‘It’s a complicated diagnoses, and I’m still learning so much myself, but right now, my doctors are not clearing me for such an extended lengthy flight, and doing a rigorous show right after,’ Solange wrote.
The autonomic system controls everything our bodies do automatically, without our having to think about it, sending unnoticed signals from the brain to the heart, lungs, skin and digestive systems – among many others – telling them to do their jobs.
Because the autonomic system controls body temperature and sensation, people with dysfunctional ones will sometimes notice that they feel warmer or cooler even when their environments have stayed the same.
Perhaps alluding to this symptom, Solange wrote: ‘Sometimes I feel cool, and other times not so cool at all.’
The autonomic system is really two parts of the nervous system, called that sympathetic autonomic system (SANS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PANS) that work in tandem in most of our organs.
You can think of the SANS and the PANS as the body’s green and red traffic lights.
The SANS tells our systems to ‘go,’ stimulating them into action, while the PANS is the red light, signaling those systems to pump the breaks and slow down, with a few exceptions. The PANS tells the urinary and digestive systems to ‘go.’
Both systems need to stay in working order to modulate the way the body handles stress.
The SANS makes sure that we are ready to act – raising our heart rates and breathing and heightening our senses – when its time to respond to an emergency. The PANS makes sure we store up enough energy and brings our bodies back to normal when a crisis has passed.
