Hacking the Vagus Nerve to Calm the Nervous System with Nicholas Hool, Ph.D. | Ep. 140

All right, everyone. We talk a lot here at the Holistic Inner Balance Podcast about the vagus nerve. We've even gone into details on how to stimulate vagus nerve and how to measure vagus nerve with your pulse. But in this conversation, we are going to take that 1,000 steps further, and we're interviewing an amazing innovator, a great human being, and the founder of the Wholist device. I love this conversation and the product. I've actually experienced it, and Hadlee mentions later on in the recording that we don't usually do products or supplements or specific brands here. And This one, this one made it through the gates and it's because I'm such a strong believer in it. I think the vagus nerve is really, really important, especially for our emotional and mental health. And my experience using the, the vagus nerve stimulation device was great. And so if you have situational anxiety or if you have performance anxiety or you need a solution that's really quick and really effective, Then this is going to be the conversation for you. And the other piece that I think really stood out to me was the conversation getting into the detail about the different directions. I'm looking at my notes, y'all. I took so many notes today about looking at the different directions, the ascending and the descending branches of the vagus nerve, and how to know which may be out of balance for you and what strategies and techniques that you should be using. And Hadley has a really, really good question about what if you aren't in that fight-flight kind of activation state, and what do you do if you're in more of a flop state? And Nick has all the answers for that there. Let me read you guys his quick bio. It's really super impressive. He was a competitive golfer. He wanted to do PGA and was absolutely amazing, had a promising career. Everything was looking great. But his nervous system started to get in the way, and he was choking when he went and started the golfing. He would go on the hole, the— what is it, Hadlee? What is it?

The course, onto the course.

The grass. I don't know. I'm not a golfer. And he would get— his body knew how to do it. He knew how to do it. He had the skills, but there was something that was getting in his way. And so he went to solve this problem. And he received a PhD in biomedical engineering at ASU, and he is a renowned neuromodulation expert, and he's absolutely, absolutely incredible. You can contact him by going to hoolist.com, H-O-O-L-E-S-T, and he's actually really responsive on email, which is nick@hoolist.com, and we'll put all of that information in the bio. But before we jump into the recording, Hadlee, any like, aha moments you want to jump out the gate with?

I mean, I just was geeking out so hard with all of the science that we were talking about and like how it all works. Because I think a lot of times we think, oh, nervous system, like vagus nerve stimulation, sure, whatever. But we really got into the nitty-gritty of it and we got into how you can actually figure out What part of your nervous system is affected and then utilize the proper tools. Because sometimes we just think, oh, I just need to use this thing like cold plunging, which may not actually be effective and might actually be hurting more than it's helping. So stay tuned for that and stay tuned for Dr. Nicole's like test— 3 testimonials that she has for this product because she's used it on herself and also other people. And it's— Kind of mind-blowing, the results. So

seriously, yeah,

let's

get into it. Yeah, we're gonna talk about vagus nerve and strategies, and we're gonna talk about you, Mr. Nick.

Awesome. Yeah, no, I'm happy to share as much knowledge as I have on the topic. I've got a unique perspective on it. Um, definitely a lot of areas in life where it's helpful, but you know, with my backstory, I've got at least One interesting application for it, and that's everything we're doing over here at Hoolist. So,

yeah. So tell me about the name and then we'll kind of get into the, the, the story of how you came up with this idea. But what is, what is Hoolist? Tell me more.

Yeah. Hoolist is just a name that I made up when I was a little kid. You know, my last name is Hool, so I just thought I was cool. And instead of saying I'm the coolest, I'm the Hoolist. And it was just like such a dumb little thing. But, you know, I wanted to start a company and was like, I'm terrible at coming up with names for things. So, uh, for whatever reason, it just popped in my head. I'm like, let's just call it, you know, Hoolist Performance Technologies. And it kind of aligned a little bit. You know, it's like when you need to be cool, calm under pressure, Yeah. you know, like you can be the hoolist, like, Go with the Hoolist if you want to be your coolest, you know, stupid stuff like that. But—

Oh, that's good. That's not— I like that. That's good.

It's funny, like, I get it all the time. People just, they get it right away when I'm like, yeah, our company's called The Hoolist. And they're like, oh, like, so you're gonna be the hoolist, the coolest. I'm like, yeah, there you go. Kind of, kind of got it. But yeah.

