The Nervous System Broken Down
What Is The Nervous System
The nervous system is the master control system for every bodily function, conscious or unconscious. Thankfully, thousands of the functions of our body happen automatically as our body takes care of our day to day needs.
The nervous system in can be looked at in two parts; the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS).
Central Nervous System
The CNS is comprised of the brain, brain stem and the spinal cord and is surrounded by the skull and the spinal column. The PNS is everything else – all the nerves that leave the spinal cord and communicate messages with the rest of the body.
Peripheral Nervous System
The PNS is further broken down into the autonomic nervous system and the somatic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is responsible for all the functions of your body that happen automatically, without you thinking about them, such as your digestion, heart rate, blood pressure, hormone systems and countless other body functions.
Somatic Nervous System
The somatic nervous system is responsible for communicating sensory information from the environment, and voluntary motor communication.
Autonomic Nervous System
The ANS can be broken down further once again into the sympathetic nervous system, this is the system that is responsible to speeding-up your bodily processes in times of stress (you may have heard this referred to fight or flight) and your parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for slowing things down and repairing your body. You can think of these systems as you would an accelerator and a break in a car.
The Nervous System is the Master Control System of the Body
In order for your body to be functioning at its optimal level, a number of things have to happen;
Your Spine And The Nervous System
Your spine is a protective structure that surrounds your central nervous system, but it is way more than just that. If your spine was built purely for protection, you wouldn’t see all the movable parts that we call vertebrae. You would see a strong immovable structure. Spinal movement is therefore vitally important for the body and the most movable part of the spine is the upper neck.
With this comes a compromise - with more movement comes less stability and with less stability comes the ability for the spine to misalign. Misalignment of the upper-cervical spine can cause interference with communication at the level of the brainstem and when we see this, chiropractors refer to it as a vertebral subluxation.
Correcting vertebral subluxations allows this system to work at its full capacity, maintaining the body in balance and allowing body systems, which may have previously been compromised, to work at their optimum.
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