Your exhale should be long and slow. This is key to stimulating the vagus nerve and reaching a state of relaxation. The vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords and the muscles at the back of your throat. Singing, humming, chanting and gargling can activate these muscles and stimulate your vagus nerve.
Loud gargling with water or loud singing activates our vocal cords which in turn stimulates the vagus nerve. Foot massage: gentle or firm touch can assist in stimulation the vagus nerve. Cold water face immersion: immerse your forehead eyes and at least 2/3 of both cheeks into cold water.
The vagal response is a series of unpleasant symptoms that occur when the vagus nerve is stimulated. Often, this response is triggered by certain things like stress, pain, and fear. Symptoms of the vagal response include dizziness, nausea, ringing ears, and sweating. In some cases, it can make you pass out.
There are two main causes of vagus nerve dysfunction: previous infection or inflammation and physical or psychological stress.
What the wellness community recommends for stimulating the vagus nerve—eye movements, meditation, massage, cold-water immersion, and singing and humming—, if it works, is likely to be beneficial through a very simple concept: relaxation.
Drinking water is also a stimulus to the vagus nerve, and may immediately stop a run of supraventricular tachycardia. Not having enough fluid (what people think of as “dehydration”) is another stimulus for fast heart rates, so some additional fluid is a second reason that water may help, though not instantly.
When the vagus nerve is overstimulated, the body's blood vessels dilate, especially those in the lower extremities, and the heart temporarily slows down. The brain is deprived of oxygen, causing the patient to lose consciousness.
This nerve can even make people faint. Here's how: When someone is extremely stressed, the vagus nerve can get overstimulated as it works to bring down heart rate and blood pressure. This may cause someone's heartbeat to slow down too much.
In a vagus nerve massage, moderate pressure is applied to the area between the trapezius and sternocleidomastoid muscles in the neck/shoulder area and at the muscles below the base of the skull, with twisting or stroking motions [1].
Eat foods rich in tryptophan.
Dietary tryptophan is metabolized in the gut and may help the astrocytes—cells in the brain and spinal cord—control inflammation, which may improve communication from the gut to the brain via the vagal messenger pathway. These foods include spinach, seeds, nuts, bananas, and poultry.
Warm liquids: Warm water or herbal tea, helps to improve vagal tone as it flows through your esophagus adjacent to the vagus nerve. Using ginger or peppermint tea about 30 minutes before a meal can really optimize our digestion as well.
Lavender tea - just inhaling the aroma of this tea can be relaxing to our senses. The vagus nerve in our body is responsible for all healing. Lavender is known to reboot our nervous system and this soothes the vagus nerve and can activate the natural healing capacity of our body.
Gives You Gut Feelings
According to Medical News Today, “The vagus nerve sends information from the gut to the brain, which is linked to dealing with stress, anxiety, and fear–hence the saying, 'gut feeling. ' These signals help a person to recover from stressful and scary situations.”
She notes that individuals who've lived through trauma often experience an overactive vagus nerve, which can manifest as anxiety and irregular moods, as well as symptoms like nausea, bowel issues, and random pains.
The left vagal nerve runs down the left side of your neck, and the right vagal nerve runs down your right side. This nerve extends all the way from your brain to the large intestines: down your neck, through your chest, around your heart, around your lungs, and through your abdomen and intestines.
Aim to get in five minutes a day, throughout the day of the below vagus nerve exercises.
Trauma disrupts the function of the vagus nerve(s) and can lead to dysfunction in other parts of our body.
Based on research results and clinical experience, cervical region tightness can be considered to cause stomach problems through the vagal nerve, and soft tissue relaxation of the cervical region can be a promising treatment method for stomach symptoms.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) sends regular, mild pulses of electrical energy to the brain via the vagus nerve, through a device that is similar to a pacemaker. There is no physical involvement of the brain in this surgery and patients cannot generally feel the pulses.