Introduction
The article this week will give some good insight into a connection that most people don't connect or even correlate to each other, the nervous system and their own mental well being. Mental health has become a topic that has increased in awareness and popularity but are people truly trying to get a handle on their own mental health or are they simply trying to drown out the signals shown? A survey on the website, Our World in Data, states that approximately 1 out of every 6 Americans are on some form of medication for a mental health disorder which also includes anxiety and depression both. So, are we solving the issue or are we solving the symptoms because we don’t know the issue? Medication is usually a viable option for people to assist in simply getting out of the day to day cycle of mental distress and dull the effects of autonomic dysfunction, but what is really causing the dysregulation in the first place? Where does it even start? What is the pathway it takes? How can we keep the pathway clear and strengthen it?
The Brain
Before we can even start in unravelling the course of thoughts, impulses, and imagination and how it ties into the regulation of organ function and overall neural capacity. We must first start with the “brains” behind it all. You see from the illustration that literally everything that is expressed internally and externally has to be processed in the brain and organized. Each lobe has specific responsibilities to regulate and coerce. Each initial action or reaction of the specific process centers can start from a stimulus externally or internally. Let's start with externally, You're going to go to the gym today. You start the thought in your brain from the frontal lobe utilizing the behavior center. You come up with a workout plan that suits your behavior you want. Once you start working out, your behavior center will continue to process the stimulation coming in during that workout to continue your desired behaviour. While this is happening, other process centers are always firing as well, such as the muscle control and balance in the occipital lobe. Your behaviour initiates what muscle or action your body needs to perform and then during that movement, your fire specific action potentials to specific mechanoreceptors in specific muscle groups to respond to that stimulation onward. This ongoing stimulation will then continue to influence your behavior and your attitude toward the workout. It’s a lot easier to continue exercising when you're not worn out compared to when your muscles are exhausted. Now, internally, it is generally the same idea, but has different factors that are not easy to influence ourselves. The tools that are dispersed and how they are utilized are already innately integrated into our bodies design. Which in my opinion is a great thing because I couldn’t remember all that!
We will continue with the working out illustration. When you exercise, you put a medley of stresses on a variety of soft tissues, hard tissue, and organs in response to the action. For soft tissue, it could look like soreness after causing micro tears, hard tissue would be achiness in the joints, and an example of organs would be controlling breathing during actions. The brain has to receive and process all the information coming in and send the corrective information and tools (cells) in response to it for continued action or healing. This is a created cause and effect loop that is not only relevant to moving but any desired action or thought we have incurred in our life. We are all unique with different personal goals, imaginations, dreams, and responsibilities. This creates a multiverse of linkages and neural pathways for our brain and our body. It is also ever adapting to new activities or new thoughts we add to our internal mosaic. This is what we call, “neuroplascicity”. I urge you to look it up on your own because that could be an article just for itself. With that being said we can simplify this entire communication system that the brain uses for these signals down to three words, The Nervous System!
Autonomic Nervous System
Since we have now gotten context about the nervous system, I would like to highlight the Autonomic Nervous System because this plays a crucial role in day to day activities. It truly does as the name states, It is the “automatic” nervous system. It does everything automatically that does not need to be consciously done such as regulate Heart Rate, Breathing, Stomach Acid Build Up, Hormone Secretion, Digestion, Bowel Function, Liver Detoxification, and literally anything else you can think of that your body does without you even thinking out it. There are two aspects of it, Parasympathetic (rest and digest) and Sympathetic (fight or flight). The Sympathetic is the pathway that sends signals to the organs to adapt in a specific way in response to stressful or strenuous situations like in scary movies with people running away but it can also occur with small things like working out, driving on a busy street, or taking an important test. The Parasympathetic system is the pathway that is theoretically more commonly used on a daily basis for people and every day tasks. I say theoretically because stress has become such a daily occurrence and this causes a chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system leading to chronic fatigue. Did you know that in 2023, The Global Emotions Report, stated that up to 49% of Americans report having significantly daily stress. I would even venture out to say it has increased since then. Also, signalcare.com, showed a stress statistic of the age group with highest correspondents showing 82% of people from the age of 18-34 yrs old worry about health and money. This time of your life should be full of liberating, pioneering, and diverse emotions navigating your purpose, not predominantly used in worrying. Especially worrying about your health in a time of your life that should be vigorous and resilient.
HRV (Heart Rate Variability)
One marker to truly test how well your nervous system is adapting to the ongoing stressors of life would be HRV or “Heart Rate Variability”. This measures how your heart responds and stimulates correct signals in various moments of time in response to a stimulus. If you have a low HRV, it constantly stays the same whether you are resting or stressed. Same blood flow, same neural demand, same organ function. You don’t want to have your heart beat or respiratory rate be the same while you are sitting on the couch.
Mental Health
Now the measurement of good mental health and overall well being can be subjectively determined but from a clinical and physiological standpoint. I believe we have started on a good foundation of variabilities that have to play a role into a cohesive unit of brain function. There are a multitude of process centers inside the HQ (brain) that have a mixture of responsibilities in processing information and reporting that information. This creates a direct course of the cause and effect loop that can determine and respond naturally without flaw. What do you think happens if the information being sent from a stimuli is distorted? I’ll tell you. This creates an altered response to the stimuli that continues a disconnected loop and creates scattered information within the process centers due to not being able to respond to the stress effectively. In turn, this causes the HQ (brain) to break down and become chaotic in trying to find a solution to a problem it doesn’t have the evidence for or even know. It's like soldiers in a war fighting, sending information to the home base but the home base can’t precisely come up with a counter attack ultimately losing the war due to having insufficient evidence in countering the enemy.
Chiropractic Care
This is how chiropractic care assists the body in keeping a high quality life and high standing of mental well being. It is not a treatment for mental illness but a gateway to sufficient flow of information in adapting to the natural demands put upon the brain and the body. The adjustments eliminate subluxations, stimulate the nervous system, and reawaken the pathways that become clogged with neural clutter. Soldiers send sufficient evidence to the home base and the home base wins due to being able to come up with a precise counter attack.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have gone over the connection between the nervous system and mental health. This overview only cuts into the surface of all the full details at play but hopefully provides an illustration for you to connect the abstract thought, chemical signals, neural adaptability, and stimulus response to its effect on mental expression. Ask your chiropractor about the connection or even ask any health practitioner if they have connected the two! In congruence with chiropractic care and good mental health. Ways to assist would also be a nutritious diet, adequate water intake, quality sleep, exercise, and a sense of fulfillment. Most people don’t think about the last reason but being happy doing an activity or achieving a goal allows the quality of purpose to come in and bring certainty. All these things cooperating create true health! Thank you for reading. Live your best life and live Primal!✊