Ep. 31 Vagus Nerve

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Is that.

Oh my God. If I did that with my kids and they just did that, I hate to say it, I would do it all the time.

Wouldn't that be great? Like kids are being annoying and you just scare them when they pass out. No, that's not, that's not.

Hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good for you podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christiansen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements and technologies that give you the tools for a life well lived.

What new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophies.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated. Hello Amy, how are you this morning? I don't know why I always have to start with a sing song tone in my voice. Hello Amy.

I know why. It just, it's exactly what we're going to talk about today, right? It's an automatic way of like setting your nervous system in like chill mode and happy mode. It also prepares you for social interaction. Did you know that?

I, I think that that just happened. I'm prepared. I'm prepared for social interaction. My vagus nervous stimulated and my vagal tone is balanced and I am ready to roll.

That's right, we're rolling. The vagus nerve is neither depressed or anxious.

That's right. When in balance. Right?

We're in balance. That's right.

We're in balance. So just to be clear, if you haven't picked up on this, we're going to be talking about the vagus nerve today. And this is something, Amy, I feel like everybody, I mean we can only dip our toe into this a little bit because there's, it's kind of a buzz, some buzzwords going on around it today and you're hearing more people talk about it. But there's you Know some cool research around it, but still a lot more to be done with in as far as regards to research and how to stimulate it and why the tonal aspect is important, important of it. So I think we'll dip our toe into it and just again, this is to get people to explore health and wellness. And I think no matter what, I think we can agree it's a critical, critical nerve branch to really try to understand and try to monitor and at work on.

I agree. And it's a handy little, you know, there's tools, but you can easily adapt and use it anywhere, anytime to help regulate your nervous system, either activating the vagus nerve or settling the vagus nerve branches. We'll go into a little bit of the anatomy of it, but. And a lot of people hear it and it's maybe kind of. Was it like you said, a kind of a buzz word for a while and then it kind of went away and as it was getting a lot of attention. And then there's. Because it's pretty innovative, like to your entire system.

What the hell is it? Tell me. What is it? What is it? Tell me.

Yeah. Okay, so it is the 10th cranial nerve, right? You have 12 cranial nerves. This is the 10th comes out of the base of your head, right at your mandula oblongata. And there's actually two sides of it. For a long time, I don't know if it was misinformation or if we just didn't know or if I was just ignorant. I only thought there was on one side. I thought it was just on your right side for a long time, but it's not. It's on both sides and it comes out and it's works around your trachea. So it's very directly affecting your larynx, your voice, your epiglottis, which is the little hangy downy thing in the back of your throat. Yeah. And it goes down and becomes a part of your abdominal wall. Like then there's a diaphragm and then goes into your intestinal tract and all the way down into your tailbone. So it is primarily responsible for transmitting information, feedback and feed to. From the brain to all your body. So your voice, your heart, your lungs, every organ in your gut system, your liver, your gallbladder. I mean all of them all the way into your intestinal tract. And then what's going on in the intestinal tract gets communicated back up to the brain. So it's pretty important and pretty impactful nerve.

That's why they Associate that to the gut brain access. That kind of, they feel is the communication between the gut and the brain, Right?

Yep. And it's kind of that two way highway there that now we're recognizing the gut being the second brain of the body because there's so much that happens in the gut that affects everything else in your system and why the nervous system is so tied around the gut and the vagus nerve is that in between highway that talks to everything else. If the vagus nerve is stressing or sensing stress, it will decrease activity, whether that's decreasing blood pressure, heart rate or your intestinal juices. It'll affect the actual breakdown of food, but also your elimination of food. It helps if it's overactive. You can have too much of all of that.

And it does all that automatically because it is the longest nerve of the autonomic nervous system which is automatically adjusting and doing stuff to those organs and systems.

Yep. And that's why we care. So that's, we. I mean, obviously there's significantly more to the anatomy of the vagus nerve, but that's not what we're here for. We're going to talk about kind of what you can do to. Well, I don't know what we're going to talk about. I think you have maybe some ideas that you want to talk about, Brian.

