Bill DanielsOwner/trainer, Beyond Fitness online · Personal Trainer & Pain Science Expert Helping People Move Without Fear

Vertigo and vagus nerve overlap

2 Sept 2022 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:57

In this video, Bill from Beyond Fitness Online explains the interaction between the vagus nerve and the vestibular system, focusing on how their overlapping functions can be leveraged to treat vertigo and other vestibular disorders. He describes the vagus nerve as the longest nerve in the body, connecting midline structures from the pelvic floor to the insular cortex and influencing breathing, lung function, and organ regulation. He outlines the four vestibular nuclei, highlighting two that control midline tone and sympathetic regulation (blood pressure, heart rate). Bill emphasizes that many clients with vestibular issues also exhibit vagal dysfunction, and that stimulating the vagus nerve can positively affect the vestibular loop, improving balance, core stability, and eye function. He outlines a practical clinical workflow: taking a detailed history to identify overlapping symptoms, then applying vagus nerve stimulation techniques. The video concludes with a call to view related vagus nerve videos, subscribe, and engage in the comments.

Chapters

Hi, I'm Bill from Beyond Fitness Online. Today I want to answer a question that I've been getting a lot, and that is, how does the vagus nerve and the vestibular system work together? And the reason this question came up was because a lot of people I work with who have vertigo or vestibular disorders also tend to have, in many cases, issues that we also work on the vagus nerve to help fix. The vagus nerve, if you don't know, is the longest nerve in your body. Basically has its connection to everything in the midline from the pelvic floor all the way up to the insular cortex in the brain. So it connects to breathing, it connects to lung function, it connects to your organs, so many things. The vestibular system has 4 nuclei that it attaches to. One of those nuclei helps to set midline tone and strengthen the midline of the body. And then also another one helps to regulate and work with your sympathetic system. So in other words, your blood pressure, heart rate, etc. So that's where the overlap is between those 2 things. And so what we do is we tend to take a history and find out exactly what kind of symptoms somebody is having. If we find that they're in this overlapped area, it's good to work on the vagus nerve. To help stimulate that loop that goes back to the vestibular system. And oftentimes that can help to alleviate some of the symptoms that people are having with vestibular issues, improve balance. It'll make your core stronger, your eyes will work better. There's a lot of things that can happen. So that's why we do that. And I have a ton of videos where I talk about the vagus nerve, and you can see those right here. So check those out. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to my channel. I post new updates about this stuff every Friday. And let me know in the comments if you have any more questions. And until next time, live healthy. Bye.