Meditation Relaxation and the Vagus Nerve

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on meditation, relaxation and the vagus nerve. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes, and this is the first part of the Science of Happiness masterclass. In this video, we're going to explore meditation, how meditation triggers the vagus nerve and promotes relaxation. Highlight 10 benefits of meditation on health and happiness. Identify strategies to incorporate meditation into your daily life. It's not something that has to take a bunch of time. A minute, two minutes, five minutes here and there. You're going to find it can add up really quickly. Let's start at the beginning. Meditation on the vagus nerve. Research has indicated that the vagus nerve is the primary prime candidate for explaining the effects of meditation on health, mental health and cognition. So it's not just me saying it. Meta analyses of different studies have shown that the vagus nerve, which triggers your relaxation response, is the prime candidate for explaining why meditation has so many benefits to it. Respiratory vagus nerve stimulation, or RVNs, is thought to be largely responsible for triggering the relaxation response via the vagus nerve. When we slow our breathing, and I've said this in so many videos, when we slow our breathing, it triggers the vagus nerve, recognizes this and says, hey, I guess we're gonna relax now. There's nothing to be stressed about. So it sends the message to the brain that says, all clear, we can relax now. In meditation, one of the first things we do is we slow our breathing and we focus on breathing better, if you will. And that sends the message. When we start doing that, it sends the message to the brain via the vagus nerve that it's time to relax. Respiratory vagus nerve stimulation produces what they call a phasic change in the peripheral nervous system or parasympathetic nervous system activity during and right after meditation. When you're doing meditation, there's a phasic change in the parasympathetic nervous system. You're going to go from fight or flight to the relaxation response. So, so you're switching phases during meditation. You would expect that right after meditation, you're still in that relaxed state. So things that come at you, experiences you have, stimuli and triggers in the environment are not going to be perceived in exactly the same way. Think about it in the opposite. When you're stressed, when you're already stressed, you're already primed. And it doesn't take much to cause you to get stressed out. You may react more strongly to things, because when you're stressed, you're already vulnerable. With meditation, it's the Opposite, instead of priming for the stress response, you're relaxed so you don't already have all those chemicals coursing through your veins. And you're more able to perceive the world from a different perspective. How do you perceive things differently on days when you're stressed versus days when you're not stressed? What do you notice differently on days when you're stressed versus days when you're not stressed? It's important to think about. This phasic change in the parasympathetic nervous system or the pns when you do it repeatedly, when you meditate regularly, you're strengthening your vagal tone, so to speak. This is the vagus nerve's ability to say hey brain, it's no big deal. It's strengthening your vagus nerve's ability to take over as soon as the stressor's gone through. So you can go from reacting to relaxing a lot more quickly instead of taking a lot of time to down regulate. People with borderline personality, for example, as well as other disorders often have something called emotional dysregulation. And those people tend to or people with emotional dysregulation tend to react more strongly to stressors than others. And it takes them longer to get back to baseline. That vagus nerve has difficult time doing its job with meditation. It strengthens that vagus nerve. So even people with who have emotional dysregulation start to be able to get down into their wise mind, start to be able to down regulate more quickly. So the result is a long term shift in autonomic balance, A long term shift in which is stronger fight or flight or the relaxation response. Which one's going to win? When people meditate, they found doing blood tests that there are decreases of C reactive protein and plant pro inflammatory cytokines. Meditation promotes that relaxation response and it also reduces inflammation. They found again in blood tests improved markers of immunity via reduction of chronic stress reactivity. When we are chronically stressed, our system is full flooded with adrenaline, flooded with cortisol. And cortisol actually loses its ability to reduce inflammation. So we see an increase in inflammation and we see an impairment in immunity when stress is chronic. Meditation also produces reduced multiple physiological stress markers across many things. Heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels all go down when somebody starts to meditate. Now let's think about this. The stress response, fight or flee. What happens when we fight or flee? Cortisol and adrenaline, they're excitatory, glutamate, excitatory, all of those are dumped. What happens? We Breathe faster, our heart beats