Everyone knows that feeling right? You have a sinking, nasty feeling in your gut when something emotionally bad happens. Your girlfriend says ‘we need to talk’ or you see your crush with someone else. What is happening and why does your body decide you need to feel super uncomfortable for hours and hours after something happens. Is it fight or flight?
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In your body you have two nervous systems. The voluntary nervous system that is directed by your mind and the autonomic system that works automatically.
It is a bit like a modern car. You have the steering wheel, throttle and brake that control the car but there are also things like the engine management unit, anti slip brakes and cruse control that take over the more complex tasks.
The autonomic system is in change of things like controlling breathing, digestion, heart rate and a whole lot of other things. The autonomic system also works off of hints given by your mind as to what it should be doing.
If you are in a relaxed state then the autonomic system will prioritize things needed for long term survival. Like digestion. However when the autonomic system is told that there is some sort of crisis happening it diverts energy away from long term survival to short term survival.
There is no point digesting a meal that can provide nutrients over the next few hours when a predator is about to eat you. The body does a star trek “Divert life support power to phasors” approach to get as much energy you can use your limbs to fight or flee whatever is threatening you.
However this system is very old and there is no way to tell that what you fear is bad news from your girlfriend and not a slobbering beast full of teeth.
So basically the sinking nausea feeling you are getting is the autonomic nervous system kicking into emergency power mode.
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