QUOTE : Friends and our parasympathetic nervous system”: I had a few friends visiting us yesterday and I noticed how quickly my nervous system settled down once we all sat on the couch and started talking. Upon reflecting, here are two point of what I took from this: 1. When we have (good) friends around, we cant check our emails, talk to our partners about financial issues, worry about the future or get busy. Our friends ask us to bring our attention to the here and now experience. 2. Our friends help us to remember our interdependent nature. That we belong to something that is bigger then just our spouse and children. That we are tribal. Both these points have to do with our “social” part of our parasympathetic nervous system, especially the Ventral Vagal complex- which is how we slow ourselves enough to Establish connections.