Straight A Nursing: Study for nursing school exams & NCLEX

#500 - Sympathetic vs. Parasympathetic Nervous System - Your Secret Weapon for Pharm

Straight A Nursing: Study for nursing school exams & NCLEX

Show Notes

In this episode, I break down the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems in a way that goes way beyond the vocabulary test version. You'll learn:

- what triggers each system

- which neurotransmitters and receptors are involved

- what happens to each major body system when one is dominant,

- how understanding this makes drug mechanisms predictable instead of mysterious.

By the end, you'll be able to look at medications like atropine, epinephrine, metoprolol, and albuterol and understand exactly why they do what they do, including the side effects.

If pharmacology has felt like a wall of memorization up until now, this episode is the key that changes that.

LINKS MENTIONED:

Nursing School Survival Blueprint - It's free & it walks you through how to study with intention, how to reduce cognitive load in real study sessions, and how to build the kind of understanding that actually shows up on your exams and in clinical.

#485: Why Nursing School Feels Overwhelming - Learn how cognitive load theory explains why you struggle to retain information no matter how much you study — and the five-step approach that helps nursing students study smarter, not longer.

Read the coinciding article and view references for this episode here.

💕Did you love this episode? Please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode!

___________________

The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this podcast are for educational purposes only. No content on this podcast is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider's scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this podcast is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Straight A Nursing is a proud member of the Airwave Media Network.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More from Straight A Nursing: Study for nursing school exams & NCLEX

Oct 22, 2026

Prone positioning can be so intimidating when you're a nursing student or a brand-new ICU nurse. In this episode, I'm covering the basics and potential complications of prone positioning so you actually understand why we do it, rather than just feeling like you’re trying to keep up.

Oct 19, 2026

By the time pulses disappear in compartment syndrome, real damage has already happened. In the episode, I'm talking about the window before that, because that's where you actually have a chance to catch it before the patient suffers serious consequences. Hit play to review who is most at risk, the two most reliable early cues, and the practical takeaway to help you catch compartment syndrome early.

Oct 15, 2026

The Basic Metabolic Panel (BMP) is one of the most common lab tests ordered for your patients. This episode breaks down the 8 components of the BMP, which are sodium, potassium, calcium, chloride, carbon dioxide, glucose, BUN and creatinine.

Oct 12, 2026

Your patient has low sodium, what should you assess before you react to that sodium value and why? The answer to this trips up a lot of students and new nurses.

Oct 8, 2026

Picture this: You're a nurse in the PACU and are receiving a patient who is a 34 year old male with a past medical history of obesity and loud snoring reported by his spouse. Although he does not have diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea, you suspect it. He was given general anesthesia with some ketamine mixed in during an elective septoplasty.

See all episodes →