faster, our blood pressure goes up, our, our GI system just increases in speed in order to clear it out because it's not time to rest or digest. So it makes sense that if we're in the full relaxation response, if we're triggering that relaxation response, all of those stress related parameters are going to decrease. We also know that cortisol, our stress hormone, is associated with a lot of stress related illnesses. Premature aging, difficulty sleeping, a lot of that stuff. And meditation, as seen in the meta analyses, actually does work to reduce cortisol levels. So even if you can't exercise, meditation is one strategy for reducing your systemic cortisol. Meditation has also been shown to decrease symptoms of depression, anxiety disorders and PTSD in people. And we're going to talk about why that might be part of why that might be in a few minutes. We know that inflammation is associated with increases in depressive and anxiety symptoms. So we know that to be the case. Since meditation reduces inflammation, that's one aspect that is contributing to an improvement in symptoms. When our body experiences inflammation, our brain perceives that as a threat. You know something's wrong, which that's what inflammation is supposed to do, which triggers that stress response. And when we can reduce inflammation, then we're reducing how often that stress response is triggered. Meditation also helps enhance executive functioning and working memory and acts as a buffer against age related cognitive decline. So it's a benefit. It can enhance things in younger life, but it also acts against a buffer when we are stressed out. When you've got cortisol, adrenaline and glutamate just surging in your brain, higher order thinking is not so good. It's difficult to think clearly when you're in fight or flee. So executive functioning or our higher order thinking is much more effective when we are in our, as Linehan calls it, our wise mind. And meditation can help trigger that relaxation response, can help us down regulate it. Doesn't mean we're just going to say ah, whatever, I don't care. It means we are going to purge some of those stress chemicals so we can get into our wise mind and figure out how to solve the problem. Additionally, by enhancing executive functioning and working memory and learning and awareness, we are building up our cognitive reserves. And cognitive reserves are essential to buffering against age related decline. Additionally, systemic inflammation is associated with age related cognitive decline. So the more we can reduce inflammation, the better we're protecting ourselves from age related cognitive decline. So it improves depression, depressants, depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, it enhances cognition. Meditation has been Shown to significantly improve attentional control even in people with adhd, which is really awesome. And we're going to talk about how that works in a few minutes. Meditation also reduces the connectivity between the default mode network, which is what I call our brain's autopilot, and the amygdala, which is the fear processing center. When we are stressed out, when we're under chronic stress, when we've got ptsd, when we've experienced trauma, it strengthens the connection between the amygdala for fear processing and our autopilot. So we start to feel like the world is always a dangerous place and the amygdala is keeping us on high alert so we don't get harmed again so we can stay as safe as possible. Meditation triggers that relaxation response, which means that the amygdala has to calm down a little bit. You can't have an excited amygdala and relax at the same time. So it triggers the relaxation response, which reduces the stress response and increases the connectivity between our autopilot and our higher order thinking, our executive control network. What we're doing, that phase shift we talked about earlier, not only controlling the difference between who's in control, but the stress response or the relaxation response, but who's in control, the amygdala or the prefrontal cortex. Our higher order thinking. Are we acting on emotion or acting on thoughts, acting on facts? Some of the common beneficial factors of meditation attention training. When we meditate, open awareness meditation is paying attention without any particular hang up to what's going on around us. We're not noticing the dog, we're just noticing everything. Sight, sounds, smells, as it comes and as it goes. That's open awareness. Or you can have focused attention meditation where you're paying attention to one thing like the flicker of a candle flame. Either way is training the brain to handle distractions. When you're using open awareness meditation, it can be tempting to latch onto one thing and start noticing that and then start ignoring everything else. Everything else kind of blurs into the background. And part of the attention training in open awareness meditation is reminding yourself to stay open, to stay aware, to stay curious about everything that's going on. The other side of it is focusing on one thing. And then when something happens around you that distracts your attention from that one thing, gently pulling it back. Both types of meditation can be really beneficial for training your brain to either notice the big picture or focus