Well, I think about. I do, I always. Yes, I do have a couple things I'd like to say as a matter of fact now, I mean it does comprise both sensory and motor fibers, which is, which is cool. And so therefore because of that, I think it gives us a lot more availability to access it. But, but when we think of our parasympathetic nervous system, which we've talked about, you know, so much more in different aspects in previous podcasts, when you think of the autonomic or, sorry, the parasympathetic system, this is the nerve you think about. This is the guy that controls and interfaces with the parasympathetic nervous system. And when we, you know, look at the importance of that nerve branch and all the things and I just look back about like different clients I've had over the years and kind of some mysterious illnesses that nobody's been able to figure out. Like I have for instance, one that really a situation that comes up over a period of time is especially with some older people who have this weight loss that's just unexplained. Right. And they have like some nausea and just, they, you know, just this crazy weight loss. But you know, all systems, you Know, have been checked and, you know, nothing can be figured out. But, you know, when you look at some of the symptoms of the vagus nerve when it's been affected or isn't being stimulated in the proper way, like, that's one of the symptoms. So, I mean, it could be, you know, vocal dysfunctions, because, so it follows, you know, it could be stuff around the ear. Track that down to the vocal cords. Could be irregularities with, you know, the dropped heartbeat. Could be unexplained fainting, which is another one I've had. Even with kids.

Yeah.

Where they're just like. They get had, like a panic, a startle effect, and then they fainted and passed out. Nobody could explain why, but, like, this explains it, you know, so it's just cool. Like, when you. When you look at it, you're like, oh, that could have been that. And that could have been that. And that's.

And that's not as cute when. It's not really. Not as cute when kids accidentally pass out when startle affected. Like, unlike the goats.

Oh, my God. If I did that with my kids and they just did that, I hate to say it, I would do it all the time.

That'd be great. Like, kids are being annoying and you just scare them and they pass out. No, that's not. That's not funny.

It would be funny, I mean, because we like to laugh at things, you know, we don't want anybody to ever get hurt. But there is that uncontrollable, you know, humor and laughter when somebody does something ridiculous.

I wonder if that. If that is the reason why the fainting goats do that. Is that their vagus nerve? They get that if it's being shut down. I wonder if that is exactly why they do that. Because they get scared and they do the flight, fight, freeze, and they just shut everything off. If it's the vagus nerve that does that.

Yeah, No, I could totally see that. We need to look that up.

Okay.

Put that in the show notes.

Yep. So a lot of unusual, kind of odd, unexplained things can. A lot of. And a lot of things that we're used to seeing every day can be explained by just having vagus nerve issues. Right.

Acid reflux being one.

Hiccups.

Yep.

What else?

Abdominal pain, ibs.

Right. Yep. Constipation, diarrhea, low blood pressure, like you said.

Emotional stuff. A lot of stuff around. There's a lot of stuff around depression and anxiety as it relates to the vagus nerve. So. Which again, you see a lot of those Symptoms back and forth. Sometimes you have gut stuff, sometimes you have depression, which in Chinese medicine, you know, ties that stuff together too. So it's cool to kind of, you know, work backwards and see it that from that perspective.

Yep. Swallowing like people can't swallow food well. Or the pills. And like people can't take medications or vitamins very well. There's usually like a. It's under. No. Oh gosh, I'm have to think this through. If they, they're having a. They're having trouble swallowing the pills, they either underactive or overactive from the gag reflex. Right? Um, I think it's overactive.

Yeah, sometimes. Well, to test it, I think doctors sometimes will stick some cotton swaths down your throat. And if you don't gag, they say you're. They say that your vagus nerve isn't. Isn't functioning properly.

Right. Yeah.

So it seems like there's more focus in the medical side to actually stimulate the vagus nerve. It seems like it's more focused maybe on the underactive. Not 100%, but it seems like, you know, when you think of vagus nerve stimulation from a, from a medical point where they're trying to influence it, it's definitely stimulating it, but it even goes into like regulating blood sugar, blood pressure, stimulating peristalsis of the gastrointestinal tract. So sometimes maybe like even lazy bowels. Right. That could be an effect of the, of the vagus nerve. And one that I think is huge. There's tons of unexplained autoimmune cases out there. And if you look at its impact and how it deals with inflammation and you know, with the sensors and sensing markers of inflammation and then what it does, hell, that's, that's for quite a while. And who knows. And even if you don't know, like the best situation to do is to try some of the things that we are going to talk about a little bit later to influence it because we only know it's going to give us value and benefit us anyway. Right. So. And then monitor if some of these things clear up. So the great thing is, is they're all, you know, the stuff we're going to talk about are all very safe kind of already common things, but just a different way of looking at it. But like if you looking to get.

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Have some of these things and it's unexplained. You know, put a little attention on this, just explore, be curious and see what happens.

