An operator’s guide to the nervous system

The machine that you are — the body and brain you ride around in — is the most incredible piece of machinery you will handle in your life. Someone could offer you the most sophisticated piece of technology that humans have made — a stealth jet, a rocket, an advanced skyscraper — and it would not be as sophisticated as your body.

And yet, nobody teaches you how to operate this machine.

One way in which we systematically learn how to operate our nervous system is through mindfulness practice. In this practice we watch the real time operation of your nervous system. You may put your system under different stresses and see what happens. You may try to nudge it in certain ways and observe the result. Through this process, you learn important stuff about how to operate your nervous system.