HWN Suggests

Breathe. Exhale. Repeat: The Benefits of Controlled Breathing

The nervous system is a fascinating and complex network of nerves, synapses, and organs that work together to transmit signals throughout your body. It’s one system in a larger environment, and it’s responsible for everything from movement to unconscious acts like adjusting your vision and maintaining your resting heart rate.

Understanding the parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) can be complicated because it’s part of a much larger network of bodily processes. Essentially, the parasympathetic nervous system, also known as the “rest and digest” system controls bodily functions associated with the body at rest and after digestion. To fully understand this system, you need an overview…

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Featured

 Proper Breathing Brings Better Health

Stress reduction, insomnia prevention, emotion control, improved attention—certain breathing techniques can make life better. But where do you start?

 Rest & Digest: Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)

The PNS is the yang to SNS yin. It originates from the base of the head (brainstem) and extends to every organ it intends to work on through long fibers connected to neurons. You can consider the PNS as the “business as usual” system, since it ensures your basic body functions operate as they should.

Articles of Interest

How to Stimulate Your Parasympathetic Nervous System

Instead of activating your stress response like the sympathetic nervous system, your parasympathetic nervous system is meant to act as a brake. It tells your body it's okay to slow down, to take deep breaths, and to relax. This response allows your cortisol levels to fall. It tells your body to conserve energy, to slow the heart rate, and to increase intestinal and gland activity. It even relaxes the sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract.

Just Breathe: Body Has A Built-In Stress Reliever

There are plenty of ways to relieve stress -- exercise, a long soak in a hot bath, or even a massage. But believe it or not, something you're doing right now, probably without even thinking about it, is a proven stress reliever: breathing. As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it's been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system -- and maybe even the expression of genes.

Parasympathetic Nervous System Functions

The PSNS begins in the brain and branches out via long fibers, which lead to connecting neurons that are near the organs they intend to act upon, enabling quick responses.

Stephen Porges: ‘Survivors are blamed because they don’t fight’

The psychiatry professor on the polyvagal theory he developed to understand our reactions to trauma.

What are the actions of autonomic receptors in the body?

One of our medical students and a Dell Med professor — Aydin Zahedivash and Michael Lee, PhD — created this interactive figure depicting the actions as a learning tool.

Resources

StatPearls

The parasympathetic nervous system predominates in quiet “rest and digest” conditions while the sympathetic nervous system drives the “fight or flight” response in stressful situations. The main purpose of the PNS is to conserve energy to be used later and to regulate bodily functions like digestion and urination