Do some journaling and it's again, it's not like taking an immediate pill. Sometimes it can be an immediate effect and it does have an immediate effect like overall to your parasympathetic system. But you might not see some of the other things like for like gastrointestinal issues may take some time and practice. I think that's again why meditation and doing a daily activity practice for reducing stress and some of these other tools we're going to talk about is important because I feel like it's built up over time. Now you can immediately do some breath work, affect your blood pressure, affect your heart rate, you can immediately affect your gastric juices. But over time, like you had said, it's the inflammation that usually starts in the gut and then is carried to the brain. And so there's a lot of conversation that's happening, like you had mentioned about the autoimmune because of gut issues and inflammatory responses. But then it processing through everything else and then you get brain fog, you get slow thinking, which is probably what my problem is today because I can't seem to complete a sentence.

There's two symptoms I was thinking of in Chinese medicine that are pretty funny, but one is called Plumpit Qi. And it's when you feel like you have that thing stuck in your throat and you swallow, but it just still feels like it's there. So in Chinese medicine that is usually associated to like a damp accumulation and usually the spleen's involved with that at some point, but. And then the other one is sighing, you know, which I feel a lot of us do as it relates to, you know, stress and stuff. But I wonder if that's like a call, you know, an aha little thing. It's like, hey, that's my vagus Nerve needs to be relaxed, you know, and because it's, it's the diaphragm's trying to work, you know, a little bit more and you know, you're, you're kind of teetering it from parasympathetic to sympathetic, you know, balance where you're in that. I don't want to say necessarily fight or flight, but more sympathetics. Fight or flight. More parasympathetic is rest and digest, which again we've talked about like the awesomeness of when you do feel relaxed, even whether you're getting a massage or whatever. People start getting gurgly stomachs, you know, and you start hearing it's called brighamus, that noise. And so that's a good sign that hey, you're, you've shifted and that vagus nerve's been stimulated. So when you hear that gurgly stomach and like you said, those gastric juices are flowing and you know, we have peristalsis to the intestines. That means vagus nerve's been stimulated, right?

Yeah. And that's a good thing, right?

That is a good thing. Plump, itchy. Bad good.

Plum pitchy. Stop throwing the plums around. Plum pitchy. And the plum pitchy, like you said. Let me just make sure I understood what you said.

I like how you're putting that to one word.

Pump.

Itchy.

That's you. It's like having like a frog in your throat.

Yeah. I mean, I've never had personally had a frog in my throat, but.

Well, you clearly not from the South.

I've never had a plum pit. I've never had a plum pit in my throat either. So that's really had frog legs in my mouth before. But not all frog.

Oh, boy. Yeah. We live in Colorado. There's not a lot of frogs here. I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma. Lots of frogs. I do kind of miss all the frogs that we grew up with, but we did not make a regular practice of putting frogs in our mouth. Just saying.

You never went gigging.

Maybe some of them did, but I don't know.

Did you ever go gigging?

Gigging? Is that where you go and catch the frogs?

Yeah, well, you catch them with a big sharp spear. No, we're really getting off track here.

We are. But, you know, that's part of the fun. Let's keep talking about frogs.

Let's keep talking about gigging. And we're gonna get the animal activists on us, you know, causing heart attacks.

Okay, so built in ability to stimulate the vagus nerve, or is it Stimulate or activate the vagus nerve is the sighing. Like that's an automatic reaction that our body takes for breath work, for relaxing. We're stimulating it or are we. What are we doing there?

Well, I think in that aspect, the vagal tone is off. Right. So I think just like our muscles. And I'm going to just think about this. We have like that hypertone, which is too much, and the hypotone, which is too little.

Right.

So I feel like when you're in more sympathetic, the vagus nerve is kind of over.

Right.

It's hyper. And then when it is under, you know, that's when like the opposite would happen. And that's probably like the fainting, you know, past that point, you know, or whatever. And the blood pressure drops too low and probably more of that unexplained weight loss. That. So that probably means it needs to. It's hypo. So it needs to be stimulated where. If the heart's going too fast and the blood pressure is too high, it would be hyper.

Right. What about. How do you think it works with the gastrointestinal hypo hyper. If you got chemotherapy.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like the lazy, sluggish bowels in that aspect where there's not a letter, a lot of peristalsis, it would be hypo active. And we need to be stimulated. Right. So hyper. I don't know. I wonder.

Overactive.

