What does the nervous system really do?
The nervous system is our body’s command centre. Not only does it include our brain and spinal cord, but also all the connections between these vital organs and other organs in our body. Originating from our brain, it controls our movements, thoughts and automatic responses to the world around us. It also controls other body systems and processes, such as digestion, breathing and sexual development (puberty). Really, every moment of our day is powered by the nervous system, which is why understanding and harnessing its power can be transformative.
Over the past few years, I’ve become very curious about understanding how to protect our nervous system from damages like diseases, accidents, toxins and even just the natural ageing process. I aim to bring what I have learnt through my extensive research on the topic to help you better understand the basics of our nervous system, and not only how to prevent damage to it through lifestyle choices, but also how we can make it work for us.
Full disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor or a scientist and I don't prescribe anything. Your well-being is your responsibility. I am a humble student, curious about how to live a long and healthy life and how I can help others do the same.
In my previous article, I explored the energy of our nervous system and the role neurons play in our day-to-day functions, an important topic to know when understanding how we tick. If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, make sure to check it out HERE before reading on.
Functions of the nervous system:
The nervous system plays a role in nearly every aspect of our health and well-being. It guides everyday automatic activities such as waking up and breathing, and complex processes like thinking, learning, remembering, feeling and emotions. If we want to summarise the functions of our nervous system without going too deep into the science of it all, we can think of our nervous system as being responsible for five functions.
1. Sensation
Sensation is a non-negotiable function of our nervous system and extremely important for us to understand if we want to improve our nervous system through coaching or other tools. Our entire experience of life is filtered by sensory receptors. Sensory Receptors are dendrites (nerve endings) of sensory neurons specialised for receiving specific kinds of stimuli. These dendrites respond to changes in the environment by converting energy from a specific stimulus into an action potential. For example, taste buds are receptors on the tongue that are activated by chemical properties in food and drinks: taste receptors convert these properties into signals that our brain interprets as a sweet, salty, sour, or bitter taste. Similarly, we have receptors in our eyes that perceive certain colours of light and certain directions of movement, receptors in our skin that perceive particular kinds of touch (like gentle, firm, or painful touch), receptors in our ears that perceive certain sounds and so on.
2. Perception
Perception is our ability to take what we're sensing, focus on it, make sense of it, explore it and remember it. You can think of perceptions as any sensations we pay attention to at any moment. To understand the difference between perception and sensation, let’s take an example. Try to pay attention to the surface your feet are in contact with right now (if your feet are up, maybe it's air). The moment you place your attention or spotlight on your feet, you are now perceiving what was happening or what was being sensed there. The sensation was happening all along, however. So while sensation is non-negotiable, i.e. you can't change your receptors (...unless you adopt some new technology), perception is under the control of your attention.
According to Dr Andrew Huberman, neuroscientist and Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, attention is like a spotlight, except it’s not one spotlight. You actually have two attentional spotlights. Dr Huberman explains: 'If people tell you that you can't multitask, tell them they're wrong because we can place a spotlight of attention on something, for instance, something we're reading or we're looking at, or someone that we're listening to, and we can place a second spotlight of attention on something we're eating and how it tastes or our child running around in the room'.
This means that we can split our attention into two locations (and multitask), and we can also bring our attention – our perception – to one particular location. In short, we can dilate our attention or we can make it more concentrated.
3. Feelings & Emotions
We all know that emotions and feelings are the product of the nervous system. They are not generated from just one part of our brain but rely on several interwoven networks involving the amygdala, ventral tegmental area, orbitofrontal cortex, and many other parts which all serve to appraise external stimuli, generate an initial emotional response, and then regulate that response if needed. The process involves the release of chemicals, known as neuromodulators, from electrically active neurons. You may have heard of certain neuromodulators like dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, and epinephrine. Neuromodulators determine which neurons are likely to be active and which ones are likely to remain inactive.
According to Dr Huberman, ‘A simple way to think about neuromodulators is to think about them like playlists on any kind of device. Just like you can play particular categories of music, you can activate any kind of neuromodulators at any given moment (intentionally or unintentionally). Dopamine, for instance, is often described as the molecule of reward, where joy is involved. It tends to create an upbeat mood when released in appropriate amounts in the brain by making certain neurons and neural circuits more active and others less active. Dopamine is more than a molecule of reward. It is really more a molecule of motivation toward external stimuli or goals. When we accomplish something related to our goal or whatever we are trying to achieve, a little bit of dopamine is released and we feel motivated. Neuromodulators can exist at normal levels, low levels, and high levels, and we will talk about these neuromodulators in detail in a future article.
