HWN Suggests

What The Vagus Nerve Is And How To Stimulate It For Better Mental Health

The vagus nerve is the body’s superpower and it’s used to counteract your fight/flight system. It’s how you develop a healthy stress response and become resilient. When stimulated, you feel calmer, more compassionate and clearer. Stimulating the vagus benefits your autonomic nervous system and mental health. Healthy vagal tone means emotional regulation, greater connection and better physical health as well. You are more resilient and able to pull yourself through trauma and troubles. A healthy vagal tone means you are more likely to be successful in life. So what is the vagus nerve?

What The Vagus Nerve Is

The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in…

read full article

Featured

 Can you shock yourself into relaxation? The science of vagus nerve stimulation

Vagus nerve stimulation is a social-media sensation, promising instant stress relief. Here’s what the science really says about the body’s built-in “chill” circuit.

 Everything You Wanted to Know About the Longest Nerve in the Body

Like a highway system, the vagus nerve branches profusely from your brain through your organs to marshal bodily functions, including aspects of the mind such as mood, pleasure and fear.

 Vagus nerve: Don't believe everything you see on social media

Influencers are obsessed with the health benefits of stimulating the vagus nerve, but we should be wary of their claims.

Articles of Interest

Calming a Wigged Out Autonomic Nervous System Using the Vagus Nerve

The vagus nerve is the most influential nerve in our parasympathetic nervous system. It functions like your body’s natural reset button. Learning how to stimulate your vagus nerve allows you to bring about the calm, collected feeling we all desire.

Can the Nervous System Be Hacked?

The vagus nerve and its branches conduct nerve impulses — called action potentials — to every major organ. But communication between nerves and the immune system was considered impossible, according to the scientific consensus in 1998.

Hacking your body’s nervous system for stress relief

Despite the parasympathetic nervous system being responsible for automatic functions that we can’t control, we can do things to encourage it to activate. One of the most approachable is to stimulate the vagus nerve.

I Now Suspect the Vagus Nerve Is the Key to Well-being

Have you ever read something a million times only to one day, for no apparent reason, think “Wait, what is that?” This happened to me the other day for “the vagus nerve.”

Just Breathe: Body Has A Built-In Stress Reliever

"The relaxation response is controlled by another set of nerves -- the main nerve being the Vagus nerve. Think of a car throttling down the highway at 120 miles an hour. That's the stress response, and the Vagus nerve is the brake," says Sternberg. "When you are stressed, you have your foot on the gas, pedal to the floor. When you take slow, deep breaths, that is what is engaging the brake."

Science Confirms That the Vagus Nerve Is Key to Well-being

The mysterious nerve network that quirts pain and stress - and may defeat disease.

Stimulating the pathway connecting body and brain may change chronic condition patients’ lives

As researchers, we are especially interested in the functioning of the vagus nerve and its role in social interactions and longevity. The vagus nerve is associated with our capacity to regulate emotion, to engage and connect with others, and may even predict whether or not we survive the next decade.

The Breath Is a Back Door to Your Vagus Nerve

‘Respiratory discipline’ can activate your most potent anti-stress system.

Why It's Time to Take Electrified Medicine Seriously

Two weeks after she received the implant, doctors turned it on to a frequency customized to stimulate a specific nerve at just the right energy level to keep her immune system under control. That evening, she forgot to take her pain medication because she wasn’t in pain.

You Asked: What Causes Hiccups?

DelRosso says the hiccup reflex is triggered in part by your autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily functions like blood pressure and saliva secretion. Normally, a bout of hiccups lasts between a few minutes and a few hours. But that’s not always the case.

Resources

19 Factors that May Stimulate the Vagus Nerve

Remember that the existing evidence does not suggest that low vagal tone causes anxiety or mood disorders. Complex disorders like anxiety always involve multiple possible factors – including brain chemistry, environment, health status, and genetics – that may vary from one person to another. Additionally, changes in nerve tone and brain chemistry are not something that people can change on their own with the approaches listed here. Instead, the factors mentioned in this article are meant to reduce daily stress and support overall mental health and well-being. Most are backed up only by limited human or animal studies.

9 Fascinating Facts About the Vagus Nerve

ARROW THE BODY 9 Fascinating Facts About the Vagus Nerve BY JORDAN ROSENFELD NOVEMBER 13, 2018 (UPDATED: APRIL 12, 2021) sankalpmaya/iStock via Getty Images SANKALPMAYA/ISTOCK VIA GETTY IMAGES What Do Cities Look Like Under a Microscope? The vagus nerve is so named because it “wanders” like a vagabond, sending out sensory fibers from your brainstem to your visceral organs. The vagus nerve, the longest of the cranial nerves, controls your inner nerve center—the parasympathetic nervous system. And it oversees a vast range of crucial functions, communicating motor and sensory impulses to every organ in your body. Recent research has revealed that it may also be the missing link to treating chronic inflammation, and the beginning of an exciting new field of treatment for serious, incurable diseases.

Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain–Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders

The vagus nerve represents the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which oversees a vast array of crucial bodily functions, including control of mood, immune response, digestion, and heart rate. It establishes one of the connections between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract and sends information about the state of the inner organs to the brain via afferent fibers.