The Vagus Nerve and Strategies to Strengthen Vagal Tone

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this video on the vagus nerve and how to strengthen vagal tone. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. So let's start out for those of you who aren't familiar talking about what the vagus nerve actually is. The vagus nerve runs through your entire body. It's got its little grimy mitts in just about everything. And it is typically thought of as your primary relaxation nerve, but it actually is more than that. It's like a traffic cop for your stress and your relaxation response. And when there there is a stressor, it should be letting the stress traffic go. And when they're the stressor is over, then they should be letting the relaxation traffic go. Unfortunately, people with poor vagal tone have difficulty re recovering after emotional upset. So their cop just doesn't alternate the traffic, the stress traffic is going through and oh by the way, there may be something else that might be happening. I don't feel safe. So we're going to keep the stress traffic going through and that relaxation traffic just continues to build up. And I think all of us have been at a four way stop with a less than effective traffic cop before. So you know what I'm talking about. Poor vagal tone is often associated with HPA axis dysfunction. The body, when it gets stressed, instead of letting a little bit of stress hormone go through. So instead of that traffic cop letting like 30 cars go through and then switching it lets 200 cars go through, it just dumps a whole bunch of stress hormones into the body. And it takes a while for the body to recover from that. Think about it the opposite way. Think about how long it takes 200 cars to go through all that time traffic's backing up the other way and it's going to take a while for, for all that traffic to go through once the stress hormones actually stop. So it, the vagus nerve is really on point for helping you trigger that relaxation response and stop that stress traffic. Who should do this? Who should work on strengthening vagal tone? Everybody. Everybody. Adolescents and adults. That's typically who we think about. But children can do it too. Children, when they start feeling distressed, when they start feeling upset or irritable or scared, can learn how to do some basic things to help trigger their vagus nerve, to help them get into their wise mind. Now they may not understand all the mechanics of it when they're two or three, but they can do it. Infants and you're like, well, you can't talk to an infant and tell it to take deep breaths no, you can't. However, they found that infants tend to sync with their caregiver when their caregiver is holding them. So if the caregiver is just oozing stress and hyperventilating and their heart rate is pounding, the infant is going to sync with that. If the caregiver is strengthening their vagal tone, triggering their vagus nerve and down regulating the infant is going to sync with that. And pregnant people who knew? But yes, the fetus is very, very intertwined with the nervous system of the parent. And so it's important to recognize when the parent is stressed, it's also triggering the fetal HPA axis. And so some people, some babies can be born with a HPA axis that's already dysregulated because their caregiver or their birth parent was dysregulated, was stressed out so much of the time. So pregnant people can also help nurture the nervous system of their infant by practicing and strengthening vagal tone. Strengthening vagal tone means improving the cop's ability to recognize when the threat is over, stop the stress traffic and let the relaxation traffic through. Good vagal tone is associated with improved emotional regulation, reduced inflammation, reduced pain, as and a lot of people even report improved sleep and improved energy. How do you do it, though? How do you trigger that vagus nerve? Well, ultimately, what you're doing is you're trying to train or retrain that traffic cop to be more alert and aware of what's going on. So when you experience stress in, in real life, or you can even do it where you are exposing yourself, you're thinking about something stressful intentionally, and then trying to calm yourself down. For example, maybe you've got to go talk to your boss tomorrow, and that's really stressful for you. Well, you can imagine doing that and then practice down, downregulating that stress response as you think about what that meeting might go be like. So you experience a stress reaction of some sort of. And. Well, we'll talk about physical activity in a minute. A stress reaction. You can use belly or square. Square breathing. Belly breathing means breathing in, letting the belly expand, noticing how the belly expands and exhaling, noticing how the belly contracts as you exhale. So that's deep breathing. Square breathing is breathing in for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, and holding for four. Now, people who have a trauma history may have difficulty with belly or square breathing because it may trigger a dissociative episode. So if this kind of breathing, intentional breathing like this, is too triggering for you right now, there are other things you can do. Blowing bubbles is one of them. I have yet to have somebody dissociate while they're blowing bubbles. You can do this with chewing gum. And the benefit to gum is that the chewing motion itself actually triggers the vagus nerve that has little projections into your face. That recognizes when you're smiling, when you're frowning. But when you start stimulating that nerve by chewing, it can help you relax. We also know that when we eat, our body triggers the vagus nerve, triggers the relaxation, so we can rest and digest. So chewing the gum itself is beneficial. But then blowing the bubble, what happens when you blow a bubble? You chew the gum, and then, you know, you make a little pocket, and then you take a deep breath in. There's that breathing, and then you slowly blow out to see how big you can make that bubble before it pops. So you're deep breathing, but you're not focusing on breathing. You're focusing on the bubble. For kids, you can get those little tiny jars of bubble stuff that they sell in party supply stores, and they can blow bubbles. And again, they have to take a deep breath and then blow out slowly, or they don't really get much in the way of bubbles. So those things can be helpful for smaller children. You can make what, what I call a dragon breather. And you can find instructions for how to do this online. But you take a toilet paper roll or a paper towel roll if you want, and you color it, wrap it up in tissue paper, and then you cut streamers out of tissue paper, red tissue paper, and put that at the end, tape those on the end, so when the child blows through it, those red streamers flutter like the child is breathing fire. And that, again, helps them blow. And there are those annoying noisemakers from parties that, you know, spiral out and make the horrible noise. Those really aren't usually appropriate in most situations, but it is another tool. Singing loudly also triggers deep breathing. When you're singing loudly, you're breathing and exhaling