The trouble with uncritically prioritizing our nervous systems

Hey friends, Macayla and Natasha Villenueve here! We were in the same Master’s program, and we wanted to share our reflections on something we are noticing. That is, we are seeing more posts on social media about taking care of our nervous systems. We are so glad that people are learning more about themselves and their bodies! And also, we are sometimes concerned when posts uncritically advise us to “be around people who are good for your nervous system,” or something to that effect. While we understand that the nature of social media is to create easily digestible content, we also just want to add some more nuanced considerations.

Before we go further, perhaps we should define what the nervous system is. The nervous system is the circuitry in your body that includes your brain and spinal cord (Central Nervous System) and the nerves throughout your body (Peripheral Nervous System). The Peripheral Nervous System is broken down into the Somatic Nervous System that controls motor movement and the Autonomic Nervous system which manages our internal organs, such as our digestion system and lungs. 

The Autonomic Nervous System is further divided into the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems. This system is wired for survival above all else. When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, that is often referred to as our fight or flight response. In other words, our bodies prepare to fight off or run away from danger by increasing our heart rates, adrenaline levels, and so on, sometimes even outside of our awareness. In contrast, our parasympathetic nervous systems are responsible for our rest and digest response, indicating that we are safe. When we feel stressed or get a “gut feeling” that something is off, our sympathetic nervous system is quick to act in case there is a real threat. 

Our nervous systems are valuable and informative; however, they are not holistic in the information they can provide. Because they are wired for survival, they are programmed for speed. In other words, our nervous systems are quick to keep us alive based on the information they have, but because of the speed with which they work, they rely on assumptions to fill in the blanks of potentially threatening situations and can make mistakes. 

For example, we learn about what is dangerous and safe through direct experience, observation, and stories. While this is necessary, in societies baked in devastating power imbalance and abuse, sometimes what we learn about threat and safety is rooted in biased or discriminatory information. 

The people whom we are taught to avoid, or be cautious of, are often those who experience the most oppression and marginalization in our society; in particular, people who are racialized, unhoused, dark skin, disabled, practice a minority religion, trans, and so on, and especially people with intersections of these social identities (e.g., a dark skin and mentally ill individual). Being taught (overtly and covertly) to avoid these groups and individuals has profound effects on how our nervous systems discern threats. 

For example, when we regularly consume dehumanising media examples that portray Black men as thugs, or when our families hazard us against being near street involved folks, or when we learn in school that Indigenous Peoples are barbaric, our nervous systems are being trained to uncritically identify these groups of people as risky. This can occur outside our awareness, so even if we logically do not subscribe to these beliefs, our nervous systems might still judge and respond otherwise, and lead us to further distance ourselves from experiences that differ from our own.

As such, we ask you to continue to value the information that your nervous system gives you as a way to learn about your experience of the world, while also considering that the information it has to offer reflects experiences that contain biases that are important for us to unpack. In other words, it’s important that we consider the signals that our nervous systems give us to fight, run away, or freeze up with a critical lens. In a given moment of alert, you might slow yourself down and consider:

• Does your nervous system indicate a potential threat because of actual or fabricated danger? 

• How can we slow down our responses and (co-)regulate our nervous systems to remind them when we are, in fact, safe? 

• How can we intentionally (un)learn the lessons we were taught about who is troublesome? 

• How can we go from “stay away from people who give your nervous system bad vibes,” to being curious about why we are getting that sense? 

• And how can we learn to be curious about the personhood of others?

To be clear, we are not asking you to ignore your nervous system as it is a wise source of information, and sometimes (more often for some than others) situations are threatening. Instead, we gently offer a consideration that the information our nervous systems offer to us is incomplete, and we can take the time to invite in additional sources of information available to us, such as critical thought as well as personal and cultural values, to reflect on how we want to relate to each other.

How do you want to (re)train your nervous system?

We love to soothe our nervous systems by spending time with the ocean.

Taken on Lək̓ʷəŋən Territory.