

It’s also the part of the nervous system that carries out the response to the input. It’s the part of the nervous system that information gathers about whether you’re hungry or full, standing on a level or flat surface, or whether the dog next door is barking. The peripheral nervous system is everything else. This happens at the level of the brain and results in slower movement. This happens fast in contrast to consciously thinking about how you are going to move.

The detection of the hot surface and resulting behavior of jerking the hand away is a spinal cord reflex. So, too, is the rapid reaction of moving the hand away from a hot surface, a behavior that occurs so quickly it’s not consciously processed. Our ability to slow down, think about how we are moving, and consciously try moving in a different way is the result of the central nervous system. The central nervous system is responsible for coordinating behavior and transmitting signals to different areas of the body (). Your brain and spinal cord make up your central nervous system. Even if it feels like one type of processing is more dominant than the other, our perception of our reality is based on both types of input.Ī reminder about how the nervous system works… Perception, or the way we interpret the experience, is based on both top-down and bottom-up processing. These two ways of processing information are called bottom-up and top-down processing, respectively. Sensory input, or information we receive from the somatic aspect of the peripheral nervous systemĬognitive control, or our conscious interpretation or control of how we think we should behave. Our behavior, which can also be thought of as motor output, is based on two factors: Give yourself permission to shift a little bit until you find a position that feels most comfortable for you, and if that becomes uncomfortable, shift again.” I had a version of the following conversation with two different clients last week: Client: “How should I be holding myself? Should I think about lifting through my ribs? Should I keep my left hip always back? Should I emphasize pressing down my right foot?” Me: “You should stand in a way that feels good.
