The autonomic nervous system could also be called the automatic nervous system since it takes care of our body’s basic housekeeping responsibilities (i.e., breath, heart rate, digestion) without our needing to pay attention to them. The wonderful thing about this system is that it not only functions automatically with preprogrammed settings but, with Polyvagal Theory, it can also be adjusted. To do so, we have to understand the following three main principles: 1.Autonomic hierarchy: The system is organized around three building blocks that work in a certain order and come with preset pathways.
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