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STRESS BREAKDOWN: PARASYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM AND CHRONIC OVERACTIVITY OF THE SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM

If a person habitually pushes himself to the point of developing anxiety symptoms, his body is going to be chronically ready for running away and fighting. That is, the adrenaline secreted by the sympathetic nervous system has the body perpetually prepared for action. Under those circumstances, not much of the body's housekeeping can be done.

Normally, during periods of rest and sleep, the parasympathetic nervous system is operative. Its job is concerned with looking after the body's housekeeping, and it oversees the proper functioning of the organs of digestion and assimilation of food, and of excreting waste products in the urine. If a person is chronically prepared for physical action, with excess adrenaline being secreted, then the body's housekeeping must be done in spite of its preparedness for physical action. Therefore, when a person is chronically anxious over a period of time, the parasympathetic nervous system has to counter the effects of excess adrenaline produced by the sympathetic nervous system by secreting more of its transmitter substance, acetyl choline.

The extra acetyl choline secreted, and its opposition by the extra adrenaline, can produce problems with control of the speed of bowel movements, and with the ordered contraction of the muscular walls of other hollow organs inside the abdomen. Thus spasm of the large bowel can be a complication of chronic anxiety, as is dyspepsia, from disordered contraction of the stomach. These symptoms may result from chronic anxiety, where the parasympathetic nervous system has to struggle against the over-activity of the sympathetic nervous system.

Another symptom produced by over-activity of the parasympathetic nervous system is fainting. When people faint from emotion, they have usually been fearful for a fairly long period of time. People faint in doctor's rooms regularly, for example, when they have to be given injections that they have dreaded the thought of since the appointment was first made. The parasympathetic nervous system has been increasing its activity on the heart over the preceding hour or so to oppose the over-activity of the sympathetic nervous system. At the last minute, the last surge of panic as the needle is sighted is too much for the system. The sympathetic nervous system fatigues and the heart are left with the high level of parasympathetic (slowing) stimulation. The pulse rate drops suddenly to 15 or 30 or so, the person turns pale, says he's going to vomit, and faints.

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