in on things. So I encourage people to practice both ways. You can focus on external stimuli, walking through the Woods. You know, if you're on a hike, just noticing the sounds, the sights, the smells, or you can notice one thing like the flickering candle flame, you can pay attention to your body just in general. Notice what's going on and do a body scan. You know, how is that feeling? Where do I feel tension? Just kind of noticing how it feels and even what sounds it's making. If your stomach is gurgling. Or you can do focused attention meditation where you're focusing on your breath. As your stomach expands and contracts. As you breathe in and out, you can focus just on breath. How does the air feel when it comes into your nose? When it fills your lungs? As you exhale the air, you know it feels cool coming in and hot going out. Or you can even focus your attention on your feelings. How am I feeling right now? Noticing that. Just not getting hung up on it, but noticing how you're feeling in the moment. Affect training is another common beneficial factor in meditation. When you're meditating in many different types of meditation, you notice feelings and thoughts without having to act on them. I can focus on my feelings and notice that I'm feeling stressed or I'm feeling depressed or I'm feeling however and I don't have to act on it. I just notice it non judgmentally. Okay? It's there. Making note of it. Think of yourself as a scientist that's just going around and noting observations. Same thing with our thoughts. When we're meditating, we can have thoughts that come into our head. We don't have to act on them. They are just bits of language. We may think I have to do this, but we don't. We can unhook from those thoughts and recognize that we do have control over what we choose to act on and what we don't. Affect training also helps us envision feelings and thoughts as separate from ourself. Acceptance and commitment therapy. They call this defusion. Recognizing that we are not our feelings. I am not depression. I may feel depressed. I have a feeling and it's depressed now. What am I going to do with it? I am not my thoughts. I have thoughts, but I can change thoughts. I have this thought now. What am I going to do with it? Is it one I want to hold on to and draw near to me? Or is it one I want to get rid of and release to the universe? Metacognitive adjustment is another beneficial factor. And basically that means changing the way we think about things, changing the way we think. Metacognitive adjustment happens in meditation because it encourages us to Become aware of alternatives to the bigger picture. If we're thinking about things, if we are noticing, you know, we have this open awareness. We become more aware of everything in our environment, the good and the bad. We become aware of the bunny rabbits and the sunrises and the birds, in addition to the potholes and the whatever else. Metacognitive adjustment helps us notice the things that our amygdala may not let us notice. Sometimes metacognitive adjustment helps us become. Begin to notice what we can and cannot control. We start to look at things and we recognize. Say you're looking at that flickering flame on a candle. You can't control that it's a flame. It's going to. Now, you can choose to put it out, or if you breathe on it, you can make it go away. But there are things about the flame you can't necessarily control its heat very well. And I know some of you scientists are going to argue with me about that. But when you're sitting there staring at it, what can you and can you not control in your environment? What can you or can you not control about that flame? And metacognitive adjustment helps us learn how to ignore irrelevant information. Sometimes we just get so inundated with information overload that we can't think straight. And metacognitive adjustment helps us figure out how to sort out what's really there and what's not. Body awareness is another beneficial factor of meditation. It helps us notice when we become aware of our bodies. When we're getting ready to meditate, we start out by sitting comfortably, noticing how we feel in our body. We notice where there's tension at, and that gives us the opportunity to release tension, to adjust it. Before we get started, we pay attention to our heart rate or our viscera, our gut. In body awareness, we notice. How does my gut feel? You know, I'm feeling kind of gurgly right now. Doesn't mean we have to do anything about it, but we become more aware. And as we become more aware of tension, our heart rate, our respiration, our viscera, or even our posture, it provides us early warning signs or early clues to oncoming distress, so we can intervene earlier and take more proactive steps to increase positivity, to increase relaxation and mitigate distress. Breath work results in increased oxygenation, which we know is good. Our body needs oxygen in order to function. So deep breathing, breathing in through, through our nose or through our nose and mouth, however you feel comfortable doing it, expanding your belly as you breathe. That diaphragmatic breathing let you Bring in a whole lot of air, holding that breath for a count of four or more and then slowly exhaling that breath. It allows your lungs to process that oxygen, it brings that air into your