Yeah. There could be maybe some cramping or bloating or. I don't. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question. I don't want to throw. I could throw random stuff out here. We could, you know, I mean, we can make it make sense. But actually, you know, hyper. Would that be more. I wonder if that would be more in the acid reflux category. Nausea, Acid reflux?

Well, that's what I'm thinking, acid reflux. But you can also have, like, your bowels can be moving too quickly. Right. So obviously we're trying to find that balance. Again, you don't want it too sluggish, you don't want it too fast. Again, that can have a lot to do with what types of food you're eating. But if your vagus nerve is hypo, it's. I don't know. I'm having a hard time with.

That would be sluggish, I think. So hyper, you're. Maybe you're running to the bathroom and you're praying that you make it just in time. And hyper, you're reading all you're Reading the whole magazine from COVID to cover.

Work on that. Work on that fiber intake, probiotics and omega 3s. Yeah.

Maybe we should do another podcast, just all on diagnosis and differentiation of your bowels.

We should, we should. Hey, there is a thing that you can do to. If you want to check and see how. If your vagus nerve is hyper or hypo and it's affecting your digestive system. Silly, but kind of interesting.

Is this going to be R rated?

Probably not. No.

All right. What is it? Give it to me.

How do you even go there?

Are we doing coffee enemas?

Nope. I mean, you can, you can. A lot of people think they're very healthy and work very well for them. No, but you can do the sesame seed test or the blue dye test if you don't like to, if you want to do blue dye. But sesame seed, white sesame seeds are a little more easy on your natural weird chemicals in your body. So you get, you get a spoonful of sesame white sesame seeds, you put them in water, you swallow it, don't chew them. And then you have to watch. You do. You have to watch the timing from the first bowel movement that you can see seeds. And so, yes, you actually do have to see. Look at your poo in the toilet and give it a look, which everybody should be used to doing. Like, really, you should check your poo. Like we said, we need to do a whole podcast on checking your bowel movements. But. So you want to time your first sesame seed to the last sesame seed.

You have to count all the sesame seeds.

Yeah, you kind of have to be watching it, and you should be clearing within 12 to 20 hours. So you, I mean, I get it. That's a little bit, you know, but that is how they do it. They check, you know, to see when you're clearing. So if you're. You're clearing all your, you know, sesame seeds in less than 12 hours, you have an overly fast digestive system. And if you're doing it less than or more than 20, you have a sluggish digestive system.

I. I love the sesame seeds. And for those of you who do not want to break your poop apart to make sure that there's all those.

Sesame seeds and do it with corn.

Well, let's check it. So that's checking the gastric dumping, right? So it's a time that something enters your stomach and. And how it passes efficiently through your digestive tract. So I think in today's modern world, they have a pill that you swallow that yeah, it's, it's. It has a camera, I think, as well, and it tracks get out, really. So you just, you just pop the pill and. And it monitors and traces, you know, all the way through the track and times it too, so.

Huh.

Pretty cool.

I had no idea about that.

But if you don't want to bill your insurance, you know, $5,000 for that.

You know, oh, you have to go to a doctor for that.

You don't do sesame seeds.

You can't just go down to like the Best Buy tech store and just pick up a little camera and swallow it.

Well, I mean, why not try it? I'm all for trying. Do not do that.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

You know what? Just eat blue icing. Okay?

I'm sure as kids we swallowed other things. I probably ate some Legos in my day and got something.

Oh my gosh, you're right. Oh, my goodness. Okay, so let's get back on track. Talking about the vagus nerve.

Let's get back on track so we can fall off track again.

So little quick things. Okay, so stress affects your vagus nerve, right. And that can be a number of ways, like your stress from your food that you're eating or not digesting, or you're not digesting because of your emotional mental stress or a physical stress. Also, like exercise, whether it's a healthy exercise or an extremely challenging exercise, all of those can be one way or the other. You can negatively or positively be affecting your vagus nerve. But since we tend to run around in high level of stress, especially in the last couple of years, as we've noticed, everybody's stress level, busyness level is really high. I think higher than it's really ever been. We're learning, you know, there's some things you can do throughout your day to help regulate your nervous system. Bring your vagus nerve back on track. Well, you know, lower your vagus tone with a couple of tricks. Right?

