Overthinking is the product of a system functioning from sympathetic mode. When we are in a place of sympathetic dominance, the parts of our brain that are fed the most blood and that remain online are the cognitive centers at the front, the reflexive motor center of the brain stem and the associative center that rests between both of those in the lower part of the brain.
What this means is that in sympathetic mode we are:
Only able to operate reflexively
Draw our present-day understandings from past associations
Are required to pull information forward into the cognitive part of our brain in order to make decisions
On the flip side, when we are functioning from a place of parasympathetic dominance, all parts of the brain are online and functioning, meaning that we are gathering information through all of our sensory systems and that, in turn, is motivating our motor responses. We are responding to real-time information as opposed to information that oriented in the past.
And what’s more, in a state of Parasympathetic dominance, information from our sensory and motor cortexes spits information forward into our conscious brain; in this place, information is revealed to us as opposed to us generating information that will be based on the lens through which we view the world and a whole lot of subjective analysis.
Parasympathetic dominance = information revealed to the conscious mind
Sympathetic dominance = cognitive center works overtime to make sense of things
Isn’t the brain amazing.
Onwards.
❤️ Jane