I was thinking that in my brain as I was walking around my office, and I'm like, I'm talking to Nick, about the coolest device possible. And I'm like, hahaha, Nicole, you're so funny. But yeah, apparently your younger self already figured that out and I'm sketching on in 2024.

Yeah.

So, so, okay. So tell us about, you started in biomedical engineering at Arizona State, right?

Yeah. So I, I got both my undergrad and my PhD in biomedical engineering. It was all straight through. So 8 straight years of school. And just a lot of research, a lot of projects, things like that. Learned about the vagus nerve in school, learned about a lot of other crazy technologies. But yeah, I, I never really cared that much for like higher education. I've always assumed I would just get my undergrad and go work and do something. But the reason I went in as a biomedical engineer was to solve my own problem with stress and anxiety. You know, I was a competitive golfer growing up. I, you know, I started playing since I could walk, basically. And when I was 14 years old, I won my first, you know, statewide tournament. And, you know, it's not national, but in the state of Arizona, it's a pretty competitive place to play golf. Yeah. And I realized, I'm like, okay, this is, Of all the sports I played growing up, golf seems to be the one I'm best at, and I enjoyed it the most. Something about you know anything related to the mind, like I love brain and mind-based games. Like I've loved playing chess growing up with my dad because it's like a mind game, and golf is very much mental. You know, it's like a 90% mental game. So dedicated myself, I wanted to play golf. That was my sport when I was 16. Traveled the country, won a few more you know large tournaments with people from all over the country, and started getting you know noticed by college coaches and actually got an offer to join the team at Arizona State University, which if you're from Arizona and you're a golfer, that is the dream school. Yeah, that's where Phil Mickelson went. You know, at the time, John Rahm didn't go there, but John Rahm went there. I mean, lots of of the all-time great players went through ASU's golf program. So it's like, oh my gosh, I can go play at ASU. I probably wasn't going to be a starter. You know, I might have been lucky to play a couple tournaments. I wasn't that good. But either way, it was like, this is the dream. And then for whatever reason, the— well, I guess first the coach got fired, you know, several months after I had contact with him and he offered me a spot. And then I had a few tournaments where I kind of choked under pressure. And just the combination of, oh man, I have to impress this new coach at ASU if he wants to give me a spot. Suddenly I'm not performing as well and I'm getting in my head and it just culminated into like I started getting these severe stress responses every single time I'd step up to the first tee. It would happen on the golf course like randomly. And it was just a miserable experience because you go from being one of the top players, you know, in the state, possibly country, and then suddenly you just cannot compete in tournaments anymore. And it was like, what the heck is happening? And I knew it wasn't my talent. Like, talent didn't just go away. It was something to do with my brain or my body. You know, the physical symptoms were like I'm on the first tee and it's just that chest anxiety, right? Heart just beating out of my chest. Throat kind of tenses up. All my muscles are really tense and I just cannot relax. Tried all the breathwork. You know, meditation doesn't do anything in that moment. Meditation is good for like preventative and perspective, I guess. But in the moment, it's not going to do, you know, calm your body. Exercise like doing jumping jacks, pushups, like self-massage. I did all the stuff. Nothing calmed me down and ended up going to see a sports psychiatrist for a little bit. And it's funny, the psychiatrist, they teach you all those things anyway. They're like, oh, let's try some meditations, try some breathwork. I'm like, dude, I've been trying that. Like, it—