through. Through your diaphragm. So that triggers. Not only are you moving your mouth, but it also triggers the vagus nerve. It triggers the relaxation response. Now I have. Or even screaming. Some people just get to that point where they're just like, oh, screaming is not always appropriate wherever you're at, but if you're at home and you can go scream into your pillow for a second, just take a big deep breath and scream into that pillow for a minute, Sometimes you feel a little bit better, and that's okay. That's triggering that vagus nerve, there is nothing wrong with it when it's done in an appropriate setting and not screaming at people, screaming into a pillow, laughter. And this is more than just a giggle. A giggle where you're like, yeah, whatever, that's not going to do it. You need a good belly laugh and that will trigger the relaxation response. Physical activity also helps the vagus nerve. Learn how to rise in response to a physical stressor and relax when it's over. When you do something like running, you know your heart rate and everything rises in response to that stressor. And as you get better conditioned, your heart rate should drop much more quickly. When you're finished, it takes less time to recover. That's the vagus nerve going, okay, I know what to do here. With yoga, for example, it can combine physical activity where you are holding a pose and it gets to be a little uncomfortable after 5, 10, 30 seconds, depending on the pose that is going to cause your vagus nerve to be activated. It's going to cause the stress, stress response to be activated. And in yoga, one of the things that we practice is slow breathing in order to work against that response. So your body wants to raise its heart rate and wants to raise its blood pressure, but you are intentionally controlling your breathing and that will help keep the heart rate down and the blood pressure down. So you're reprogramming, if you will, that traffic cop and the ear, which is the tragus or the temple massage. And I've done other videos on tragus massage. I find it most helpful to put my middle finger on my tragus, the little flap of ear, and my index finger behind my ear because there's other projections there. And gently rub. You're not pressing. It's not like you're trying to give yourself a, you know, muscle massage. You're just gently rubbing that area to stimulate the nerves underneath the skin. The same thing can be done with a temple massage. So there are a lot of different ways that you can trigger your vagus nerve. Other tips heal. And don't overload the HPA axis. Don't, don't overload your stress response system. If your vagus nerve is already weak or vagal tone is already weak, which means your traffic cop isn't doing a very good job, then putting him out in the middle of rush hour on spring break isn't going to be a good idea. So when the roads are suddenly flooded with traffic, the vagus nerve has a harder time maintaining balance. Identify and eliminate as many unnecessary stressors as possible. And I Call them pacer stressors, your physical stressors, things that cause you pain or physical distress, your emotional or affective stressors, your mental stressors. What things are you overwhelmed about right now or pessimistic about that you can just put on the back burner for a little it your environmental stressors. This can include temperature, noise, just generally feeling safe and your relationship stressors. Now not all those things are going to be able to be eliminated, but if any that are possible to eliminate, work on eliminating them so your HPA axis can heal and your traffic cop can have time to get trained and before it is flooded again with rush hour traffic. Plan for what I call high traffic times. High stress times. Whether it is the holidays or a staff meeting or whatever it is, plan for those times. Recognize that you need to eliminate as many other stressors as possible and anticipate this high stress time. That's going to take energy. It can also be helpful when you're planning for that high traffic time, that stressful experience, envisioning successfully going through it. So you're telling yourself ahead of time in your mind, you're rehearsing it, saying I've got this, I can go through this and there's not going to be a problem for me. Busy malls and stuff. Christmas shopping was one of my worst nightmares until we started being able to do most of it online. I don't like shopping malls, I don't like large crow. And so going to places where there's large crowds, I know that's going to be a high stress time or a high traffic time. So I need to bolster as many reserves as I can ahead of time as well as envision the benefits. What I'm what's going to be good about it, like going to Disney World for example, when I went with my kids, you know, 20 some odd years ago, that's a kind of stressful environment to be in. It's hot, there's a lot of people. But I focused on seeing the excitement in my kids faces and that helped me change my direction if you will. That helped let some of the, the relaxation traffic go through because I was focused on them and not the stressors. Address stressors as they arise instead of just, you know, building them all up and saying okay, I'll deal with that next week, I'll deal with that next week. And the next week comes and you've got a buttload of stuff to deal with. Try to deal with stressors as they arise. If you get into an argument with your best friend, address it Then don't just sit on it and stew on it and develop positive social connections. People that are supportive, that are loving, that are encouraging, that are consistent, they don't have to agree with you all the time, but they are secure and you know you can count on them to support you when things get tough. Because we are not intended to handle life 100% by ourself 100% of the time. We all need help occasionally. And when you know you've got those resources, it can help you find feel less stressed. When my husband was out of town one time, he's usually the one that handles the plumbing issues and we had a plumbing issue and I knew my best friend's husband was a plumber and I called her, I'm like, hey, would you mind, you know, having your husband help me out here? I'll pay you whatever. But I knew I had that resource. I knew I had someone I could call that could help me figure out what to do. Strengthening vagal tone can be helpful for most people and can be taught in to children as young as infants. Strengthening vagal tone has many health benefits. The more effective your traffic cop your vagus nerve, the easier it will be to get into your wise mind when you're under distress. If you're able to, you know, call into that traffic cop and say, hey Joe, you need to let the stress make the stress traffic stop for a minute so we can get into our wise mind. It's going to be easier to get into your wise mind and make fact based, rational decisions. As the length of time you're stressed decreases, the HPA axis will also heal and may lead to a reduction in inflammation and improvement in your immunity, etc. So triggering your vagus nerve and strengthening your vagus nerve is part of healing that HPA axis and healing your nervous system and healing your body.