impact our health and the parasympathetic nervous system. As sugar land chiropractors know having activities or places or hobbies which allow a person to cope with their stress is a huge step towards being healthy and allowing the parasympathetic nervous system to direct our resting and digesting.
Some of you are asking why we feel so far off topic when tonights podcast was supposed to be about parasympathetic nervous system. This is because of how intertwined each aspect is unfortunately. An analogy I was given when first learning of this at school was its like jumping on a carousel while its moving. You have to start somewhere and it will not all make sense right at first but stick with and and you will soon see the bigger picture.
Most sugar land chiropractors will agree about the complexity of the issue. We are looking at a topic from ten thousand feet while occasionally diving closer at particular spots. The simple fact of the matter is that to fully grasp this topic of the nervous system it will require many many podcasts and each podcast itself will only provide a small glimpse of the picture at hand. We will continue to discuss these topics in our nightly podcasts but there will continue to be questions you will have on why things are the way they are until you fully understand the nervous system as a whole.
For example we have not ever discussed the ions required for electrical impulses to travel nor the electrical gradient created by ion pumps allowing these impulses to be generated in the first place. The reason electrolytes are important is electrolytes are salts and these salts are particular ions which the body uses for these gradients. Hopefully you will stick with me as we unravel the complexity that is our nervous system and its many parts.
I do hope you found tonights podcast educational and informative. Thank you for staying until the end. Should you or someone you know require the services of sugar land chiropractors please call Restoration Health to schedule an appointment today. Thank you for joining us this evening and I hope to see you next time. Good night.