body, which can increase energy and it can help facilitate a lot of functional processes in the body. And by slowing your breath kind of full circle to where we started, it triggers that vagus nerve, it triggers that relaxation response. So doing that so slows your heart rate and it inhibits inflammation through the cholinergic anti inflammatory pathway. They've actually shown that when this relaxation response is triggered, there is a specific pathway, the cholinergic anti inflammatory pathway that is triggered, that acts to reduce inflammation, which, remember, inflammation is a stressor on our body. So that's all part of that relaxation response. How can you add meditation into your life? And remember at the beginning I said start with two minutes. Two minutes may seem like an eternity for you at first. What you're aiming for is to incorporate 10 to 30 minutes of meditation into your day every day. So start slow, but do things that are in sync with how you live your life. So let's talk about mindfulness or non judgmental open awareness. When you're walking to and from your car, you probably spend 10 minutes a day just doing that. But when you're walking to your car and from your car to your office, and then from your office to your car, notice. Look around, get out of your own head. Be mindful of what's going on around you. Do a body scan, even be mindful of how you're feeling in the moment. During a shower, be mindful. How does the water feel hitting your skin? Is it cold? Is it hot? You know, is it pulsing? Is it dripping? What does it feel like? How does it impact your muscles? A lot of times you can feel yourself starting to relax. If you're taking a hot shower, for example, do a mind body scan and you can do this. I encourage you to do this first thing in the morning before you get out of bed and last thing at night before you go to sleep. And why is it a mind body scan? Because you want to explore. How am I feeling right now? What thoughts am I stuck on right now? How do I feel physically? Do I have tension? Do I have pain somewhere? Start just taking notes about how you feel. When you're finished meditating, then you can figure out how to fix it. But meditation is a time for you to just notice and let go of some of that stress. Sit on your porch or your balcony. Even if you live in an apartment, you've got somewhere right outside your front door that you can sit and notice things. You may try adding a bird feeder or something if that's your thing, in order to notice place pleasant things when you're sitting there. But that is another way to practice non judgmental open awareness. What is it that I see? What is it that I feel when I walk outside my door? Mind body exercises like yoga and Tai Chi can be very helpful because you are obviously moving your body, but you're staying focused, keeping your balance, focusing on your energy and also maintaining your breath. You're paying attention not to hold your breath, not to breathe too quickly. You are controlling your body's response to any physical stress, to any physical changes. Progressive muscular relaxation is another example. Going through your body, you're going to tense, relax and notice the difference between tense and relax. And as you relax, you're going to feel the tension leaving that particular muscle group. So that can help you really focus as you go through your body on what's going on and what you can change and how you can release stress and tension. As you release stress and tension, you're going to trigger that vagus nerve. Remember, for all of these, you're going to start out with a few deep cleansing breaths in order to trigger, to start triggering that relaxation response. Loving kindness meditation. I like to do this in two stages. Well, three. Start by getting comfortable, getting in a place where you're safe. Take three, four of those deep, slow breaths. Then envision what it looks, sounds and feels like to be loved. What does that look like? When I envision it, I envision this orb of yellow glowing light that just envelops and warms people. Other people envision different things. So for me, it's a warm bubble. For others, it may be being wrapped in a soft blanket or having the wind blow through their hair. Haydn's Cello Concerto 2 in D minor or I'm sorry, D major is one of my favorite music pieces that I envision. This little girl kind of skipping through the fields and feeling very safe, loved and happy and content. Whatever it is for you, whatever loving kindness looks like to you, feel that. And I say this because not everybody has experienced true unconditional love. They can't think about what it felt like when their caregiver expressed unconditional love. So I think it's important to provide options so you can figure out what would that feel like? How can I create that image? Once you know what love looks, sounds and feels like to you, you're gonna move on to experiencing it. Starting out with your inner child. And some people say start out with self. But I find that a lot of times people have difficulty starting out with self, starting out with that inner child that's scared, that's hurt, that's, that's sad. Saying to it, may you feel safe, healthy, loved and at peace. Envision yourself actually talking to a younger version of yourself, telling yourself that you wish