Without a doubt the human body is amazing. We tend to think of the spine as being the connection between the brain and body, which serves as the central nervous system. This controls muscles and provides feedback from tendons and the skin.
There is more to us than our muscles and skin. The Autonomic Nervous System is the chemical arrangement of hormones that control how we function, a bit like a thermostat.
The body functions almost independently of the brain. The brain does not cause food to be digested or the heart to beat, instead it uses its influence on the Autonomic Nervous System to raise blood pressure and heart rate, as well as thicken saliva and slow down digestion when we get angry or fearful and then the Autonomic Nervous System hits the thermostatic control and releases chemicals that slow the heart rate and lower blood pressure, thin saliva and speed up digestion.
The body uses blood for everything, the oxygen for breathing, the food in its usable form as well as waste products and hormones are transmitted through the body using the blood stream. The Autonomous Nervous System provides hormones to the body in order to control the organs.
Take a stone and throw it in a puddle of water, the stone causes intense waves in the puddle that slowly diminish, this is what the Autonomous Nervous System does. Its aim is to diminish into calm, but humans tend to have emotional responses that are like throwing stones into puddles.
Things go wrong when you alter your body’s limits using stimulants and depressants. Taking a stone out of a puddle doesn’t stop the waves, your interference makes them bigger. Throwing a bigger stone in the water creates bigger waves. We call this depression when we interfere with our body’s natural cycle, trying to force it to produce smaller waves by creating bigger waves.
Since the Autonomous Nervous System is hormonal, when stimulated and depressed it saturates the blood with two conflicting hormones. Eventually the body simply strips them out and returns to calm, but that can take months if the blood is saturated with hormones. There is a more instant solution, which involves extracting the blood and cleaning it of all hormones before returning it to the body, but that affects the rest of the body’s hormone processes.
Nature provides a solution to depression, that is to stop what you are doing and go outside in the sunshine. Eliminate stimulants such as coffee, tea and chocolate as well as depressants such as alcohol replacing them with water. Exercise and diet are also key to bringing calm back to your body.