yeah,

that's not the problem. Like, I, I have a good perspective, but for whatever reason, I just freak out like the moment it's time to perform. And he prescribed me benzos. I can't remember which one, but you know, one of the strong ones. I didn't know anything at the time. I'm a teenager, so I'm like, all right, yeah, cool, I'll take it. Hour before tournament, all right, whatever, take it. And it worked really well. When I'd step up on the first tee, I was like, I don't feel a thing. Problem was, I didn't feel a thing for the whole round. And now I'm like dull. I noticed, I'm like, I don't feel like being out here right now. I'm really Unmotivated and just not focused, you know, sluggish. And I'm like, this, this isn't good. So you start looking up the side effects of, of benzos and it's like, you know, it's really bad for you. I mean, that is one of the symptoms is it totally dulls the entire nervous system in the brain. And then, you know, if you take it for more than like a month, suddenly you start having risks of, you know, dependency. If you stop taking it after a month, there's withdrawals. You don't just stop taking a benzo. You have to like Wean yourself off of it, and I was like, oh my gosh! I do not want to be on these for very long. So that's not a solution. And it just clicked in my mind. I'm like, there's nothing out there that is like effective for what I want. I mean, there's a lot of stress relief techniques, and there's millions of things out there. But in the moment when I'm on the go, I'm on the golf course, you know, wherever, nothing really was able to just pull me out of that. For it didn't need to be very long. It just calm me down for like five minutes, and I can take it from there. So that was my motivation. It was like, let's go to school. Let's study what's physically going on inside my mind and body. I didn't want to be a psychologist because I wasn't interested in positive thinking. Like I'd already tried all those things, and great. I mean, I'm huge on meditation and the power of. Positive thinking, visualization, um, but it was the physical side I needed help with. So I thought, all right, let's go study the nervous system and figure out what's happening. Why does this happen? And are there ways you can shut that off? Because if you go from— I can go from 0 to 100 in 5 seconds, but why can't I go from 100 to 0 in 5 seconds? Why does it take so long? Um, those are just some of the open questions I had. Went to school, studied biomedical engineering, just seemed like the right fit to kind of study this holistically. And it's pretty crazy. There's some wild technologies out there that interact with the nervous system. The first one I was interested in was called magnetic stimulation. You put these giant coils like up to your head and it sends these big pulses of magnetic energy and you can shut off pull parts of your brain for a short amount of time. You can activate parts of your brain. So I was like, what if I just shut off my entire prefrontal cortex? Would that wipe out the stress and anxiety? And yeah, there's a lot of studies that show it can do that. So if you have any kind of anxiety or depression, magnetic stimulation is very effective. The problem was it's this giant machine. It's very, very expensive. And it's like, okay, that's not going to work. I'm not going to lug that around to the golf course. You know, that would be kind of funny. It's like right before I tee off, I'm just like, hold on guys, put this coil on. It's like pop, pop, pop. And she's like, all right, we're good. Like, that would be really strange. But then maybe that would be a good marketing tactic if I had one of those. People would be like, what is he doing?

Make it, make it look like a Darth Vader helmet and it might increase marketing.

No, literally they have these other machines where they, it's a helmet that comes down. It's this giant helmet with this huge tube that goes into this machine. It looks terrifying.

Yeah.

