Your Automonic Nervous System and How to Obtain Long-Term Energy for Your Health

I am guilty, I have done it time and time again. When I am tired and on the road, or when I have in the past studied for exams or other school work, I have stopped for coffee or reached for an energy boost - either a caffeinated soft drink or an energy drink. It is a way to push through and get things done, or is it not? It certainly is a short-term survival strategy, but what is its cost long-term as regards one's mental and physical health? I review some of the scientific information about this below to illustrate what these effects are and how we can craft an approach to faciliate a healthy lifestyle.

The Physiological Effects of Caffeine
It is well known in scientific circles that caffeine causes the stimulation of a physiological process that results in adrenaline production in the body. This physiological process is also called the fight or flight system. Adrenaline, known as epinephrine, and cortisol hormones are produced in the adrenal gland. It is the cortisol that causes an increase in blood pressure, blood sugar levels and a suppression of the immune system. Epinephrine has many effects as well, including increasing the heart beat rate, relaxes muscle cells around the bronchioles to facilated more efficient breathing, causes sweating, and contracts muscle cells that cause hair follicles to rise. (1)

Besides stimulating different processes, the fight-or-flight response also shuts down several processes, including growth, reproduction, digestion and the immune system. Blood flow to the skin is reduced as well (which is why stress can increase the odds of getting sick, lead to skin ailments and can cause sexual dysfunction. (2)

The Two Halves of the Nervous System
There are two halves to our automonic nervous system, one of which is the sympathetic (fight or flight), and the other is the parasympathetic nervous system. It is the sympathic portion which allows us to respond to outside stimuli in order to respond to threats. The parasympathetic nervous system, on the other hand, promotes the relaxation response and normal functioning of the immune. respiratory and digestive systems. Normally, there is a balance between the two halves of the nervous system in the body. This balance is called homeostasis.

Promoting Health
In college, I ran across the concept of sustainable agriculture as a part of my studies in my field. Now, later in life (I am now almost 60), I am thinking that perhaps it would be best to think along these lines in order to have a sustainable life style to the end of keeping myself more healthy. The stress response is a normal part of our lives, but chronic stress can be avoided by the use of stress management methods. There are methods that can be used to activate the relaxation response and reduce the reactivity of the sympathetic nervous system, so you can act more out of calm, rather than agitated alterness.

To this end, I went through a process of discovery over the last 20 years of an ancient Chinese method of exercise that combines relaxation as a part of its routines. That method is called qigong (which is spelled chi gung, chi kung and other variations). As a part of my experience, I started a Wordpress blog called Qigong Healing Arts about two years ago. This blog, in addition to discussing the theory behind qigong, also covers methods of breath meditation which I use to faciliate developing relaxed alertness to help maintain both my mental and physical health.

I have used the methods of qigong over the last 20 years and have taught the techniques to many others. I recommend that you give this ancient method a try and spend some time discovering the abundance of information within the Qigong Healing Arts site that can help people live more healthy and relaxed in a society that is so stressed normally.


References
1. The Fight or Flight Response, Play-by-Play. http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/cellcom/Play-by-play.pdf

2. How Your Brain Responds to Stress. http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/stress.html