that that child felt safe, healthy, loved and at peace. And once that child feels the love, feels the kindness, then move on to yourself, recognizing that you as the now parent of that inner child, and you as the now adult, send yourself wishes that you can feel safe, healthy, loved and at peace. And sit with that until you feel that bubble enveloping you, or that blanket wrapping around you, or however you envision it, and then think about a friend and sending them the same wishes of feeling safe, healthy, loved and at peace. If you've got plenty of time, you know, this obviously is better to do, right? And only send this to maybe your inner child and yourself, if that's all you have time for in a day, than to do it too quickly and just run through these things, really feel enveloping that whoever you're sending it to, enveloping them with a sense of safety, love and peace. If you've got time, though, after you do the inner child and yourself, then you envision a friend or friends and you send them the same wishes. And then think about sending it to neutral other people, just random people in the grocery store, for example, envision sending them these feelings. When you see people in the grocery store. You don't have to say it out loud, but you can think to yourself, may you have the rest of your day feeling safe, healthy, loved and at peace, and envision yourself really sending that energy to them. It becomes even more difficult when you are trying to send these warm feelings to difficult people. But it's important to remember that all of us, as humans, all of us want to feel safe, healthy, loved and at peace. And oftentimes, the more difficult people are being, the less safe, healthy, loved and at peace they feel. So sending these things to them may help them feel nourished, may help them feel less threatened and scared. Envisioning these difficult people as feeling threatened, as feeling terrified, and desiring to comfort them, can help you envision their behavior, can help you tolerate their behavior in a different way. And then sending these same feelings, same thoughts to everybody, just the universe, the planet, and that's a bigger ask, but it is a step that we can work towards where every Single person. We truly believe that we want to send safety, health and comfort to every single person in the world so they feel less angry, so they feel less depressed, so they feel less anxious. Breath work. You can do this when you wake up or when you go to sleep. It's very simple. Start out, breathe in for four, feel your belly expand, hold for four, exhale for four, feel your belly contract and hold for four. Do that a couple of times. All you're doing is focusing on the air going in the belly expanding. You're ignoring the other distractions. This helps trigger the relaxation response. It helps trigger the serotonin, the dopamine, the gaba, and primes you for a mindful, focused approach to perceiving the world. When you get up in the morning, do this before and after each meal. Two, three of those breaths can help trigger that relaxation response, which will help you slow your eating, which will help you be less stressed when you're eating. And that actually changes the gut microbiome so you're in some ways potentially improving your nutrition. Add push notifications. Maybe it's helpful to have your phone remind you every two or three hours to just take a few deep breaths, stretch, take a few deep breaths and then get back to work. And then before and after a stressful event, maybe you've got to go in and have a difficult discussion with somebody. Taking a few of those relaxing breaths, those cleansing breaths before you go in will tamp down that stress response so you're more in your wise mind, you're less likely to be flooded with those stress chemicals or at least not to the same degree, which will help you think more clearly and react more mindfully in that situation. And then after the stressful event, well, it was stressful. So again, using that breathing in order to put the vagus nerve in order to put the relaxation response back in the driver's seat. So you're helping your body switch from stress response to relaxation response. The connection between stress and health and mental health issues are well documented. Meditation can help rewire your nervous system and your autopilot. It will help you notice the good and the bad. It may help you recover more quickly after a stressor and may help you recognize what is and is not in your control and use fact based or wise mind reasoning. This rewiring can assist in the reduction of inflammation. Improved sleep, which results in improved energy, improved mood and attention through reduced inflammation as well as improved sleep and ability to filter out distractions and indirectly improve your relationships. Because when you're in a better mood and you've got more energy, you're going to have more time and desire to. To interact with others. Try adding in meditation two minutes when you wake up in the morning, one minute before and after each meal, throughout the day as you walk to and from your car and for two minutes before bed. If you do all that, you've got well over 10 minutes a day, which is what they've shown to be the minimum amount required for improving your parasympathetic nervous system response.