Um, but those, those are FDA cleared for depression, for anxiety disorders, some other things. But again, it didn't fit that use case. Um, learned about lots of other tools, but that's where I learned about the vagus nerve. And my first interaction with the vagus nerve, again, before I knew anything about it, it was just some studies I ran or I, I looked through where when you use electrical energy applied inside the ear, there's a small branch of the vagus nerve that when you activate it, physical symptoms of stress come down, like heart rate comes down, breathing rate, muscle tension, and a lot of other subjective things, you know, like stress levels, anxiety levels come down. And in one of the studies, it was a really cool graph. It's like when you flip the switch, heart rate just drops in like 5 seconds. And it was like, Whoa, that's insane! And that piqued my interest. Started playing around with these tools. Took them out on the golf course. Had a little earbud I put in, and it was cool. I didn't get that like oof, that rush of calm. And I was, but it was noticeable. I was like, all right, I can, I can notice a little bit, but it wasn't overwhelming like I thought it would be. And I can explain kind of the mechanism of why, but. I figured like, okay, the study demonstrated that it clearly has a fast effect, but it's not, doesn't seem to be working for me. Like why? I, I wanna feel that. That's what I wanna feel. So started looking at the anatomy of that nerve and inside the ear you have these tiny little branches of the vagus nerve, but right underneath the ear in these cadaver studies, they show how it all kind of comes down, travels. It's called the tympanomastoid fissure. It's right behind the jawbone, that soft spot, and the nerve travels towards the brainstem. So when you hit the lower branch of the nerve, you're actually activating all the branches at once. It's like you're hitting the trunk of the tree. So instead of hitting just a little branch, when you come from beneath, you're hitting the whole trunk and all the branches at once. And so I thought, okay, let's try it right there and see what happens. Tried it right there, and it was like boom! That's that's it. That's the spot. Heart rate drops. We have huge drops in muscle tension in the shoulders in the clinical studies we ran. Definitely, the subjective like relaxation was way higher when you hit here versus in the ear, because in the ear, it's it's such a small area that it can feel kind of sharp sometimes. And you have to use like a wet saline, and then you're giving yourself a wet willy when you put it in. It's like not very comfortable. Yeah. But right underneath, you don't need any of that. You can just apply a, an electrode there and, you know, you can hit the whole nerve and it's a lot more comfortable, way faster, a lot stronger of a sensation. Um, and yeah, just, just a lot more effective. So that was, that was my project. It was like, all right, I found a, a good spot that works for me. There's no device that exists that targets that spot. So that's what we built. You know, the design kind of inputs were like, this is for somebody that is on the go. They're out there all the time. They don't really have time, or it's not practical to go find a quiet space for 20, 30 minutes. Like, you're going, like, you gotta take care of this now. So we made it a tiny little device. It's like a little pocket-sized tool. You know, it's— I don't know, it fits in your palm pretty easily, and you just take the cap off. There's no power switch. The cap is the power switch, so it's automatically ready to go. No Bluetooth, no app connections. Like, you don't want to have to set it up. It should just be going. And then you just hold it right under the nerve, or right under the ear, and your whole ear just lights up. It's like— feels like it's jumping off your head, but in a good way. At least if you crank it up, it feels pretty strong. But You know, it feels kind of like an, an ear massage from the inside out. And then you just hold it there and, you know, you can do some slow breathing with it if you want to kind of accelerate that impact, or just hold it there, you know, just and let it do its work. And just depending on the situation, you know, it could work in as little as 60 seconds. The studies we did, we, we just kind of did it based on what was already done, but we did 5 minutes on each side for a total of 10 minutes. And we were able to demonstrate clinically meaningful reductions in your state anxiety after one use, which was really cool compared to a placebo, which had no impact. You know, placebo is just a fake device, did nothing. So, you know, pretty effective. It targets the nerve. It's going to calm the nervous system. And the use case is really meant for those people that are just on the go and they're moving and they don't have time to sit around. You know, there, there's other devices out there that, you know, they do require some setup time. But for some individuals, you know, say if you have like long COVID or a, a really damaged nervous system, you're gonna need like an hour session at a time. This is not for those people cuz you don't wanna hold this for an hour. That'd be kind of hard. So other tools might be beneficial, like if you're gonna use it in your living room. But this is for those high-stress professionals on the go that just need a quick hit of calm, or like panic attacks even, right? Like, panic is a full-blown nervous system through the roof, right? You don't want to sit in that, you know, state for very long. And so if you can get relief as fast as possible, that's, that's the best, right? And what we found in the vagus nerve stim research is that You know, the more vagal nerve branches you can activate at once, the faster you'll get the result. And the higher you can turn up the intensity, the faster you'll get the result. So in the ear, if you crank up the intensity, it hurts like heck. It's not comfortable. But right under the ear, you can crank the thing and it's comfortable. So it was just like, man, that's such a great little tool for those people that just get those panic feelings and just full-blown sympathetic through the roof, just bring you back down to baseline quickly. Super long answer to your question of why did I go into biomedical engineering? But yeah, I mean, that's kind of what we've been doing for the last couple of years, just designing new products, you know, really, really meant for those individuals that are, you know, doing a lot with their life and they're just living with that constant stress and Maybe don't have time to try these other free techniques, or or you know definitely don't want to go take drugs. That's that's not good unless you absolutely need it. And a lot of these clinical programs too, like those are very expensive. You know every month to get like the full stack. You know work with a chiropractor or go to a functional neurologist, get all the equipment and stuff. That's thousands per month. And maybe you don't need that. Maybe you just need to stimulate your vagus nerve.

So, I have so many things, but I want, I want to hear what Hadley has to say first, and then I have notes.

I love it. You always have notes.

Hadley was coming up. I know. I, I have my brain and it's on a piece of paper today that has a big N on it. And today's— oh, nice. Yeah.

It's music.

Wow. Yeah.

So honored.

