Tackling the Nervous System with Mindfulness
Welcome back to our weekly blog on mindfulness, health and wellbeing. Our current series is examining the ‘mechanisms of mindfulness’ — how might mindfulness produce some of the effects it claims it has? What does the scientific evidence tell us? Last week we learnt about how the central mechanism of change may be the rhythm of the breath and its effect on stabilising and refining attention, and the flow on effects this may have on other body systems and their rhythms. Today’s blog will cover the idea of how meditating may influence the parasympathetic nervous system. Let’s begin!
The Parasympathetic Nervous System
Some scientists have theorised that some of the effects of mindfulness could be due to activating the parasympathetic nervous system. But what exactly is the parasympathetic nervous system?
The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for speeding everything up, and the parasympathetic system responsible for slowing everything down
Our nervous system includes our brain and spinal cord as well as the other nerves in our body that cause us to feel, see and taste. One way to think about how our nervous system works is by thinking about it operating in one of two ‘directions’ or in two different ways — these are called the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. They are not really two different systems, but more like the brake and the accelerator of a car. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible for speeding everything up, and the parasympathetic system responsible for slowing everything down. You may have noticed that in some moments, like when you are about to sit an exam, or have a performance in public, or when you are threatened and in danger, your heart rate increases, your blood pressure goes up, you have a rush of adrenaline, your muscles feel tense, and you may even feel like going to the toilet. This is your sympathetic nervous system doing its thing.
how does it impact us?
Scientists theorise that our nervous system evolved partly in response to threats in our environment. During our early evolution, when there were threats in the environment (like a sabre tooth tiger) we needed to be able to flee or fight the tiger in order to survive. This is commonly called the ‘fight or flight’ response. Scientists theorise that this is how the sympathetic part of our nervous system evolved. Similarly, after the threat to our life has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in, which slows everything down and brings us back down to normal.
What scientists postulate is that this innate part of how our nervous system functions remains with us today — and in fact is vital in a similar way for acknowledging and responding to danger. However, what they also postulate is that we can respond to elements of our environment which are not immediately life threatening in the same way — like exams, for example. Or, we can respond to our own thoughts in this way. Over time, people can find that almost everything in their environment can potentially be a cause of stress, which can lead to a feeling that our sympathetic nervous system is constantly activated. As a result of this, we can feel constantly on edge, anxious, threatened, and stressed.
how do we deal with this?
Some experts think that mindfulness, through the repetitive cycling of breathing, and of training and stabilising the attention on the breath, can help activate the parasympathetic nervous system, and ‘turn down’ the sympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system slows everything down and gets us back down to our normal, natural resting state.
Through this mechanism, among others, meditation has been shown to have effects on our cardiovascular system, including lowering blood pressure and lowering our heart rate. There is some evidence to suggest that practicing meditation can reduce the likelihood of getting cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks. One mechanism for this may also be the way meditation impacts what is known as the ‘stress response’, which is what we will cover next week.
That’s all for this week’s blog — tune in next week when we will cover more about the mechanisms of mindfulness. And don’t forget to join us in the StudyStream library every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 19:30BST for live and free mindfulness sessions with expert teachers.
You can check out links to some of the articles mentioned below:
More on mindfulness and how it affects our nervous system here:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2015/731579/
More on meditation and cardiovascular health here:
