Fight or Flight? How to Leverage the Vagus Nerve | Ep. 101

Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast. I am Hadlee of Happy Healthy with Hadlee, and we've also got Dr. Nicole Kane. Hey. Hello. We're here today to talk to you about the vagus nerve. So yeah, I'm curious to know, you know, how many people even know what the vagus nerve is. I know that in my circles at least, it's become sort of trendy to talk about and to think about. And I hear people talking about the vagus nerve a lot. And so, and I've had a couple of questions about it recently, actually, as well. And so I thought that it would be nice to come on Talk to y'all about what the vagus nerve is. Dr. Kane, before we got on, was like, is it a place? Is it— is it the nerve that like gets fired when you go to Vegas? So we want to talk a little bit about what the vagus nerve is and why it's important for your nervous system regulation, for, you know, any type of mental health challenges that you might have. Whether anxiety or depressive symptoms or anything like that. And so we're just going to kind of get into it and riff on it. And Dr. Cain is like a master with the vagus nerve, so we're just going to flow.

Yeah, I would love to teach y'all. And so if this sounds like something you want to learn, this is a conversation for you, is you're going to actually learn how to measure the tone and activity of your vagus nerve. Right now, all you need is a pulse and 2 fingers. So if you have that, then you're going to have the requirements. And then—

Wait, will you explain what, what does it mean? What does tone of your vagus nerve mean first?

Oh yeah, you're going to learn about the strength. Like, think of muscle tone. So if your muscles are nice and toned, then you're going to be able to lift things without injuring yourself. And if your vagus nerve is nice and toned, then it's going to be able to work really effectively to help you combat stress. And feel really balanced. So you're going to learn how to measure that. Of course, we'll talk about sort of vagus nerve 101, about what it does, where it is, and signs that your vagus nerve needs a little bit of TLC, and then some hacks for vagus nerve. And I have a whole course on this. And so if you love the information in this conversation and you want to learn more and you want a beautiful handout made by the one and only Hadlee, then you can go to my website, Dr. Nicole Cain, and you can get that there. It's either in the top under courses, or you could just type in the word vagus, which is different than the city. This is spelled V-A-G-U-S.

Yes. Awesome. I'm so excited about this because I think a lot of times people have heard of the vagus nerve and they're like, I know it has to do with with stress. And I know it has to do with how I want to feel, which is calm. But what is it really? So let's get into it.

So it's your longest nerve. It's the longest nerve in your body. It starts in the brain. It's called a cranial nerve. And a cranial nerve, it starts in the brain and it's number 10. So they call it cranial nerve number 10. And it travels from the brain all the way down in your body. And the route that it takes is kind of meandering. It's a wandering route. And the word vagus in Latin actually means wandering. And so that's why they call it the vagus nerve, is because of that zigzag that it takes through your body. And its job is to regulate all sorts of things. And we'll get into its many things that it regulates. But what's really the most important that we're going to emphasize today is the vagus nerve communicates. It goes straight to the gut and it goes to the nervous system of the gut. It's called the enteric nervous system, and that's the route the gut-brain axis takes to communicate back and forth. And so your vagus nerve is really, really crucial for that part of your nervous system. And so there are a few ways that your vagus nerve regulates your nervous system. So can I share 5 of them?

Yes, please. Are there only 5 or are there more?

Oh, there's so many ways. The vagus nerve is super nuanced, and we'll actually get into polyvagal a little bit today, too. And Stephen Porges is trying to use metaphor and analogy to make this really complex autonomic nervous system more accessible to Your non-neuroscientist person.

Right. Because a lot of times we think it's just fight or flight, and the vagus nerve has a lot to do with the fact that there's more than that. There's more to it.

There's so much more to it. But primarily, fight or flight is like the most important thing for us to remember because we can leverage that. And that's exciting, as opposed to like, oh, well, that's a bummer.

Yeah, right.

No, can't

do

anything about it. Yes, you can leverage your vagus nerve using the hacks that you're going to get in this podcast. And so the 5 ways, the 5 primary ways your vagus nerve regulates your nervous system is one is it's a reset switch. And so if you're in that fight, flight, freeze and you're really stressed and you're really anxious, you're overstimulated, you're agitated, by activating your vagus nerve, it can switch you from that high stress state into calm and command. Which is really incredible. So it's like a light switch. It's like you walk into a room and it's like blinding you. It's too bright. You just reach over on the light switch, you turn the lights off. Your vagus nerve can work much like that. So that's number one. That's super exciting, right?

I love that. Yes.

Number 2, we talked about just briefly, is that it facilitates communication between the gut and the brain. And we know that your gut regulates neurotransmitter production. Your neurotransmitters are the chemicals in your brain that regulate your mood, like serotonin, And dopamine and GABA and adrenaline. And so it communicates that, it relays that. And that's like how we refer it to our gut feeling, like a gut knowing, a gut intuition. And there's actually some neuroscience and gut-brain science about that that's backing it up. So that's pretty cool. Number 3 is that inflammation is a key cause of anxiety. And the vagus nerve can actually send anti-inflammatory signals throughout the body. So if you have a lot of inflammation and that inflammation is causing fibromyalgia or digestive upset or anxiety or depression or hormone issues or cramps or whatever it is, vagus nerve activation can actually bring down inflammation and correct that. And an imbalance in vagus nerve or a weak vagus nerve tone can predispose you for a higher risk of inflammation. So.

Right. And when we say like vagus nerve activation, it's, it's like basically when we regulate our nervous system, when we talk about regulating our nervous system, that's also helping to activate the vagus nerve, correct?

Yes. Thank you for saying that. That's really good.

I just want to make sure everyone knows like what that means. It's like, is doing the practices that we that we've talked about in the nervous system episode, that can help too. And we'll talk about other practices or more practices as well, but that's going to help to activate the vagus nerve.

Yes. And one of the ways that it does this is it regulates your vitals. And so when you go to the doctor, you see your primary care doctor, they'll feel your pulse, they'll take your blood pressure, they'll look at your heart rate. And the vagus nerve, when it's activated, that It sends your body into a relaxed state, causing your heart rate to slow down, your blood pressure to go back down, your respiratory rate will slow, as opposed to when you're in sympathetic activation or that fight, flight, freeze. Your vagus nerve is less activated, and then everything is the opposite, right? Your blood pressure is higher, your pulse is faster, your respiration rate is faster. And so Your vagus nerve is an important part in that. Kind of like, as I'm talking, I'm doing this left and right kind of gesturing and bouncing because it helps you be able to pivot left and right to have that kind of fluidity. So you're not just flatlined, but you're also not just like through the roof, like cruising in fight flight.

Right. Because if our vagus nerve is overfunctioning, it can also lead to more of that collapsed nervous system. And so we want it to be tonified enough so that we can actually, you know, we can feel calm. But then we can also— we talked about in the emotional agility episode, we want to be able to respond to things as they come up as well. We don't want to be, you know, just like so calm all the time, even when like we need to be activated. Yes.

Like, have you ever had a— Hadley, have you ever had a vasovagal reaction? Are you familiar with that?

I don't know. I probably, yes.

I have definitely had those. And so, oh yeah, it, the vasovagal reaction can happen when you're like giving blood or if you get really stressed. This is when your blood pressure crashes and you pass out.

Mm-hmm. Yes. I have never actually passed out.

That's amazing. I haven't like gone unconscious, but I've definitely been like, like falling.

Oh yeah.

I'm gonna throw up. Like. Pulse crashes, body temperature crashes.

Yeah. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah, I've never— I've never— I don't think I've ever experienced that, but I will. What happens for me is if I am in too high of a, like, um, like in that fight-flight response, my body will just kind of shut down and I will just like stop moving. Like, I'll just be like, I'm, I'm just still now and I'm just I'm just not gonna do anything. I'm just gonna sit here and I'm just gonna wait. And that's freezing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Instead of collapse, because there's— yeah, yeah, that vasovagal collapse where it's like we see sheep do this when they get stuck to fences.

Yes, totally. Yeah. Can you explain the difference between freeze and collapse? Actually, do you want to do that first, or do you want to explain the rest of the 5 ways that we can The last

one of the 5 is like a quick one. It's just something small called neuroplasticity.

Oh, just that.

Just neuroplasticity. And so the vagus nerve contributes to growth, change, healing of the brain. It stores, it retrieves, it promotes memory formation and concentration and focus.

Well, and that's huge because we talk about— I mean, The fact that like our vagus nerve, it starts in the brain, but really it goes throughout the body. And we talk about how like our subconscious mind is stored in the body. Vagus nerve.

Totally. Yeah.

Right. So it's like our vagus nerve is actually communicating all of those like subconscious things that we've got that are just stored throughout the body and not necessarily even stored in the mind. It's sending those signals. So that's where that comes in.

Can we do self-reflection?

Yes, please.

All right, so we're gonna put up 10 fingers, and this is gonna be a self-reflection of how do you know if your vagus nerve is not working properly. For every one that you resonate with, drop a finger. Okay, sign number 1, hoarseness or loss of voice.

No way. Yeah,

because your vagus nerve goes through your pharynx, right?

I used to lose my voice All the time. As like in high school.

Stop it. Are you serious?

Literally all the time. That was like such a thing.

I lost my voice all the time.

Of course you did. We're the same. What?

I'm getting full body goosebumps. Like for the entire month of November, I would lose my voice every year from 5th grade until I went to medical school and took out food allergies.

Okay. It was November for me too. That's really crazy. Yeah. Because I would do— I would be in theater and I would be in swimming at the same time and I would get sick and then I would lose my voice. And it was like every November. Yes.

I could never do Opus and All-State because I was a singer.

I was a singer too. I couldn't do state. Yeah.

You guys, we just recorded another episode where we were like, what?

You do that same thing too? So we're the same. It's weird.

All right, I gotta put my— so maybe back in the day that would have been a yes because I would get aphonia for like no reason at all.

Totally. Yep.

Number 2, difficulty swallowing, or your uvula, which is your hangy ball thingy in the back of your throat that leads to one side of your throat instead of pointing straight down. So go look in the mirror and look at that hangy ball thingy. Is it pointing to one side or the other? Is it difficult for you to swallow? Do you find that you swallow and it gets stuck and you got to cough it back up? Could be a sign of vagus nerve. All right, number—

That's so interesting. That's like my— I feel like my grandma. Probably had that because she would always, you know, like, she would just, like, not be able to swallow things. So

I run into this so frequently with people who are, like, 70, 80, 90 years old. Yeah. Which, which it's like all autonomic nervous system. Well, not all of it, but a lot of it.

Okay.

How many fingers do you have? You still have 10 up, don't you?

I still have 10. Yes.

Yeah. Currently we're both doing pretty good. Okay,

well, this is our job.

This is our

job.

Number 3. 3 is irregular heart rate or heart palpitations. And I'm going to put a finger down for that because when I get really anxious and I'm in autonomic arousal, I do get heart palpitations. And then number 4 is digestive upset, nausea, bloating, abdominal pain, often mistaken as IBS. I'm going to put that down too.

Yeah.

Because

if I get really stressed, it goes straight to my gut. Yeah.

Yeah. So if your vagus nerve was kicking in and taking names like it, that you would want it to be, then it's possible that maybe that wouldn't happen. And then number 5 is fluctuations in blood sugar. So do you find that your blood sugar spikes or crashes? Do you wake up in the middle of the night and you feel like ravenous or sweaty or shaky? Right. Number 6 is an overactive vagal response. We just talked about this passing out and you get your blood drawn, like a vasovagal response. Do you get really sick or lightheaded or dizzy from Standing too long in the heat. If you're out in the heat for too long, which too long is too long for anybody, but you're more sensitive to being in the heat.

I would say that's definitely me. That's my pitta.

That's your pitta. So pitta, vagus. Yes. Also trying to have a bowel movement. That's called Valsalva, is when you bear down to evacuate your bowels, and that activates vagus nerve. Which is really interesting. Have you ever seen a kid get really angry? Like, maybe something is taken away from them, and then you hear the silence before the scream, and they're like, and their face is getting really red. And then—

Like the same exact thing as pooping.

It's like the same thing as pooping. So they're actually trying to regulate their nervous system. Maybe they don't know it, but that bearing down. So if you're feeling really anxious or stressed, you might actually try that, like, hold your breath and kind of push and bear down like you're trying to poop, and that can actually activate your vagus nerve. But if you have an overactive vagus nerve, if it's not working properly, that can cause it to spike too much, and then you can crash. You could feel dizzy.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So number 7 is if you deal with headaches, especially cluster headaches or migraines. Thankfully, I don't have that. Number 8 is emotional distress, like anxiety, depression, stress. But it's been ruled out that there aren't other main things that are causing it. Like if you're in the midst of a pandemic or a crisis or a trauma or a really high stress job, or you're in a relationship that may be better if you had a relationshipectomy kind of a thing. Of course, we can't blame the vagus nerve for that. It may be environmental, but could be that.

Well, and I want to also make clear that the things that you're saying are not just You know, if you don't have enough tone in your vagus nerve, right? Like sometimes it's if your vagus nerve is being overactive.

Yes.

Yes.

It's not working properly, which could go in either direction. Yeah. Thank you for clarifying that.

So if your vagus nerve is strong, is, you know, is, is activated, that means that it can put you into the like parasympathetic nervous system state, which is that rest and digest, which most of you have probably heard about at this point, instead of the fight or flight. But when it is overactive, so still it's not working properly because it's overactivated, that's when the collapse can come in where it's like, I'm so— basically it's like I'm so calm that I'm like collapsing and I'm not functioning. My body isn't functioning anymore. Does that— Yes. Good way to explain it. Okay, cool.

That's a really good—

everyone's clear.

I love your zoom outs because I'm so zoomed in and then it's like that ebb and flow, that sine wave that you and I talk about. So it's like zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out.

Totally.

The last 2 are sleeping changes, which we can kind of categorize that, like you said, like too much and I'm exhausted and I'm over parasympathetic, or the opposite, I can't sleep or I wake up because I'm in fight flight. And then the last one, which comes from Dr. Porges, and this is feeling disconnected from others, like a lack of intimacy or feeling like a lack of connection. He calls that the social engagement system being shut off with vagus nerve suppression.

Interesting. Okay,

how many do you have?

I'm going to say I put the sleep one down too.

Oh, I should, because, yeah.

Because, I mean, I haven't experienced this in a long time, but I used to oversleep if I was stressed. So there you go. My nervous system was like, bye-bye, shut down. Yeah. And all of that has to do with— that's like kapha coming in and protecting us, right? So we've talked about that in the past with some of the types of anxiety episodes. It's like our nervous system is overactivated because we've got either too much pitta or vata going on. And then kapha comes in with that nervous system collapse state and is like, no, you can't do anything right now. Here, let's just put it all down. So it's very much aligned with the doshas.

I love that. I love incorporating it with the doshas. And before we did that self-reflection— oh, by the way, how many did you have? I had 3.

Oh, I had 4, I think. Yeah, 4.

4? Yeah. So it could be that our vagus nerves need just a little bit more TLC for toning and flexibility and balancing, or it could be the other chicks. And we call them ticks and fleas. Maybe it's an itchy tick of vagus, but it's a flea of yeast or something, right?

Yeah. Yes. Mold exposure can do it for sure, too, which I have. And

that's actually a good point, is let's say that you do resonate with that. The question that always comes is, well, what next? And the question of what next is, well, you have to figure out why. What could be interfering with autonomic nervous system? It could be anything that your vagus nerve is communicating with is providing a feedback loop that's affecting its behavior. So your nerve goes to your gut, and then your gut is sending a signal back up the nerve that's going to change how the nerve behaves, and then it's going to change how the brain behaves.

Totally. Yeah.

So there's a lot of deeper digging, which this whole podcast is all about that. So listen to Every episode, please.

Right? Yeah, totally. And take the vagus nerve class too.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Take that class too.

Also that.

So do you want to learn to measure vagal tone?

Let's do it.

So vagal tone, as we just talked about, it's a biological process that represents the ability of your vagus nerve to regulate your nervous system. So more tone, is it's more effective at helping shift you from fight, flight, freeze, or autonomic arousal back into parasympathetic so that you can run from the bear and then go take a nap and then get up and run from another bear and then go take a nap. It allows you that flexibility. So you go up on the treadmill and you run and you get yourself into the orange zone if you're an Orangetheory person, which I love. And then you can go back, you can start walking, and then you go back into the green zone and then You have a panic kind of feeling. You're on an airplane and it's really bumpy and you're in the red zone and your nervous system is fight, flight, freeze, but then it can easily shift back into calm. So that flexibility is what vagus tone is all about. So let's talk about how to measure vagus nerve tone. So this requires that you find your pulse. And so I'm holding my hand up. I wish you could see this, but imagine that you are looking at the palm of your hand, and then I'm looking at my left hand, and so my thumb is on the left, and we want to find the place in your wrist where your doctor feels your pulse. And so what that's going to look like is if you follow the, the thumb down, there's going to be a bump in your wrist. And so then you find that bump in your wrist, that's your radius. So it's where the base of your thumb kind of connects With your forearm bone there, and then you're going to slide into the cracks where there's like little tendons on the palmar side of your— this is so hard to describe.

Yeah, it is really hard to describe.

But you could Google how to find your pulse, and ideally you'll find your pulse here. But if you're like really struggling to find it, then just put your finger on your neck and you could find your pulse in your neck. Totally. Or you can put your hand on your chest. So those are easier places, but there's so much more we could do with like Ayurveda pulse diagnosis, and that could be really fun. And we can like teach you some of that here, cuz I know that's like Hadlee's zone of genius is like all that is Ayurveda. And so if you can find your pulse in your wrist and you want to just start noticing the speed of the beat. And then this is bonus, but try to figure out, like, if you were to close your eyes and imagine what the pulse would look like, what is— what would you see? So like, mine feels kind of like a guitar string being plucked. So it's like thick and kind of wiry. And if you kind of allow 3 fingers so that you have more space that you're feeling, so up close against your wrist with maybe One finger, then the finger next to it, and then the third finger. And you might find that your pulse feels different. If you're struggling to find it in your wrist, don't worry. Just notice the pulse in your neck. And so then what you're gonna do is you're going to take a breath in, and we're gonna breathe in together for 4. We're gonna hold at the top, and then we're gonna exhale for 6. And through these 3 steps, I want you to notice the Speed of the pulse. You ready? Okay, so take a breath. 4, 3, 2, 1. Hold. 2, 3, 4. And then exhale. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now that we kind of have the flow, let's do it one more time. So keep feeling your pulse and then inhale. 2, 3, 4. Hold at the top. 2, 3, 4. And sigh.

Ooh.

4, 3, 2, 1. Heads, what did you notice? Were you able to find your pulse?

Yes, I was able to. And it's so interesting because I always thought that this was like a weird thing when I— when we would have to like, you know, find our pulse or whatever in school and, you know, measure our heart rate. I was always like, but I feel like my heart rate is like different when I'm breathing out versus breathing in. But no one ever talked about that. But like breathing out, my pulse is so much slower than when I'm breathing in. Like, it speeds way up and then it slows way down, like, immediately when I'm breathing out. And I've always noticed that and I've always been like, like, why doesn't anyone talk about that? So I love that we're bringing this into the conversation.

That's exactly what happens with a healthy and tonified vagus nerve.

Yeah, that's really— maybe that's why no one was talking about it, because no one else has experienced They're all stressed.

Yeah. So ideally, you would experience with a healthy, toned vagus nerve is exactly what Hadlee said, is that you inhale. And when we inhale, we activate sympathetic nervous system. That's, again, that autonomic arousal, fight, flight, freeze. And then when we hold at the top, that's kind of like getting ready for the sigh. And then when you sigh out, that's Parasympathetic. That's vagus activation. That's feeling rest and calm.

And it's the same that goes with that pulsation that we always talk about of like, we're activating and then we're resting, and then we're activating and we're resting, and we're getting out of our comfort zone, and then we're coming home to ourselves and all of that stuff. And it's the same with the breath. It's so cool.

And that's interesting in terms of leveraging that information. Like, you take your breath everywhere that you go. And just in this simple exercise that took us less than 2 minutes to do is— Hadley, on your exhale, you activated your vagus nerve. And by doing that effectively, you're able to calm your nervous system in one single exhale. And the more that you practice that, the more your vagus nerve is going to become tonified. And the more effectively it will work at calming you down. Like, have you ever encountered someone and they're really frustrated with you and then they're just like, they just like breathe out really hard in frustration?

Hmm. Yes.

Their body trying to calm.

Yes. Well, and it's so interesting because a lot of times we, we say like, take a deep breath if you are like not calm. But really what we should be saying is like, breathe out, like sigh. Yep. Because that's what's actually going to regulate our nervous systems. And the breathing in is actually— is going to bring us deeper into sympathetic. But we're always going to breathe in after it. Like, you know, like after you breathe out, you're going to breathe in. And so you might as well just try it. Try like the sigh instead of, you know, you know, like beforehand.

Yes. That is my number one hack, the most helpful thing I can do. And I've learned that that works so well for me, I can almost do it automatically. And I catch myself doing it is like I'm exhaling and I may get this little blip of anxiety or stress because of what I'm thinking or doing. And then I just catch myself almost forcing out whatever's left in my lungs to extend the exhale and almost Valsalva, like really get it out.

Yeah.

And then that's like immediately much more calm.

Totally. Oh, that's so good. I love it.

So can we talk about other ways to stimulate the vagus nerve to get us calm?

Yes. So is there a way to, you know, if we do these practices, these exercises, because I know that people are going to be thinking like, well, I don't want to overtonify my nervous system because I don't want to get into collapse state. Well, that's not really how it works, right? So can you want to just explain that a little bit?

Yeah, it's like if you're walking every single day and your heart rate is picking up, it's very uncommon that you would walk yourself into a heart rate that's way too high, way too long, and cause heart disease, right? Right. Your body is able to balance itself and you'll have a healthy heart. And it's the same thing with vagus nerve is by practicing that that pendulum swing of I'm going to exhale and then I'm going to breathe normally and then I'm going to exhale, or maybe I'm going to do one of these other exercises and then I'm just going to go back to my normal resting state. It's just a pulse where you can rehearse it. Now, if you spend all day doing vagus nerve breathing, you're going to lose a lot of life. But I haven't seen any literature that says, like, oh, you should only do deep breathing for X amount of hours a day because you're going to make your vagus nerve overpower everything else. That won't happen.

Right.

Yeah. Your brain won't let that happen. So if there's danger, there are so many stopgaps that will override vagus nerve. Your brain will override vagus nerve.

Totally. I do see, though, sometimes people get into— they're super into yoga and super into meditation and all of that kind of thing. And then they might not get aroused enough for something that is actually happening that should be changed in their life, and they're like, it'll be fine, that kind of thing. So be aware of that. When we talked about the emotional agility episode, we don't need to be calm all the time. So be aware of that too.

Because that could be bypassing. It's like, exactly, I don't want to feel pain. And Hadlee and I just did an episode about how to suffer. And so we don't want to suffer. We don't want to do Things that make us really uncomfortable, but that's where we grow. And so, yes, these are really good and helpful tools, but I think you're not going to have light unless you also have darkness. And so, yeah, use these tools, but then don't use them in a way that makes your world smaller.

Yes. Oh, I love that. Yeah. So it doesn't need to be something that you're like, oh, no, I'm feeling this emotion. I better go do a nervous system practice that gets me out of the emotion. Right. It's like, okay, can we actually, like, feel the wave of the emotion. And then once the emotion has, like, come through us, then it's, like, great to do a practice like this. But okay, I just wanted to, to bring that in. Oh, and then before we move on to— will you explain the difference between freeze and collapse? Oh yeah, I mentioned that before, and I want to make sure that we don't forget to, to say that.

You know, I was actually studying this because I wrote about it in my book, and the body is what really differentiates it because on the outside it can look really similar. And so Freeze is you come upon a deer and that deer is like standing in a clearing and the deer observes that you're there and the deer will freeze. Yeah. Like their eyes are really big. Maybe they're— I don't know. I don't know deer physiology. Hadley's just like doing all the deer gestures right now and I love it. I wish you could see it. Maybe their pupils dilate and they're like bringing everything in, but they're frozen. And so then humans will do that same thing too, is we freeze and our nervous system is really attuned to, okay, what's my next step of action? So you'll see autonomic arousal, you'll see the heart rate speeds up, the body temperature increases, you may sweat, you may find that your breathing increases and all sorts of symptoms that are unique to you that come with fight, flight, freeze. And so then Collapse, which they call it flop, which I don't love that word, but they wanted an F. I think a better word may be fold. Like, you just give up, you just fold your hand, you just fold over and fall. And when we see someone go into flop, that's when the nervous system has discerned that there's no getting out, we are going to die. And it just starts to reduce your blood pressure, it reduces your heart rate, it reduces your pulse. And the body starts going into an actual state of physiological collapse. And

because essentially you wouldn't be in as much pain if you're like getting eaten by a lion, right? Like, it's like our body's just going to go into that state so that we don't have as much pain when we die.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And learned helplessness can really be behind that. And so if you've been in a situation where you haven't been able to reclaim agency or get free Then it just feels like there's nothing I can do and you just flop. And so you might notice that. And I've seen that— they call it conversion disorder in the DSM, Diagnostic Statistical Manual, where extreme emotional distress can cause changes in the nervous system. Mm-hmm. And so people may go temporarily blind from acute stress, or they may pass out when they get really anxious or stressed, or You know, all of these like unexplained nervous system symptoms that haven't been better diagnosed as something else. And the nervous system can do funny things when it feels like it's in danger.

So the difference is it looks— it can look similar in a person, but what's going on on the inside is like, like with the freeze, is that you're just super aroused internally. Like you can You can feel the difference because it's like I feel so activated. I feel like everything is buzzing versus the collapsed nervous system state is like everything feels dull. And I've definitely been there. So

yeah, it's like, yeah, so vagal, it's like just collapsed.

Exactly. And that's how I feel. That's, that's what I have seen in some people who have practiced a lot of like calming practices, yoga, like all of these things that are supposed to get us into like acceptance of things, like we can like overaccept things, right? And then not actually make changes in our lives. And then we have— and then we're in a— in that state of collapse because we're just like, the only way for me to handle this is to just like not feel anything at all and be totally numb.

So there's like— you're kind of describing like a dissociative element to it.

Totally. Yeah. It feels like— it feels like everything is just dull. Is kind of how I think of it. Yeah.

Which is— so there's another F that I haven't like put out into the real world yet, but it might be interesting at one point to kind of distill the nuance, which is really actual dissociation, where sometimes we get hijacked by different parts of ourselves. Like somebody says something and it reminds me of an injustice when I was 14 years old, and then suddenly my 14-year-old self is like, ah, And I'm having a tantrum and I'm angry or whatever, having all these thoughts. That's like my adult doctor self is like, what the heck was that? Right?

Yeah.

The hijack. And I call that fracture. And so when we go into fight, flight, freeze, we could also fracture where part of ourself may take over and run the show. And then the other parts of ourselves, we don't have access to those resources, which is substantiated by neuroscience because we do see that parts work, especially in internal family systems. That's the group of parts work researchers that are doing the most in terms of neuroscience. Um, but the fracture response, it'd be interesting to see the different ways that could show up in your neuroscience. Like, is there—

Yeah. Like, is that parasympathetic or is it sympathetic?

