Tag Archives: sympathetic nervous system

by

Lie low and flow

We have fight or flight for the sympathetic nervous system state, when we are ramped up, aggressive, go getters, all that stuff. We need a term for the parasympathetic nervous system state, the relaxed one. So far I’ve come up with lie low and flow. Other suggestions? I welcome them! We need more lie low and flow and glow and say no and ho, ho, ho in the world. What puts you in that state? Knitting? Stupid cat videos? Bugs Bunny? A bubblebath? Watching toddlers? What makes you laugh and yawn and relax and lets all the tension flow out and sink or float away?

In clinic I am seeing a wide age range. Most of the younger ones, say, under 60, look a bit shell shocked. I think this is still from the pandemic and wars and political nastiness. The over 60 crowd seems to not care as much. They’ve been through it, they know people die, they know bad stuff happens.

A friend and I were talking about pandemics and he pointed out that HIV and AIDS was a pandemic too. So we are on track for two pandemics per century. The younger folk do not remember the HIV and AIDS pandemic and how frightening it was. Right before that started, some doctors proclaimed that infectious disease had been conquered by medicine. Um, RONG RONG RONG! Boy did they eat THOSE words. And early in that pandemic, no one knew what to believe, what was happening, how to stay safe, and the communication from the medical establishment changed very fast. I wonder if the people who were young adults and older in the 1980s were less surprised by the Covid-19 Pandemic and all the rumors and confusion. Yep, seen it before.

I am not sure how to help the younger shell shocked looking folks. Colorado is a bit tough and manly and consequently there is not a huge amount of resources for emotional health. Yesterday I asked if we have anyone who does neuropsychiatric testing and the answer I got was “I don’t know.” I will dig around today but did not find it on the internet. I have found neuropsych testing hugely helpful for traumatic brain injuries, post brain surgery, and to sort out unusual learning and memory styles. One woman had a brain tumor removed. Her memory was affected. She could remember things that she wrote down and read, but not things that she only heard. No one had given her the report to read. They only told her, so she did not remember it. At least, that was the story. I gave her the report and said, “Read it. And tell your family. And if you are on the phone, take notes.”

Ok, now I should get ready for work, though I want to lie low and watch a silly cat video.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: yawn.

by

Damaged or blessed?

Am I damaged or blessed to have PANS?

Damaged because it has put me out six times? Four times with pneumonia, once with preterm labor, and once with mononucleosis. Plus getting really sick with strep A as a kid, an earache that had me crying with pain at age 8, coughs in medical school that would hang on for six weeks and not respond to albuterol. Only rest would help. A year this time and not better yet, 6 months out last time and then seven years working half time. In 2012 out two months. 2005 out two months. Preterm labor out 6 months. Mononucleosis: dropped ten pounds and did not feel better or gain it back for two months. How much income have I lost? A lot. Am I damaged?

Blessed because I am not dead? My sister dies of cancer at 49, my mother at 61, my mother’s father at 79. All three married people who had “anger issues”. And all three got cancer.

I think that they had anger that they could not reach.

I do not think that ALL cancer is buried, unexamined, unresolved anger. But I am starting to see a medical pathway that could lead from buried anger or other buried emotions to illness and death. The buried emotions are stressful. The body tries to hold the stress. The body works very hard at it. The conscious mind is not aware. This is the realm of the unconscious. The stress, the unresolved trauma, anger, grief, whatever, triggers antibodies. Heightened sympathetic nervous system, higher adrenaline and higher cortisol. Cortisol is the steroid system. Steroids help to lower inflammation but they also impair the immune system. The immune system is chronically suppressed, trashed, and then it can’t do its job. Anti lysoganglioside antibodies form and block the lysogangliosides. The lysogangliosides are supposed to clean house in the brain. They can’t clean house, they are paralyzed. And the brain forms plaques: dementia. Or some other antibody forms that blocks cancer removing cells in the immune system: and there it is. Cancer.

We all have cancer all the time, that our immune system is removing. That’s a little weird to think about, isn’t it? So we need healthy immune systems, we need the parasympathetic nervous system, we need to relax, we need to play, we need to laugh ourselves silly at stupid cat videos, we need to make ridiculous memes go viral on TikTok, we need to use the power of the internet to drive the cost of a share up just to fuck with the rich Bosses, because we are tired of them fucking us over.

