The nervous system is broken into 2 general categories, the peripheral and central nervous systems. The Central Nervous System controls the brain and the spinal cord while the Peripheral nervous system controls about everything else. Within the Peripheral NS there are 2 sub categories, Autonomic and Somatic. The Autonomic NS controls all internal actions while the Somatic NS controls all voluntary movements. Now within the Autonomic NS, there is the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic Nervous Systems. The Sympathetic NS is called the “fight or flight”, while the Parasympathetic NS is called the “rest and digest”. The Parasympathetic NS works to calm the body down and to help conserve energy. The Parasympathetic NS helps to calm the heart rate down and to increase intestinal/digestive activity. For example, the Parasympathetic NS works best when we are asleep, so when people get less sleep than others, their Parasympathetic NS doesn’t have time to properly work/do its job to help calm the body. One experience I have of utilizing the Parasympathetic Nervous System is during and after Penn State game days. I am in the blue band, so the past few game days have been around 12-13 hours long for me. For the Buffalo game two weeks ago, I had to be at the building at 11am ready to go. Then we practice for about 2 hours which is us running through the halftime show and pregame, which is a lot of work in itself. Once we huddle around the ladder for our director to talk to us, my parasympathetic nervous system is helping me to calm my heart rate down after high stepping for a 15-minute pregame show and marching a 10-minute half-time show. The Parasympathetic NS also helps after I finish the parade into and out of the stadium. During parade the band does a bunch of different dances, and we also play various fights songs, all while marching in hot wool uniforms. My heart rate is constantly beating quickly during band, but once we get to rest for a few minutes, my Parasympathetic Nervous System kicks in and helps to calm me and my body down.