Or does it depend on the ego state? And

yeah,

but like, how can we, how can we objectively measure, oh, someone's going into a fracture? So if you guys are listening and you're sciency, this would be a fun study. Let's do it.

Yeah, for sure. And another distinction that I want to make is that fight, flight, and freeze are all in the sympathetic nervous system state, whereas the collapse or the flop is in the parasympathetic nervous system state. Yes.

It's a result of sympathetic overload. And then we, we do see, yeah, we do see that the nervous system in the flop or fold or collapse the same things that we do see sympathetic collapse. So we see that parasympathetic taking over. So that's a really good distinction. It's rooted in extreme fear and terror and danger. And then the nervous system is just like, well, we're going to die. Like the sheep on the fence.

Yeah. So it goes through— it's basically like it goes— so I've seen a graph before where it's like there's parasympathetic nervous system state, and then there's sympathetic nervous system state on top of it, and you have fight-flight up like on top. And then once you get to a place where you are in that like collapsed nervous system state, it's almost like there's a whole nother one above, above the— like it's like a parasympathetic state sandwich. So you're like, there's like another state that's still— it's parasympathetic, but it's like not like The feel-good parasympathetic state. It's like I've bypassed that sympathetic activation feeling, and now I'm in another level of parasympathetic state.

You're actually getting into polyvagal in a little bit because Stephen Porges talked about this because there's so much nuance and complexity to it. It's not just like autonomic arousal and then like— Right.

Because I think that's what people think is that it's either you're either stressed and have this buzzy, really stressful healing thing, or you're just like calm and good and everything's fine. But there's that other level.

So you just read about polyvagal theory, right?

Yeah, it was like a, like a year and a half or 2 years ago. But yeah, I've, I've read about it sort of recently.

And so I'll introduce it just like briefly, um, because I was looking at it before this conversation because I actually prepared for this conversation. Yay!

Yes, love that.

Hadlee and I were joking about sometimes we just like riff and record our conversations, and other times we like really prep for it and look up research and stuff.

Totally.

And so I did look up some stuff about this and kind of add what you know, because I know you studied it quite a lot too, is that— so polyvagal theory is a theory in the field of psychology and neuroscience. It's developed by Stephen Porges, and he's trying to explain the relationship between the autonomic nervous system, the stress responses, and Because there is so much nuance, he's trying to make it a little bit more clear, and he uses a lot of metaphor. And so it can be kind of confusing because he talks about there's the ventral vagus complex and then the dorsal vagal complex. But anatomically, there isn't a ventral vagus. Ventral usually anatomically means the front. Right. Ventral is like your chest The front of your body and dorsals, like the back.

Think of like a dorsal fin on like a fish or something. It's on their back, right? Yeah. Or like a dolphin.

Yeah, that's good.

That's what I've always thought of. Like, in high school biology, I was like, dorsal fin, got it. Dorsal.

That's why they call it that. Yeah, that's brilliant. And it's really confusing theory because the vagus nerve doesn't branch off like that. There are tons of branches on the vagus nerve. There are like more than 10 branches off of the vagus nerve, but they don't get categorized into dorsal and ventral. They just have lots of different activities. But he's trying to describe more how the vagus nerve can create nuance in our responses to stress. And so generally, he talks about 3 of them. And so do you mind if I kind of go over the 3?

Yes, please do.

He describes the ventral vagal complex as the social engagement system. And so one of the signs that we talked about when we had our hands up and we had the 10 fingers up was that feeling of being disconnected from people. Mm-hmm. And so this complex is all about how we recognize facial expressions, cues, connections, social interactions. It allows us to interact with each other or engage with each other kind of in a calm, emotionally regulated manner. And it is associated with more parasympathetic, because if we're in fight-flight-freeze, we're not in our thoughtful, higher-level thinking brain state. We're more in that reptilian brain state. So that helps us remember that social engagement system. When we're able to interact and be empathetic, that's more from our Parasympathetic. And he calls that the ventral vagal complex. And so his theory is that when the environment is perceived as safe, we can go into vagus dominant states, relaxed states, that, that system, that social engagement system is activated. So that's the first one. And then the second one is he calls it that sympathetic fight or flight response. And that gets activated when our environment is perceived as challenging or threatening. And our body is preparing to deal with that stress. And so those are all of the sympathetic autonomic arousal things like your heart rate increasing and all of that. Your brain is thinking more quickly and rapidly, and all of the blood flow is being redirected to your muscles. And so he talks about how the vagus nerve is all about that dance back and forth between autonomic arousal and that relaxed state. And then the 3rd one is he calls that the dorsal vagal complex, which is essentially the freeze response, which we were just talking about.

The collapse. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. I think it's more collapse. He says it's freeze, I think, at least in the literature I was looking at.

Yeah, I think it is more collapse because freeze, you still feel aroused.

You still feel aroused.

Yeah.

Yes. And so what he's describing is that this complex shows up when the environment is feeling really dangerous or inescapable, that dorsal vagal complex can be dominant. And that's associated with parasympathetic nervous system shutdown and immobilization, which again, that's more flop, collapse, fold kind of defeated state. And we see this more in extreme trauma or fear or helplessness, like learned helplessness. And so it's kind of like you were saying, though, Hadlee, is that there's so much complexity and nuance to it. And so then we have these different great thinkers that are Trying to wrap our brains around it. And I think his theory is really good. There's a ton of research. He's brilliant. And I just think that the language is a little bit confusing, and I imagine it's going to continue to evolve as we learn more about this.

