Improve Your Health By Toning Your Vagus Nerve
I am one of those people who wants to know the “why?” behind everything. If a health care professional advises me to do something that doesn’t make sense to me, it is unlikely that I’m going to comply with this advice unless they have explained, in detail, how it is going to help me. For those who need to know answers the question “Why?”, I’m going to provide more detailed information at the end of this article.
You want me to gargle until I cry? Whaaat???? You must be crazy!!!
Some of these vagal stimulation techniques may seem a bit unusual for addressing a health condition. But if you understand how the various branches of the Vagus Nerve (VN) affect your organs and tissues, you’ll understand how these techniques will stimulate your VN.
Your vagus is a highly-complex nerve. Understanding how critical a properly functioning VN is to your physical and mental health is essential if you want to take command of your health. I want to simplify this discussion as much as possible, so I’m going to start by defining terms you need to understand to make sense of this article.
What is the Vagus Nerve?
The VN is the 10th cranial nerve, the longest, most complex, cranial nerve in the body, the most important nerve in the system. The Latin word for wandering is “vagus.” The VN was so named because the various branches of this nerve affect so many organs and tissues in the body. The two vagal nerves start at the top of the spinal cord at the brain stem, and meander down each side of the neck, through the muscles in the chest, coordinating the interaction between breathing and heart rate. They then move down through the spleen and liver, influencing detoxification processes and finally end in the gastrointestinal tract, where VN activity has a significant impact on enteric nervous system functions. This critical nerve controls the actions in the cardiovascular, respiratory, endocrine, and gastrointestinal systems in addition to having effects on smooth muscles, blood vessels, and sweat glands. Normal bodily functions can be disrupted by an impairment in VN signaling, which may have widespread consequences for your health and wellbeing.
This illustration shows the wandering branches of the VN, so you can see how all of the following areas can be impacted by poor VN function:
Brain
Ears
Entire neck area
Face
Tongue
Heart
Lungs
Spleen
Pancreas
Gallbladder
Gut
Stomach
Liver
Kidneys
Ureter
Anus
Reproductive organs
What is the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)?
This is the part of our central nervous system that functions automatically with no conscious effort on our part. The following are the divisions of the Autonomic Nervous System:
1. Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS)
This division of the ANS produces the “fight or flight” response that gets activated when your body is under stress, such as when you are running from a grizzly bear. When you are experiencing this increased physiological state of arousal, the following changes take place involuntarily in response to stress:
⦁ Blood is sent away from the digestive system to your extremities.
⦁ Your body temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure intensify to increase blood flow to the muscles to prepare for “fight or flight.”
⦁ The stress hormones, noradrenaline, and cortisol are activated to provide an instantaneous flood of energy to the body.
⦁ Glucose is released into the bloodstream to provide energy to fight or flee.
⦁ Respiration (the rate at which you inhale and exhale) increases to send more oxygen into the blood to be pumped to the brain so you can cognitively process the action you need to take to protect yourself.
2. Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS)
This division of the ANS produces the “rest and digest” response to calm you down after a period of stress. When the body is in this physiological state, the following changes take place in the body:
⦁ Blood pressure and heart rate decrease.
⦁ Your respiration (breath rate) slows down.
⦁ Stress hormones diminish to normal levels and the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, is released to calm the system.
⦁ Blood moves from the muscles to the digestive system to facilitate digestive processes.
⦁ The body returns to homeostasis after responding to a stressful event.
⦁ If you learn to put your body into this parasympathetic mode, you can shift your body into a healing state.
3. Enteric Nervous System (ENS)
This division of the ANS controls digestive processes, including bowel motility – the movement of waste through the digestive tract for excretion from the body. It is known as the “second brain” because it depends on the same neurotransmitters as the central nervous system but operates independently of the brain.
The VN greatly influences the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). When the body experiences a sympathetic (fight or flight) reaction to stress, the vagus nerve’s job is to restore balance to the system after the stress is over to bring it back into homeostasis.
“Vagal tone” is the term used to measure the function of the Vagus Nerve. One’s vagal tone may be influenced by genetics, stress, and other conditions that adversely affect the function of the VN. A high degree of vagal tone indicates an increase in parasympathetic nervous system activity, which is associated with better overall health, better mood, less anxiety, and stress resilience. Conversely, low vagal tone is associated with various adverse health conditions, such as depression, chronic fatigue, cognitive impairment, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, strokes, digestive issues, including chronic constipation, and inflammatory conditions such as autoimmune diseases.