Synchronicity. Yes. And before we jump into those, if you don't mind, I do want to throw in, I believe that mechanical forces and posture really affect it too. So, like, we have those internal drivers, but then externally, you know, like you said, kind of with the exercise, you know, lack of movement and poor posture and things. Because if we think about, you know, when we're, when we're moving and we're gliding and flossing our nerves and we're doing like nerve glides and nerve floss, if you are slumped over, you're shortened, Right? You're shortening that track of that vagus nerve. So if you think looking to get.

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Picture it running to keep it simple from like behind your ears, down the sides of the front of your neck with those SCM muscles and then dropping down through that chest cavity and down into the corner colon where we're usually bringing those points closer together. And so you know, by doing like standing cats and dogs or by really creating extension and in full extension through the the trunk and the neck and things like that, we're really flossing and kind of stretching and moving that stuff too. So I think those mechanical forces can play a big role as well as the stress and poor digestion as well. Hey guys, it's Brian. I just wanted to take a pause for a moment in the middle of this podcast to thank our sponsors Ouch, who's helping to make this podcast possible today. Ouch believes everyone should enjoy what life has to offer without enduring pain. They are a pain relief company. Listen guys, I use their products a lot. Their proprietary herbal formula is built on top of a 2000 year old formula. Given it time tested effective reason and I'm gonna listen to that any day of the week. The combination of that with the founder having over 22 years of experience hands on treating actual patients for musculoskeletal pain makes Ouch a very special company. Ouch is made with the highest quality certified herbs and CBD from organic hemp oil. Their ingredients are extracted with the utmost integrity to ensure the healing properties remain pure and concentrated to promote natural muscle pain relief and other benefits. I got to tell you, I appreciate that so much. As a consumer I want to know what I'm getting is exactly what's being sold to me. So they take it a step further. They have a certificate of analysis for all their ingredients before it goes into production. And then they also get a certificate of analysis after post production to ensure that you're getting what you're paying for. Listen here, guys. Don't settle for a lesser version of your best self. When you can feel your best. Today, check ouch out at ouch Shop, that's spelled outch dot shop for a full line of their products. They're an amazing company. I use their products on a daily basis. Check them out.

Yeah. And as much as we. I know, but, you know, I've said like a thousand times this morning already, so it's okay. It's the way we are.

I just said, well, again. I'm like, well, well.

So basically what you're saying is, because we all slump over with everything, it seems like today we're always stuck on our phone. But it's a very good idea to just stop and do some, like I call them, star stretches. You just reverse everything in your posture. Stretch open, look up, you know, open and expand your. Your chest, stretch out your arms, stretch out your legs. I did a corporate thing for a while where I was having people stand up every 90 minutes and snap their fingers above their head 50 times. I got. Yeah, really fast. There you go. And then every time, I mean, I don't care how often you do it, you're gonna smile, you're gonna laugh, and you're gonna make other people laugh. So you're bringing joy into the world and you're stimulating vagus nerve and you're correcting your posture. All the good things.

I love it.

Yeah, it's a fun one. What else. What else can we do to affect our vagus nerve?

Well, this I'm gonna. Can we start from the top and work our way down? So if you think about the ears, I was thinking about. So there's a lot of massage techniques, like if just running behind, up and down the ear and massaging that skin from behind there to help stimulate and relax it as well. And then inside the ear, in the upper little dimple inside your ear, kind of massaging in there. So there's a lot of like, ear stretching, massaging behind the ear, massaging in that upper little divot, if you will, above the midline of the ear is a good way. And you know, if you think about that, when. When have you ever gotten like a massage and somebody's massaged your ears and massaged your scalp behind your ears, and you're just like, oh, my God, that feels so good. Well, it's because that vagus nerve is like, ah, you know, I like this. And it's relaxing and chilling out and it's not sign anymore. So massaging behind your ears, stretching your ears in all kinds of different directions and massaging that scalp behind your ears and in that inner place in that upper divot, put your fingers in your ears.

So snap above your head and then put your fingers in your ears. Wiggle your ears around.

Okay, Wiggle it. Wiggling. And then so you could follow that down to massaging the front of your neck. Right. And even like if you're. And if you don't want to massage yourself, go get some mass massages and have a massage. The visceral tissue, you know, give a stomach massage is awesome. But just kind of following that, that path down and, and massaging is fantastic. Next. What do you got?

Well, I mean we could go back up towards the ears. One of the things that, that you can do, which you really don't run around doing. I mean, be careful. But the vast lavalier. The vasav. I can't say it. Maneuver. I am winning today.

You are winning. I want to know more about this fasava.

It's the, it's the val sav maneuver. I can't say it right.