Oh, I love it. No, I'm just, I'm so impressed. I'm like, wow, we're speaking with a true genius right now. I just think it's so cool that you created that, that product based on everything that you have learned and everything that you've experienced. It's— and I'm like, okay, I need to get my hands on this product. Um, we are like not super big on products in general on this pro— like on this podcast. I feel like we're always a little bit wary. We're always a little bit like, what is this person trying to like push? but we really believe in this product. So, um, so it's just, it's really, really cool to hear about. Um, and you had mentioned, um, that, uh, well, you, you had mentioned wanting to talk a little bit more about, um, like how the actual, like, the physical, how the vagus nerve works and everything. I'm also really curious about, okay, so with polyvagal theory, you had also mentioned that you had a very unique perspective on the vagus nerve and everything. So, I wanted to get a little bit more insight into that because my issue a lot of times is that I will go into more of that collapsed nervous system state. So, instead of the hyper-sympathetic I kind of like surpass, surpass that and go into like, I'm just like, my blood pressure actually decreases and I go into that state. So I'm curious what your, um, thoughts are on that and, and if the product helps with that as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So my unique perspective is that of an engineer. So I look at like numbers, I look at what's physically happening, mechanisms, you know. I'm not so much in the high level, you know, like, hey, let's go socialize and frolic in the fields and that'll activate your vagus nerve. Like, sure, there's a relaxing component to that and the vagus nerve plays a role, but I'm like, what's happening? Like, what is going on? So to simplify, you know, you probably have heard this and understand, but you know, the vagus nerve connects the brain to the, the rest of the upper body. Connects the brain to the heart, the lungs, the gut, and it's bidirectional, right? So it's constantly taking information from the body to the brain and from the brain to the body. So you have a— I, I call it an ascending branch of the vagus nerve going up and a descending branch going down. They're not like separate. They're, they're structured in the same, you know, branch of the nerve. but it's like a freeway, right? Like in the same freeway, you've got one direction and the other direction. So this is super interesting. If when your heart rate comes down, the vagus nerve is active, but it's not the vagus nerve is active, it's the descending branch of the vagus nerve that activates. Hmm. It's not the ascending branch. When your heart rate increases, the descending branch shuts off. For a short amount of time. So that's the branch of the nerve that signals or takes the signal from the brain to the body, telling it to slow down. The ascending branch is what closes the feedback loop and tells the brain that what just happened happened. So if my heart rate drops because the descending branch shuts or turns on for a second, the ascending branch tells the brain, hey, heart rate just dropped. Everything's good. You did your job. In some cases, like, here's where vagus nerve damage and like dysfunction kind of plays a role. It, it can get complicated, but, um, the simplest way is for a lot of people who are stuck in that fight or flight state, heart rate's always high. Mm-hmm. Often it's because parts of the descending branch are damaged. Um, and that could be from long COVID, that could be from a concussion. an injury. It could be from a lifelong lifestyle of chronic stress, like just constant stress is just having an impact on your nervous system. And when the descending branch is damaged or not functioning properly, that means that when it, when the brain signals to the body to relax, the signal's not going through. So your heart rate stays really high, muscle tension stays really high, everything's fired up. So to fix that, You have to strengthen the descending vagus nerve. There are a handful of ways to do that. That's definitely the hardest one to do because it's deep in the neck. So in my experience, the most effective way to do that is with a technology called pulsed electromagnetic field stimulation, PEMF. You've probably seen it or heard about it. Like a lot of brands put out these little mats and stuff. That's really good because it, it pumps through your whole body and kind of activates all the nerves wherever you're applying it. And so you can get deep into the neck and strengthen that part of the vagus nerve. That's where the descending branch is. So that's a good one, but it, it does take several weeks to potentially several months before you can see improvements in strengthening a damaged nerve. On the other end, you have the ascending branch. If the ascending branch is damaged, then the feedback loop is broken and you, you're typically stuck in whatever state the brain puts you in. So you might, if the vagus nerve shuts off and you go into fight or flight, the body goes into fight or flight, but the ascending branch doesn't signal to the brain that the body's in fight or flight. So the brain is like, keep sending fight or flight signals and you're just stuck there. So to fix that, you just stimulate the ascending branch and it will tell the brain, hey, The body is doing what you told it to do. Now it's time to regulate. And then, you know, alternatively, if the brain tells your body to relax, but the ascending branch doesn't relay that information to the brain, you're gonna be stuck in that super dull state. So like chronic fatigue, right? Like that's where the vagus nerve can play a role in fatigue. And so the hardest part, I haven't perfectly figured out how to tell which branch of your vagus nerve is damaged, because that would be the next thing, right? Like, what are your symptoms? What are you dealing with? And you can kind of get an idea what type of vagus nerve exercises or tools should you be using to maximize your time. Um, the simplest answer would be do both, because you cannot go wrong with both. Stimulate the ascending branch, which is what our product does. It targets the auricular branch, which goes to the brain. And stimulate the descending branch. You can stimulate the descending branch through slow breathing. That's, that's because when you exhale, that's what triggers the descending branch to calm your heart rate. Heart rate always drops when you exhale. But if your vagus nerve is damaged, slow exhaling doesn't work because it's damaged. It doesn't work right away. You would have to do very rigorous breathwork for for several weeks to months to strengthen your vagus nerve through breathwork alone. So just depending on, you know, if you're not responding well to breathwork, I might say go, go look for someone who has PEMF. Like a lot of chiropractors have it, functional neurologists. They're super expensive, but you know, if you can afford it, you can always get one for home. Um, but when you combine upper auricular vagal nerve stim with that descending, so I usually just say stimulate the auricular using VeriLeaf while slow breathing. That's like the golden combination cuz you're getting, you're strengthening both at the same time, which will benefit pretty much any vagus nerve related issue. So hopefully that wasn't like too complicated, but you know, I don't, I don't hear a lot of people talking about like those different branches very much. It, they all kind of lump 'em in together. And it's like, well, it's not really all lumped in together. There's subtle differences. But, you know, things like humming, humming and slow breathing will activate descending. You know, cold plunge is not a direct vagal nerve activation exercise. So if your vagus nerve is damaged, that's not gonna help. It'll make things worse. If your vagus nerve is relatively healthy and you're just a high-stress person, cold plunge activates the vagus nerve when you get out of it. It's because it sends your body into fight or flight when you go into the cold, and then your body naturally kicks in the recovery when you get out through vagus nerve activation. So it's kind of like a natural way to activate it without directly targeting it. Same thing with like wind sprints. You know, you look at long-distance runners or sprinters, they have the highest vagal tone of anybody I've ever measured. And it's because they're constantly putting their body into fight or flight by sprinting, which means every time they do that, they have to recover, which is what activates vagus nerve. And so you measure their vagal tone and their vagal tone's really good because they're always subjecting themselves to that fight or flight and then rest and digest. Like All the time. Um, so hey, wind sprints maybe could be a, a good tool, uh, if you're looking for a free technique. But I don't know anybody that's like, I can't wait to go wind sprint today.

