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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I swear I’m always manually breathing like can’t stop thinking about it and operating around it
Jokes on you I was already manually breathing because I’m doing a massive poo and for some reason I always manually breathe when I’m struggling
I am not sure why this happens to other people but it genuinely does not work on me. I didn’t train myself or anything it just never really worked.
I’ll add that the heart need to work independently of the brain, because it is needed before the brain is developed. The heart starts beating at week 5 of pregnancy, the lungs after the obvious nine months.
Aside from breathing manually: your tongue lies uncomfortably in your mouth and is too big, youre forced to blink manually, your nose is visible right now
TLDR: bodily functions aren‘t linked directly to the brain to reserve the brains capacity for your conciousness. Bodily functions sre outsourced to other parts of your nervous system, which your brain has no direct access to. Blinking and breathing are two exceptions.
First of all, from an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense that you can control your breathing and blinking both conciously and subconciously. You don‘t want to waste your brains capacity on something so mundane, but there may be times where you don‘t want to breath regularly (think of diving for example).
Generally speaking the brain has direct control of skeletal muscles. On the other hand the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has control of internal organs, smooth muscles and glands.
Skeletal muscles are those connected to the skeleton, such as the biceps. Basically all the muscles you need to move around. Smooth muscles are those are wrapped around other organs. For example the blood vessels can widen and shrink because of smooth muscles.
Breathing and blinking are the two functions that are controlled by both brain and ANS. Both work with skeletal muscles, hence your brain controls them. At the same time the ANS controls them since they are both functions you need to constantly do; conciously blinking and breathing all the time would be a waste of the brains capacity. Fun fact, other animals such as dolphins do conciously breath all the time.
Other bodily functions you just have no control over. They aren’t directly connected to the brain. They are only connected to the ANS, which controls them. The ANS in turn is connected to the brain, but only for stimulation and not control. For example panicking is a concious thing but it influences the ANS, which in turn regulates bodily functions to match the panic.
Your heart is a bit special. You cannot control your heartrate because it‘s not even controlled by the ANS. There is no nerve going to the heart that repeatedly sends a signal for every beat. The heart has its own pacemaker to control beating. The ANS can only stimulate it to beat faster or slower but it cannot override the heartbeat, nor can your brain. Also hormones can influence the heart, but that‘s even more complex.
Jokes on you. Focusing on my breathing helps with my anxiety. I’m always manually breathing
Yogis, through practice, patience, and dedication, have the unique ability to control their heart rate, blood pressure and even body temperature and can do so in a moments notice. We have so many many unknown abilities, we’re just not normally taught how to harness what is nessisary to do so. We are amazing creatures when we focus and put our mind to something!
Yogis have gone out to mountain tops where the temperature is well below freezing, and they make themselves sweat while nude in the harshest climates.
Sure, let’s dive deeper into how neurons work in this context!
Think of your brain as a big command center full of workers called neurons. These neurons are like little messengers that send and receive signals all over your body.
There are two main types of these messengers in your body. Some belong to the autonomic nervous system, which takes care of things automatically, like your heart beating. These neurons are like the autopilot mode on a spaceship – they keep everything running smoothly without you having to think about it.
The other type of neurons are part of the somatic nervous system, which helps you do things that you consciously control, like moving your arm or leg. These neurons are like the spaceship’s manual controls – you have to actively use them to make something happen.
Now, let’s talk about breathing. Breathing is special because it involves both types of neurons. Most of the time, the autopilot neurons are in charge, making sure you keep breathing without having to think about it. But if you want to, you can take over with the manual controls and change your breathing. This is like if you’re playing a game and decide to hold your breath – you’re taking over from the autopilot.
But what about the heart? Well, the heart is a bit like a special spaceship that has its own built-in autopilot. It has a group of cells called the sinoatrial node that sends out signals to make the heart beat. This means that even if you wanted to, you can’t use the manual controls (conscious thought) to change your heart rate in the same way you can with your breathing. This is a good thing because it means your heart keeps beating all the time, even when you’re not thinking about it.
So, in terms of neurons, your body has different systems for things that need to happen all the time (like your heart beating), things that happen automatically but you can control if you want to (like breathing), and things that you control consciously (like moving your arms and legs). It’s a pretty amazing system!
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