Dr. Jay Wiles

Because I think a lot of people, they hear this word nervous system,

It's kind of like one of those cool catchphrases in terms of people using the health and wellness sphere right now that I don't think people actually fully grasp and understand what it is.

So maybe it makes sense for me to explain the nervous system a little bit.

Okay.

So when we talk about nervous system, we're talking about a massive signaling highway.

And when we think about a massive signaling highway, we think about nerve endings that are running throughout the entire body.

So all the way from the brain and spinal cord out to the periphery.

of the body itself.

And it's all about communication.

It's all about sending signals and messages to and from the brain and the spinal cord out to the body and then back up.

So efferent and afferent signaling.

The nervous system is not just in one location or in one area.

So a lot of people when they think about nervous system, they think about what's going on within the brain.

That's the central nervous system.

So the central nervous system is the brain and the spinal cord.

But there are also other signaling highways, one being the peripheral nervous system, which is a larger umbrella term that people use.

But within the peripheral nervous system, we have the somatic nervous system and the autonomic nervous system.

Somatic nervous system is all voluntary.

So it's movement, coordination, muscular contraction, whereas the autonomic nervous system is all about involuntary, or at least we thought it used to be all involuntary.

And so this is things like managing things like your respiration, your blood pressure, heart rate, digestion.