It's fairly new. Yeah, it's a fairly new theory. So, yeah, I think also just being aware that— so, like I said, there's these 3 different stages, and I'm showing it with my hands, but I hope you can all understand what I'm saying, we're like on the bottom rung is parasympathetic state where everything is like hunky-dory. Yes, great, awesome. And then sympathetic nervous system state is on top of that where we feel really activated, like, you know, fight, flight, freeze, but feeling that activation. And then above that is like that dorsal vagal complex that is that collapsed state of, oh my God, I, you know, I feel that learned helplessness is kind of how I learned about it in school, like way back. Not way, way back, but, you know.

How old are you?

It wasn't that long ago. I'm not that old. But, but that was kind of— it was called learned helplessness when I was learning about it then, which it sounds like is like basically the same thing.

Yeah.

And so what we need to do to get back to like the hunky-dory parasympathetic state is we actually need to pass through, back through the, like, the sympathetic state. So that's the really interesting part is like we actually have to allow ourselves to like get angry or like feel really intense emotions in order for us to get back to the calm state, because otherwise we're going to just be stuck in that collapse, collapse state. We need to reactivate, especially with when it comes to trauma and allowing ourselves to like activate some of the emotions that we didn't allow ourselves to feel when we were in that trauma state. So it's just so fascinating.

What? I've never heard that. This is amazing.

Yeah. So it makes, it makes sense with what we always talk about, which is that we do need to feel our emotions in order to move through them, right? Otherwise we get into the shutdown collapse state that we were just talking about and that like that learned helplessness that we were, that we were just talking about. And so we have to move back into those, those states that we didn't allow ourselves to feel with trauma. Obviously, we have talked about how you need to allow yourself to, you know, go in and out of the feeling state in order to actually heal the trauma, which is why, you know, EMDR works so well, is like we're, we're moving things, right? We're moving things around rather than being in that collapsed state.

I'm having a few reactions. One is that I don't like it because I don't want to feel the things. And so if, if I had an incredible stressor and then went into sympathetic arousal and then went above that into parasympathetic, I feel like parasympathetic is preferable. And I don't want to have to backslide. Through all of the yucky sympathetic fear in order to get better. So that's my first reaction. Number 2—

But it's not backsliding. Also, I want to like make that clear too, because it's not actually backsliding back into it. You're moving forward through it.

Yeah, you're unwinding it. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, I still don't like it, but But my second thought is it feels like very right. It feels very trauma-informed. It feels, it feels like pretty accurate, and I don't have to like it. Mm-hmm. And so then number 3 is that's the other thing for me that's coming up is like excitement, because I think that we can speed up that transition process and relieve some of the suffering of that transition process. Back through that sympathetic state. And in EMDR, oftentimes when we're processing things, it isn't as difficult as it was when you were back in it. Sometimes for people it can be, but there's quite a lot of relief that can come even through the process, like when you're in it.

Right. And we don't want to just be like, oh, okay, well, I just need to go back into it and feel all the feelings of it, because that also can just retraumatize us and we don't We don't want that.

We don't.

We want it to be that pulsation that we always talk about where it's like going in and then coming back to rest, coming back to like, you know, feeling resourced, feeling good in our— in ourselves and in our bodies, and then go back into like that depth of like, okay, I'm going to go back in and then like being like, okay, I can be with myself again and all of that kind of thing. And that's— and so it doesn't have to be this big, scary, horrible thing that we have to go through in order to come out the other side. Yes.

That's relieving. Thank you.

So

in the vagus nerve hack class that I have is I give 14 ways to activate the vagus nerve, but I thought we could go over 5 of them today.

Yes. Oh my gosh, that sounds great. Thank you.

Number 1 was the feeling the pulse breathing thing that we just did together earlier is you can do breathing and different schools of thought will tell you, oh, you need to breathe this many seconds on this this part and that part. But like, really, if you're elongating the exhale, then you're doing it right.

I sometimes find that that actually puts me into a fight-flight, like, parasympathetic nervous system state when I'm trying to like control it too much.

So trying to, quote, do it right. Yeah,

right, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so if you could just like simply extend your exhale and just make that a little bit harder and longer, that can be Money. That's good. And then the other thing that can work really well for people, and I'm mentioning this one in particular because, Had, you're a musician, and we know that the vagus nerve goes to the voice box. And we know that when there's a problem with the vagus nerve, there's often vocal hoarseness, or you lose your voice, or it trips or something. And so humming the Om or just singing a song activates the vagus nerve and tonifies the vagus nerve and can make you feel more calm. That's actually what I did on that plane flight. Hadlee and I were talking about in a different episode about a really bumpy flight that I was on from New York, and I just like hummed under my— hopefully nobody heard me, but I was just like, um, just like—

That's awesome.

It works. And

that might be the thing that helps me the most. Well, touching my body and then humming is Humming or singing or whatever. Like, yeah, yeah, my vocal cords. That's awesome.

It works really well. And you have your voice box with you wherever you go. You can—

You don't have to be a singer.

You don't have to. Yeah, you just make a sound, vibrate it. And so then that's number 2. Another one that you may have heard before is the cold water on the face.

Yes. That's like a super trendy TikTok thing that people are hearing about the vagus nerve because of that freezing water on the face.

Are people sticking their faces in buckets of ice water?

Yes, they are.

Oh, that's fun. So you don't have to have a bucket of ice water. Go on Amazon or wherever you shop and get those chemical freezer things that when you shake them up, they get really cold. And then just put that on your face. And so then you don't have to ruin your makeup or run around with a bucket of ice water just in case you get stressed. Yeah.

How do you feel about freezing a jade roller or one of those face roller things? Would that help too?

