Our nervous system

The autonomic nervous system helps keep our body in balance, looking after some of the things that go on in the background - things we don’t normally have to think about, like the beating of our heart, our breathing and the work of our digestive system.

Imagine what life would be like if we had to remember to breathe, and remember to keep our hearts beating. We wouldn’t be able to do much else!

The autonomic nervous system is kept in balance by two systems called the 'sympathetic' and the 'parasympathetic' systems.

These two systems act as a kind of balance to one another.

Broadly speaking, the sympathetic system gets us ready for ‘fight, flight or freeze’ and the parasympathetic system returns us to a state of rest.