Yeah, I don't know what you're trying to say, so I can't help you. Let me call another friend.

The val Salva. Basically the bagel. It's the bagel maneuver. Basically you are closing your mouth and plugging your nose and pushing pressure into your ear and your mouth.

So clearing your ears.

Kind of like, gosh, why don't we just say it? Clear your ears.

So when I'm on the plane, I'm going to be like.

It'S V A.

V a L S a L V A maneuver.

All right.

So I'm very giggly and silly this morning.

I just did that with my earbuds in and that did not like that. So don't do it with earbuds in.

Yeah, the pressure in there. But you could start there. The other thing, like you said, sighing. But one of my favorite things. Laughing, humming, singing, gargling. So if you have that, if you do have like weak swallow throat control. So like for if you gag with food or if you feel like you're coughing a lot or what, what you said the plum plump, itchy. Yeah. One way to stimulate that and build vagus tone is gargling.

I love it.

So that, yep, doing some good gargling but humming and singing. And that's why I think like Meditation. The Om.

Mm.

Yeah. Did you know there's. I don't. I'll have to look it up. I can't remember exactly what it is, but there is. Somebody did a study about the own breath, the Catholic chanting, the monk chanting. There is a. It's a. It's like a mathematical formula, basically that they're all about the same pitch and length of time. And that has been studied to show all of those help decrease your stress because of how it gives that time to end the pitch that affects your nervous system, your vagus nerve.

So I wonder if that then is probably resonating at the solfeggio, then.

Frequency 9.

Yeah. Like the 5, 2, 8 frequency.

Uhhuh.

Yeah.

Let's do. I'm going to rank a note. We're going to talk about that another time too. So poo, poo, poo. And.

And 5, 2, 8, soul. So I can't say that one either. You know, it is interesting. So I, I thought about that too. And it does create, like when you. Oh. Or like the chanting kind of this vibration. So it's different. But I know like a lot of vocal therapists, if people are going in for different vocal dysfunctions or therapies, you know, they'll have them humming and stuff like that, and I wonder how much of it is creating that vibration. And they'll have them place their tongue in different places while they do it and all kinds of fun stuff. And also like stretching, you know, the neck out and.

Yeah.

Kind of like what we talked about. But I, you know, you do think about that. Like, I have a terrible voice. But I remember always used to like humming and like, you know, be bopping around. And I did feel happier when I did it. So let's start humming again.

Let's do. I. You know, and I wonder how whistling works because I whistle a lot. But I had, I had one of my friends, little girls, she drew us all pictures of our Indian names. So she, she made, she gave us all Indian names and then she drew pictures of us. And my name was always humming. She's like, aunt Amy hums all the time. So apparently I'm constantly like regulating my nervous system by humming.

I love it. I love it. That's fantastic.

That's my Indian name.

Indian name. I love it. Yeah. So humming, whistling. Sorry, I was like, oh. So, yeah. And going back to like stretching that anterior neck. So if you bring your head at different angles and really stretch and look up and open that up and you know, really create extension throughout the trunk and, and lengthening that kind of moving and flossing. That, that, that's a yummy thing too, huh? And so breath, breath work. A couple things is breath. Breathing in through the nose has shown more effect with it than like breathing out through the nose or even through the mouth, but then working that diaphragm. So doing some diaphragmatic breathing, breathing in through the nose. And I have seen and read some places where you want to do a longer or shorter inhale and then slowly build with a longer exhale. But really, you know, I think that speaks to that diagram, diaphragm and doing some diaphragmatic breathing. So when you're doing that, obviously we've talked about breathing in relationship to the parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system, but also knowing you're influencing the vagus nerve. So if you want to expand on that, I'm going to grab a power cord. So keep talking.

Okay. You get a power cord. Yeah. Well, we did a little bit on breath work. I think we could do even more because breath work is becoming even more important. We're finding out a lot about it. But you can also, you can dis. You can lower the vagus nerve and do calming breath work or you can do more like the WIM HOF power breath work and create more tone in there, depending on what you're needing to activate. So breathwork works well. We talked about meditation and we talked about massage and now you've walked away and I need to ask you how to pronounce that again. But there's the little rose and jade quartz tools that you use to do like face massage, neck massage. I'm going to mess it up and Brian can correct me when he comes back, but it's the gua sha. Gua sha.

Gua sha.

Gua sha sha.

That's exactly gua sha sha gua sha.