4. Thoughts
We process almost 80,000 thoughts every day. Have you ever thought about your thoughts? Thoughts are really interesting, because, in many ways, they're like perceptions, except that they draw on not just what's happening in the present, but also things we remember from the past and things that we anticipate about the future. Thoughts are our perceptions, ideas and beliefs about the world, and they influence our emotions. Thinking about a tough exam can trigger stress and anxiety within us. Thinking about a loved one can induce feelings of happiness and warmth. Thoughts can be both reflexive and can occur all the time without effort or they can be deliberate. You can decide to have a thought right now, just like you would decide to have a cup of tea.
Cognitive neuroscience says that we’re only conscious of 5% of our cognitive activities. That means 95% of the time we are unconsciously conscious. Have you ever driven home from work without paying conscious attention, but still managed to take the right turns, even while being completely lost in your thoughts? Thoughts are generated in the brain by the firing of neurons, which can range from one signal per second to 1,000 signals per second. My coaching is based on the underlying principle that thought patterns and the neural circuits that underlie thoughts can be controlled deliberately, meaning you direct your thought process.
5. Actions
Actions or behaviours are perhaps the most important aspect of our nervous system. Our behaviours are the only thing that is going to create any fossil record of our existence after we die. The perceptions, thoughts and feelings we have in our lifespan, none of it is carried forward except the ones that we convert into actions. Imagine experiencing something very joyful or very sad. It can feel so all-encompassing that we think it has some meaning beyond that moment. But, none of these feelings will be carried forward unless we convert them into action, like writing about it. So the fossil record of our species and each one of us is actually through action. This is the reason why so much of our nervous system is devoted to converting sensations, perceptions, feelings, and thoughts into actions. Actions, just like thoughts, can be either reflexive or deliberate. We all know what it's like to be reflexive. You go through life: you're walking, if you already know how to walk, you don't think about your walking, you just walk. The information is flowing in through your senses– regardless of what you're perceiving– and it's directing your activity. That's called “bottom-up” processing.
Deliberate actions are “top-down” processing. At any moment while walking, for instance, a car screeches in front of you from around the corner and you suddenly pause. You are now moving into deliberate action. You will start looking around in a very deliberate way. Deliberate actions require some effort and some focus.
This means that you can decide to focus your attention and energy on anything you want. This also means that you can decide to focus your behaviour in any way you want. Deliberate action or behaviour requires some effort and some strain, whereas in reflexive mode– just walking and talking and eating and doing your thing– no effort is required. The nervous system wants to pass off as much as it can to reflexive action, so that it is easier for us to perform those actions.
Let’s look at an example. Suppose you are trying to learn a new language or engage in a new activity. Any time you are deliberately forcing yourself over a threshold, you are engaging these brain circuits that recruit neuromodulators released from particular areas of your brain. These neuromodulators start telling your nervous system that something is different about what I'm doing and what I'm feeling. Mostly, it feels like agitation because it's accompanied by the release of a neuromodulator called norepinephrine (adrenaline), which makes us feel agitated. However, if you repeatedly practise an action, the neural networks - groups of neurons that fire together, creating electrochemical pathways - shape themselves according to that memory or activity. Over time, this changes the structure of neurons, the strength of the neural connections and pathways, and the physical structure of the brain. The action becomes reflexive and requires little or no effort. It moves from deliberate (requiring effort) to reflexive (no effort). However, if we stop engaging in the same activity or using the language we are trying to learn, the brain changes will reverse. So, to sustain this change in the long term, repetition is necessary. The same principle applies when we want to stop doing something or remove a bad habit.
How can coaching help me?
Coaching is all about helping people achieve their goals and create change. Neuroplasticity - the ability of the brain to change - underpins all behaviour change. During coaching, I help clients deliberate their attention on things that align with their goals. Through repetition, these new habits or thinking patterns or whatever it is we are working on, move from deliberate to reflexive and, as a result, your nervous system doesn’t have to work so hard to perform those actions. In our next article, we will deep-dive into neuroplasticity and how we can leverage the unique adaptability of our brain to our advantage.