Vagal tone can be measured by tracking respiration and heart-rate. Stress-resilience and higher heart-rate variability are indicators of a high degree of vagal tone. The higher degree of vagal tone, the faster the recovery from a high-stress state. In other words, people with high vagal tone can transition from a sympathetic “fight or flight” stress state to a parasympathetic “rest and digest” state in a relatively short time.
Now that you have an idea of how the VN affects the body, I’m going to share a variety of ways to stimulate your VN to improve your health and happiness. Some of these techniques are relaxing and fun, and some are less than enjoyable. But if you can improve your health and manage chronic health issues by performing these techniques, you may want to make use of the following exercises to improve your vagal tone:
⦁ Control your breath through meditation, mindfulness practice, pilates, yoga, pranayama (yogic breathing), or any type of exercise that involves repetitive deep breathing. Slow, rhythmic, deep diaphragmatic breathing activates the vagus nerve and the parasympathetic response. Try slowing your breathing to about 6 deep diaphragmatic breaths per minute, inhaling to a slow count of 4 and exhaling to the count of 6. If you sustain this breathing pattern for at least 5 minutes, you will stimulate your relaxation reflex and feel much less stressed. This is an excellent exercise to practice before meals, so your body is in rest and digest mode when you eat.
⦁ Engage your vocal chords through laughing, singing, humming, or chanting loudly.
⦁ Activate your gag reflex by applying pressure to the back of the tongue until you gag.
⦁ Gargle vigorously - Fill a 12 oz glass with water and gargle a little at a time for 20-30 seconds each time before spitting the water out. Repeat this until you have gargled the entire glass of water. If you are doing this correctly, it will not be easy. To effectively stimulate your VN, your vigorous gargling should bring tears to your eyes.
⦁ Apply pressure on the back of the tongue with a stainless-steel tongue cleaner and pull across the tongue to remove biofilm.
⦁ Expose bare skin to direct sunlight for 20 minutes to stimulate production the melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH), which will activate the VN.
⦁ Do auricular acupuncture (application of needles to specific points on the external ear).
⦁ Stimulate with massage. Using light pressure, rub with two fingers behind each earlobe for two minutes. Some massage therapists are trained to use auricular acupressure techniques to activate the VN. You can even buy oil specifically for VN activation.
⦁ Stimulate with reflexology. This can be effective if performed by a professional who has been trained in VN activation.
⦁ Use cold therapy. Expose your body to acute cold conditions, such as cryotherapy, cold pool water, a cold shower, and splashing your face with ice-cold water can stimulate the VN.
⦁ Use hot-cold therapy. After increasing your body temperature in a heated sauna, plunge your body into a cold pool to stimulate the VN and reduce inflammation.
⦁ Exercise daily. Engaging in moderate to vigorous exercise activates the VN by increasing heart-rate variability. Strength training stimulates the VN by activating muscles of the neck.
⦁ Fast for 12 or more hours each day. Allowing your digestive system to rest improves vagal tone.
⦁ Do coffee enemas with organic toxin-free coffee. You can read more about why coffee enemas are so effective by clicking on this link: https://drknews.com/coffee-enema/
⦁ Listen to soothing music – Mozart’s “K.448” Sonata for Two Pianos has been shown in research to activate the VN. Listening to binaural meditation music through earbuds is very effective, but this must be done with earbuds for the binaural beats to have an impact on the VN.
⦁ Use a Vagus Nerve Stimulator – VN stimulators can be surgically implanted to reduce seizures or treat refractory, treatment resistant depression, but there is a less invasive method for VN stimulation. Gamma Core developed a VN stimulator that has been approved by the FDA for use and is now available for purchase for about $500. It has been FDA approved for prevention and treatment for cluster headaches and was recently approved for an acute or abortive treatment for migraine. It stimulates the VN, reduces the excitatory signals that cause headache pain, and calms the brain at the trigeminal nucleus cordalis, the brain’s pain center, where the migraine and pain signals converge.
Years ago, before external VN stimulators were widely available, I had a client who suffered from digestive dysfunction, chronic constipation, and treatment resistant depression. Over several years, she tried every anti-depressant on the market and found no relief for her mood disorder. As a last resort, the doctors recommended she have a VN stimulator surgically implanted. She was reluctant because it was invasive and experimental, but she was desperate to feel better and opted for the surgery. The results were remarkable! Her depression lifted, and her gut dysfunction and chronic constipation resolved, which improved her overall health condition. Having witnessed the remarkable turnaround in her physical and mental health, I am a firm believer in the therapeutic value of VN stimulation.