Whatever floats your boat, man. The place that's going to get you the best results is around the orbit of the eye. And so as long as you don't injure your eyeball Smashing it, but like kind of going around the eye. And if it's like cold enough, that could be— sure. I love that. And it's cool massage. Like, who doesn't want that?

Is this why we do cucumbers on the eyes when we're doing— when we're at a spa?

That's why I need cucumbers on my eyes. It makes me calm. I think they do it for aesthetic reasons because they're like, oh, it reduces puffiness and inflammation, but I need it to feel calm.

Yeah, I mean, it probably does both, right? Because it's always chilled. So, yeah.

I don't know if I want actually something. I'm so vata. I don't know if I'd actually want something cold there. I feel like I'd want a roasted cucumber on my eye.

I love you.

And then I would eat it.

If y'all are like, I don't know what she's— we've been just kind of dropping little pieces of Ayurveda in here. If you don't know what we're talking about, go back Go back to the types of anxiety episodes and we talk a ton about each type of anxiety based on the doshas. But yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, you could even just take a bag of frozen peas, put them on your head.

Totally. I just read a book, it was this lovely romance novel where the one character is having panic attacks and she's like, I got a bag of frozen broccoli. And I was like, good for you, author, knowing about that.

Yeah. Wow, that's awesome.

That's impressive. I liked it. And then we've been practicing a voga, a vagus tonifying activity today together. We've been laughing.

Yeah, there you go.

And some people, really interesting, some people who have an overactive vagus nerve response or vasovagal reactions, laughing can make them pass out.

Oh, so interesting. Yeah.

Laughing stimulates your vagus nerve.

That's so cool.

Yeah. So, and of course laughing does all sorts of other wonderful things with like happy chemicals and it's just great to laugh. So laugh with me and Hads. There's this really fun video that Paul was watching where the practitioner was like, repeat after me. And she was like, ha. And then they said, do it, do it, Hadley. Ha

ha

ha ha.

Ha ha

ha ha ha

ha ha

ha ha

ha ha

ha ha ha

ha ha ha ha!

You can't not laugh. We could have gone back and forth like 86 times.

Laughter yoga is like a thing, and it always seems like, well, how are you gonna like make yourself laugh? You can't really like just like. Like force yourself to laugh. But like, honestly,

we just did.

Lie down on your back and try and like do the ha-has, and you tell me that you can't laugh because that's just like— you— it's like you immediately laugh. It's so funny.

I feel like that would be a good TikTok trend, is just like walk up to people and say, repeat after me, and then just see how long it takes for them to laugh.

I love that. Yeah, make them lie down on the ground though, then they'll really— they'll really— do you know why that's a thing? Because like whenever I'm like lying in bed Like, at night before I, like, fall asleep and I'm talking to my husband, or like when I was, you know, I shared a room with my sister until I was a junior in high school, and we would just laugh and laugh. And like, everything's more funny when you're lying on your back for some reason.

Why is that? I have ideas, but it would just be theorizing.

Yeah, just—

But it's true. I always notice that when I lay on my back, I tend to giggle more. I'm like, woo-hoo! 100%.

Yeah, it's so funny.

Yeah, I'm like in shavasana and I'm like, hehe.

Yes, yes. And you're like, not supposed to laugh, but you're like, this is serious. Yeah, yeah.

So the last one is gargling. And so that's just great. Your vagus nerve goes through your pharynx. You can hum. If you feel nervous about humming, then you could gargle. Just, you can make it more effective by gargling teas and then swallowing them. chamomile or lavender or lemon balm tea and just a little gargle gargle and swallow it.

But you want to make it aggressive gargling, so you're not just doing a little like wimpy little gargle, you're like, grrr.

I feel like I pretended to gargle once on this podcast and it just came out really not good sounding. That, that makes me feel like I want to— don't want to lean into the rough draft for that redo.

So perfect. We, we don't want the perfection.

No, no. So that was, that was vagus nerve. And I learned something new today that Hadley brought to the table about having to move back through the stinkum. So I'm not happy about that, but I'm grateful for it. And I hope you are too, my lovely listener friends.

Yeah.

And what questions do you have? What did you guys think? Any last thoughts, Hadley?

Yeah, I mean, let us know. And, and if you just Google like polyvagal theory and you look at the images, you should be able to find this graph that we were sort of referring to a little bit where I was talking about like from the bottom to the top, or maybe we can put it in the show notes. But essentially there's like the social engagement that Dr. Cain was talking about, and then it goes up into the sympathetic state and then it goes up into that like collapse state. And there's a, there's a great graph that shows you like how, how activation happens and then how it deactivates after, after that and how you have to move through the fight-flight in order to deactivate. And so if you're curious about that, you could totally Google it. And if you're curious about it, you can also just reach out to us and we can, you know, we can explain it further or we can send you the, send you the graph or whatever. And so just reach, reach out to us on Instagram is probably the best way for both of us. I'm Just @happyhealthyhadlee. Hadlee is spelled H-A-D-L-E-E. Do you want to say yours as well?

Oh, and I'm Dr. Nicole Cain. D-R-N-I-C-O-L-E-C-A-I-N.

Perfect. Yeah. So reach out. And if you have any other podcast requests, topics that you want us to cover, let us know. We love hearing from you. This came from a request from someone on Instagram. So if you have requests, Let us know. And if you love the podcast, please make sure that you rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. It helps us so much to be able to get this to other people. And we've just been loving all of your, all of your awesome feedback. It's been really, really fun to be able to, to see that this is actually impacting people. You know, we're just sitting here like chatting and stuff, but we really want to bring you into the conversation as well.

Oh, thank you so much for being here, and thank you, Hadlee.

Yes, thank you so much. This was so fun.

See y'all later, guys.

Bye.