The gua sha, that's an excellent tool for, you know, lymphatic drainage, helping with, you know, neck massage and all that. But I also think that that's good way to stimulate your vagus nerve along your neck like you said on the SCM in the back of your neck. So doing some self massage wish the grasshopper self massage.

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Another great thing, and this is going back to a podcast we did before when we did stuff on cryotherapy is the vagus nerve really responds well to the cold plunges and cold exposure. So taking those cold showers at the end of your shower or exposing yourself to cold outside or cryo chambers.

Cryotherapy, I'm all for that.

Cryotherapy.

Throwing yourself in the snow also good. For whatever reason, I can't do this. I can't do the cold shower yet. I've tried. I just can't make myself do it.

Well, even if you just do it and do the four seconds in, four seconds out, four seconds and do four cycles of that, it's still something, right? It's not because like the cryo, the great thing is, is you're in there for three minutes and you're done. But obviously you have to pay for it. I wish I could turn my pond into a cold pledge pond where I still have the pretty aspect of it, but I can't seem to really regulate my algae, so I would probably have things fall off my body.

Algae, Regulate the algae. So let's regulate the vagus nerve and regulate your algae. This is important.

That's right. That's right.

Tony Robbins has a plunge tank right on his back porch that he just drops it. He just literally, it's just big enough for his giant body. Right. He's a really big tall guy and he just steps right into it. He just whole body goes down into this plunge cold tank.

Does he have to put ice into it or is it. Is it regulated some other way?

It's regulated. I mean, you know, it's Tony Robbins. He's. Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's got it. It's like already done. It's kept at a certain temperature for him. I can't remember how cold it is, but it's pretty cold. But there's like, I think there's videos. Yeah, we should.

Wait a second. No, wait, what are we talking about? We have a cryo chamber at the office.

We do, but apparently the actual wetness of the tanks make make a different type of impact from some.

Yeah, a painful, horrible impact. Not comfortable. Dry cold. Everybody knows dry colds is more comfortable and better.

I think so, too. I'll do the cryotherapy.

Yeah, that's three. Three times a week. This week. Three times a week.

So, yeah, so we're. You can do that. You can do cold plunges. I'm happy to do that. That's the cryotherapy. Three times a week. Absolutely. Breath work, meditation, singing, blowing in your ears. I mean, wait, don't blow your ears. Blowing somebody else's ear.

Well, now that. Then we might as well have some ear nibbling, too, because that is stimulating to the vagus nerve.

Definitely a good. Stimulating. It's. It's morning. Did somebody spike our coffee this morning or what?

I don't know what's happening. But then we play back.

Yeah. Into your gut. So what you're eating is significant, how you're eating. So keeping track of, you know, eating good, healthy food, whatever that might mean to you these days, we can. We do a whole nother podcast on that?

Well, we did do one on the gut bacteria, and so that's a big one. So probiotics apparently are really yummy for the vagus nerve too.

When's the best time to take probiotics?

I'm gonna have to go back and listen to our podcast.

You are terrible.

Three times a day.

Well, I think before you eat.

Before you eat.

I'm gonna have to do a little more research on this, but I was. I was told by somebody who's far more intelligent than I am that your best opportunity to take probiotics is at night. But I know that you can take it pretty much any time if you're not taking them now. It's better to take them at some point during the day than not at all. But there is some research that shows that taking it in the evening is optimal.

Actually, I feel like I do take my naturally in the evening because I just take it before. Before I go to bed.

That's good.

And. And then rest and diet. So it's just like, doing its thing. I am. I am getting kombucha on tap at my house.

Oh, that's fun.

I'm very excited.

I like that yours is kambucha instead of kombucha.

Well, I was hoping that beer had a lot of probiotics in it, but apparently, according to my research, it is not. So I'm gonna have to kill one of my kegs and put some kombucha.

Kombucha. That'll Be nice. That'll be nice. So yes, breath work, meditation, humming, singing and self massage in like if you're traveling or if you're stressed out at work, taking a break, doing some little quick. How long do you think it would take to affect, like five minutes. You need like five minutes outside walking and humming and some gauche on your neck.

Yeah, I mean I think one, I think, I think that is a relative to each individual probably a little bit. So I would say when you're doing something being mindful about you're trying to affect that vagus nerve, pay attention to if you feel your breath relax a little bit or if you feel your heart rate slow down, or if you feel yourself sinking to a sense of calmness and relaxation and then that's when you know you've affected it. So that might take three minutes for some and it could take 20 minutes for others.

