Which part of the brain controls the ANS? How can we control it? Are there any healthy ways?
Sports, meditations including breathing, avoiding stress from environmental factors.
Hi Suhas,
the hypothalamus seems to be central to the ANS. While some functions of the ANS can be obviously controlled consciously (within some range, e. g. respiration) it takes some practise and effort (as in meditation, as Tarmo wrote) to control others (vasomotor activity, heart rate). While controlling vasomotor activity involves only straightforward imagination (in order to dilate blood vessels in your legs imagine feeling sunshine on the legs, for example), other activities like releasing neurotransmitters (e. g. serotonin, dopamine) into the blood can only be controlled in a more indirect manner by imagination of certain proprioceptive signals. There seems to be an old tradition of suitable images in India, one of the most famous the "awakening of the Kundalini" (feeling a small snake winding up the spine from the root chakra to the crown chakra). Amazingly, this can change the hormone balance for years; if properly done, for the better.
A modern approach, still in its infancy, is noninvasive stimulation of the cortex by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS, should be named ... Electromagnetic ... instead of Magnetic). Stimulating the frontal lobes can improve the state of depressive patients. The current explanation of this therapeutic effect is that the stimulation is forwarded from the frontal lobes to the inner brain parts near the brain stem (e. g. the hypothalamus).
I guess that a more focused stimulation would permit to achieve more specific and advanced results; that's what I'm currently working on.
Well, I am a hindu but I didn't know about this awakening process till now. I just finished reading from http://www.kundaliniguide.com/ and I found it pretty interesting since I am going through such a stage now (I feel so). Thank you for sharing this with me.
About TMS, psychiatrists I know say it is a hoax compared to ECT, maybe as it is still in its infancy.
Regards,
Suhas. D.
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