So, says my sig other, or he who used to be. You need to avoid stress, in order to not get sick again.

Well. I stopped eating on Saturday a week ago and ate minimal calories and mostly high protein and fat. Because I was pretty sure he was breaking up with me. He felt the same about me. I was terrified when we walked two days ago, so I wore the dragon shirt. Most of all I wanted not to yell.

Neither of us yelled. We both listened. He doesn’t know why he has shut me out of three areas of his life, and the three most important ones. It isn’t me. He is aware that it is him. He was not really aware that he was doing it. I am trained to hide emotions, from childhood in my crazy family and then physicians are trained as well. I cry with patients sometimes, when we find that their cancer is back, or other things like that. The child dying. But I can hold a calm expression even when a person tells me that they are hearing voices telling them to kill themselves and would I please take out the antenna in their tooth. So I sat hard on my emotions for ten months. Until I thought the right time had come.

Even then, I did my best and screwed up. We’d opened up one thing and I thought the rest would be ok. I sent an email. Whoa, boy, it was NOT ok, and I got yelled at. I burst into tears. I didn’t feel like yelling at all, I was crushed. But it is ok, it had to come out. The Year of the Ox is almost over. I hope the Year of the Tiger is less horrible. But at the same time, I would not trade the time with him for anything.

Damaged or blessed? Cursed or blessed?

Both, I think. All of us.

I am submitting this to today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt, though it is not a hawk.

by

Stress and the sympathetic nervous system

People talk about adrenal fatigue: what is it that they mean? And how can we address it?

When we are relaxed, or less stressed, we make more sex hormones and thyroid hormone.

When we are in a crisis, or more stressed, we make more adrenaline and cortisol.

The pain conference I went to at Swedish Hospital took this a step further. They said that chronic pain and PTSD patients are in a high sympathetic nervous system state. The sympathetic nervous system is the fight or flight state. It’s great for emergencies: increases heart rate, dilates air passages in the lungs, dilates pupils, reduces gut mobility, increases blood glucose, and tightens the fascia in the muscles so that you can fight or run. But…. what if you are in a sympathetic nervous system state all the time? Fatigue, decreased sex drive, insomnia and agitated or anxious. And remember the tightened fascia? Muscle pain.

When we are relaxed, the parasympathetic system is in charge. Digesting food, resting, sexual arousal, salivation, lacrimation, urination, and defecation. So saliva, tears, urine, and bowel movements, not to mention digesting food and interest in sex. And muscles relax.

If the sympathetic nervous system is in overdrive, how do we shut it off? I had an interesting conversation with a person with PTSD last week, where he said that he finds that all his muscles are tight when he is watching television. He can consciously relax them.

“Do they stay relaxed?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” he replies, “but my normal is the hyperalert state.”

“Maybe the hyperalert state, the sympathetic state, is what you are used to, rather than being your normal.”

He sat and stared at me. A different idea….

So HOW do we switch over from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic state?

Swedish taught a breathing technique.

Twenty minutes. Six breaths per minute, either 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out, or 6 in and 4 out. Your preference. And they said that after 15 minutes, people switch from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic state.

Does this work for everyone? Is it always at 15 minutes? I don’t know yet. But now I am thinking hard about different ways to switch the sympathetic to parasympathetic.

Meditation.
Slow walking outside.
Rocking: a rocking chair or glider.
Breathing exercises.
Massage: but not for people who fear being touched. One study of a one hour massage showed cortisol dropping by 50% on average in blood levels. That is huge.
Playing: (one site says especially with children and animals. But it also says we are intelligently designed).
Yoga, tai chi, and chi kung.
Whatever relaxes YOU: knitting, singing, working on cars, carving, puttering, soduku, jigsaw puzzles, word searches, making bean pictures or macaroni pictures, coloring…..and I’ll bet the stupid pet photos and videos help too….

My patient took my diagrams and notes written on the exam table paper home. He is thinking about the parasympathetic state: about getting to know it and deliberately exploring it.

More ideas: http://www.wisebrain.org/ParasympatheticNS.pdf

I like this picture of Princess Mittens. She looks as if she has her head all turned around. Isn’t that how we get with too much sympathetic and not enough parasympathetic nervous system action?