You don’t need to invest a lot of money in VN implant surgery or a VN stimulator if you are willing to regularly practice the techniques listed above to improve your vagal tone. Try to practice as many of these exercises as possible daily to keep your VN working optimally.
For those who wish to gain a better understand the anatomy of the VN and how these techniques stimulate your VN, the following information will answer the question “Why?”
The Vagus has both sensory and motor functions. Sensory and motor fibers branch out from the heart, gut, and lungs to other internal organs such as the gallbladder, spleen, liver, kidneys.
The sensory functions are either:
Somatic sensations felt on the skin or in the muscles
Visceral sensations felt in bodily organs.
Motor functions include:
Stimulation of muscles in the pharynx, larynx, and soft palate (the fleshy are near the back of the roof of the mouth);
Stimulating muscles in the heart, where it influences resting heart rate; and
Stimulating involuntary contractions in the digestive tract, including the esophagus, stomach, and most of the intestines, encouraging movement of food through the GI tract.
To understand how these stimulation techniques work, you must understand how the various branches of the VN impact bodily functions. As previously mentioned, the vagus nerve begins at the brain stem and travels through the torso all the way to the rectum. It has many branches along the route that impact many organs and tissues along the way.
The first branch of the VN is the auricular branch, which allows us to sense pressure, temperature, and moisture on the central section of each ear. The VN can be activated by stimulating the outer-ear or behind the ear lobes.
The second branch of the VN connects with the vocal cords and muscles at the back of your throat. Poor vagal tone may result in difficulty swallowing, coughing, or absence of a gag reflex. Vocalizations, gargling vigorously, or triggering a gag reflex can improve vagal tone.
The third branch of the VN affects the superior laryngeal nerves, which are responsible for the muscles above the vocal cords and control of vocal pitch. And the fourth branch of the VN affects the recurrent laryngeal nerves, which is responsible for the muscles below the vocal cords and allows vocal sounds to form by opening, closing, or tensioning the vocal chords. A chronically hoarse or monotone voice or difficulty with breathing or speaking can be the result of poor vagal tone and rapid respiration, and this condition may be corrected with adequate vagal stimulation.
The pulmonary branch of the VN connects with the sympathetic nervous system and innervates the bronchi and trachea of both lungs. Rapid breathing can activate your fight or flight response, while deep diaphragmatic breathing will cue the VN and the parasympathetic relaxation response.
Your hardworking heart is responsible for pumping oxygen-rich blood to your cells and moving toxins through the blood to organs that are responsible for eliminating them from the body. The VN plays a crucial role in ensuring the heart rate maintains a healthy rate when the body is at rest. The parasympathetic fibers of the VN slow the heart rate and decrease the pressure of pumping contractions so the heart can rest and recover after times of stress when the heart rate is soaring.
Blood pressure is determined by the amount of fluid present in the bloodstream, and the kidneys play an essential role in managing blood pressure. The VN relays information to and from the kidneys to help it manage the flow of water and fluid from within the kidney glomeruli, which filters plasma in the production of urine. If you are hypertensive, increasing vagal tone and heart rate variability may help to reduce your blood pressure.
The Enteric Nervous System (ENS) is what is known as the “second brain.” Your ENS has two layers of nerve cells that line your gastrointestinal tract from the esophagus to the rectum, which send messages to the brain through the VN to control digestion. The ENS plays a role in influencing emotional health. Vagus nerve stimulation is being used adjunctively to treat treatment-resistant depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and inflammatory bowel diseases.
The stimulation of vagal afferent fibers in the gut influences monoaminergic brain systems in the brain stem that play crucial roles in major psychiatric conditions, such as mood and anxiety disorders…. gut bacteria have a beneficial effect on mood and anxiety, partly by affecting the activity of the vagus nerve. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5859128/
As you can see, the VN plays a significant role in your health because it impacts so many different organs and systems in the body. Engaging in activities that stimulate your VN may improve the quality of your life for the rest of your life.
In good health,
Valerie Folsom-Martin, MSW, LCSW, CIMHP, CCTP, FDN-P, CHHC
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