PHYSICAL WELLNESS

your body’s electric messenger

Nerves

Nerves are like electrical wires that run all through your body.
They carry messages back and forth between your brain, spinal cord, and every organ, muscle, and cell.

Thanks to your nerves, you can feel, move, breathe, think, and even heal.

Nerves are essential for everything — from moving your fingers to feeling emotions.

Here’s what they help with:

  • Movement: Send signals from your brain to your muscles

  • Sensation: Bring info from your skin/organs back to the brain (touch, pain, temperature)

  • Reflexes: React before you even think — like pulling your hand from a hot stove

  • Internal Balance: Regulate digestion, heart rate, breathing, blood pressure, and more

  • Emotions + Safety: Help your body detect and respond to safety or threat

NERVE BASICS

Common Terms + Simple Definitions

Here’s a mini glossary for brain-related words you’ll see throughout the site:

Nerve - A bundle of fibers that carry electrical signals around your body

Neuron - A single nerve cell that sends and receives messages

Sensory Nerves - Carry messages to the brain (like pain, temperature, pressure)

Motor Nerves - Carry messages from the brain to muscles to create movement

Cranial Nerves - 12 pairs of nerves that connect directly to the brain (including the vagus nerve)

Peripheral Nerves - Nerves outside the brain + spinal cord — reach your arms, legs, organs, etc.

Neuropathy - Nerve damage or dysfunction (often felt as tingling, numbness, pain)

TYPES OF NERVES

WHAT THEY CONTROL

Sensory Nerves - Carry messages to the brain (e.g. “ouch,” “cold,” “soft”)

Motor Nerves - Carry signals from the brain to move muscles

Autonomic Nerves - Control automatic processes like heartbeat, digestion, and temperature

Cranial Nerves - Connect directly to the brain (e.g. for smell, sight, taste, facial movement)

Spinal Nerves - Branch off from the spinal cord to serve the rest of the body

Peripheral Nerves - Extend into your arms, legs, fingers, toes — all the body’s outer areas

Some nerves are mixed — carrying both motor and sensory signals at once.

WHAT NERVES WORKS WITH

nerveS + OTHER SYSTEMS

Nerves don’t work alone — they’re part of a full-body communication system:

  • Brain + Spinal Cord: Central command center (called the central nervous system or CNS)

  • Muscles: Receive signals to contract, move, or stabilize

  • Organs: Respond to nerve signals to digest, detox, and regulate

  • Skin: Sends sensory input back to the brain through nerve endings

  • Endocrine + Immune Systems: Communicate with nerves to adapt to stress or threats

Nerves respond constantly — whether you’re thinking, feeling, stretching, or still.