Many actions are controlled by autonomic nerves, except some, like breathing, can be interfered by the conscious, while others, like the beating of the heart, cannot. In fact, for breathing, the conscious decision can override the autonomic nerves such as holding your breath until a certain point. It’s like an admin user vs a guest user. But how does such privilege system work in terms of neurons? How does the control alternate between the conscious and the autonomic system?
“You are now manually beating your heart”. Nope, that doesn’t work no matter how hard you try it (except for Buddha monks I suppose), so does this mean there are no physical neuron connections between the conscious and the heart?
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It’s an action you do naturally but also have control over if needed. When you walk, you don’t think about how each muscle needs to move in concert to properly move. If you try, you’ll stumble for a bit then you’ll get the gist and be able to do it. Try playing QWAP or whatever the game for walking was called. For breathing its important that you automatically breathe (think sleeping) but sometimes you need manual control (holding your breath while swimming or for any meditation exercise). If you aren’t thinking about it, your mind subconsciously takes care of it, if you think about it it’s consciously controlled. Also I hate that I’m now doing it. It sucks.
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