Yep.

Yeah.

I think the, the sacred chant of Om meditation is like six minutes is the typical time frame. So maybe there's like I was saying, I'll have to do some little research into that one. As far as the chanting from all the. Who couldn't listen to that for six minutes. That's wonderful. I'm already relaxed though now like immediate.

I sound better in the shower.

That's very nice. Yeah, I think those are all right. Around six minutes. We'll have to check that out. But even if you can only take a couple of minutes to do some breath work, your. If you just need to go in and do light tapping, like light finger tapping on your SCMs, which are the muscles that stick out of the front of your neck, go down from your back of your, like at the base of your jaw down to the front of your collarbone. Even if you just did some light tapping and breath work for two minutes throughout your day, you will likely see a significant decrease of stress in your life.

Extra quick, quick thing on the tapping thing. I was actually tapping on RIN17, which is in the center of your chest.

Oh, it's such a good one.

And when I was. Yeah, well, and you can go up the sternum too. But as you're tapping up and down, if you are tapping, you'll notice a vibration because of the bones of your ribs throughout your chest cavity. And and so tapping on like bony surfaces does create this kind of resonance. And so if you tap in on the chest. So my point is of that when I was doing under with the like eft tapping techniques and stuff like that, clearly it's affecting there a lot of them. Are acupuncture points. But I also wonder, you know, a lot of them do, you know, are also on bony surfaces, if it's helping create that resonance width to the vagus nerve. Nerve and helping the vagus nerve just, like, respond.

Yep. I love that. I learned that a long time ago as a calming technique to just tap right at the collarbone, sternum space, and do a breath work. I did it because I was kind of an anxious child. I had a lot of energy. My nickname in high school, all the way through grade school and high school, was spaz.

Rasma Spaz.

I had spaz. Yep. I couldn't sit still ever. But yeah, so I learned that tapping on your chest. So that's a good one to do at any time. Like if you are a nervous driver or before you're prepping to go into something like a meeting or a presentation, an argument with your spouse, do the tap testing and calm your system down.

Yep. And good old exercise. Just think about when you're moving, just what kind of range of motion are you moving through? You know, watching that posture, slouchy posture. And just floss that nerve, baby.

Floss the nerves. Yep. And exercise, obviously, you know, exercise that helps. That's not. That's just vigorous enough, but not so vigorous that it's gonna destroy you. Yeah, sometimes, I mean, I get it like some ultra athletes and sometimes we push ourselves too much, but, you know, and that's for a purpose and for a reason. But if we're looking to help decrease stress and vagus tone, we're going to do a little bit more relaxing motions and relaxing exercises with good breath work.

Well, I think we gave a lot of homework for everybody, so try all the things, people.

Head to toe.

Try all the things. But again, just to, like, it's important. Like, clearly it's a very important nerve as. As it interfaces, you know, with that parasympathetic system. And it affects our, you know, it is our major part of our autonomic nervous system affecting all these organ functions and things like that. And when there is a disruption in the smooth operation of things, we have disease. Right. Dis ease. That is disease. And who knows how this can affect it. So it's something you can take control of. It's something you can play with, an experiment. It's something that is observable and you can pay attention to your signs and symptoms. So you have some metrics to see how much of a role that played in it. So when something can't be figured out, do it. And we all know anyway that we all need to bring our stress levels down and that's a trigger for imbalance and dis. Ease in the body. So play and explain. Explore.

And I've been doing it the whole time and we didn't even mention it. Laughing.

Yes, Good.

Get silly people. Everybody just get silly and laugh about things a little bit. Yeah, but watching comedies or, you know, doing things that make you laugh, obviously you're, you're working breath work, you're working diaphragm, you're relaxing, you're stimulating your vagus turn and your vagus nerve. So get out there and be giggly.

All right, people, so Amy doesn't know this yet, but everybody stay tuned for the next podcast because Amy and I are going on the road.

Oh, I'm excited.

A little, a little fun adventure. So we'll talk about it when we get off here.

Okay, perfect. I'm excited. Let's do it. Bye, everybody.

Bye. Share this podcast with everybody. You know, I know there's a million podcasts out there and but there's so many great reasons to listen to ours for sure and to share that with everybody because health, as health is wealth. So share the wealth and share the health and you get healthy and wealthy at the same time.

Right? Let's do it. Okay, let's chat.

All right, bye folks. Bye.

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