Oh my gosh. That's, I'm, my mind is blown right now. And I love that you also mentioned the cold, cold plunging is not actually effective for everyone and can make it worse. Yeah. Because I do think that it, people think of it as like a cure-all. Um, and In Ayurveda, which is a lot of the work that I do, it's like actually there's a lot more nuance than that.

Yeah.

Um, and so yeah, if there's a, if there's real damage going on, um, then it might not be effective and it might be worse.

Yeah, it won't be effective. And if your, if your descending is broken, you definitely don't wanna do cold plunge. Mm-hmm. Cuz that will just totally exacerbate the fight or flight response. It's awesome if you have a generally healthy nervous system, but you're just stressed out a lot. Um, but you know, we work with a lot of clinicians that specifically work with patients with actual, you know, vagal nerve damage. Long COVID seems to be the most common one, um, because that messed everybody up. And it's like, you don't want to do cold plunge. I've talked to a lot of Long COVID people who've tried the cold plunge and they're like, yeah, that did not help me at all. Wow. And I'm sure, you know, Some people will benefit, and it's very nuanced. But, you know,

do you have an impression of the mechanism of what happened with long COVID and vagus nerve?

No, I've never really studied the mechanism of long COVID. I mean, I know being a virus like that attacks cells in the body and, um, attacks the whole body. I'm, I'm pretty sure like everything and, you know, gets affected by COVID. But, you know, the, when the vagus nerve, if it, if it gets damaged at all from a virus or, you know, from an injury, you're gonna see a, a flared up nervous system. You know, like you're gonna be stuck in that sympathetic, I guess there's 2 types of, of Outcomes, right? If your descending is broken, then you're probably gonna be stuck in fight or flight most of the time.

Mm-hmm.

If the ascending is broken, then you're probably gonna have these huge swings where you're in fight or flight half the time, and then you have severe fatigue half the time.

Right.

Which is what a lot of people experience. They're like, I don't want to get up. I'm super tired. And the next thing they know, they're like full sympathetic mode. It's like, what is going on? But yeah, I don't—I haven't really, you know, studied too intently on, you know, the mechanism for how COVID messed everything up. But, you know, there's definitely some damage that happens to the vagus nerve with with COVID and the severity is different for everybody. And I don't know why in some people it's really bad, and some it's not because I got it twice, and it didn't have any major damage for me. Um, but some people I know, it's like sent them to the emergency room and like it was bad. It's like, oh my gosh, like, I don't know. Um, but yeah, it's, uh, definitely a, an interesting kind of phenomenon.

I'm thinking about autonomic nervous system and the immune system holding hands, where especially with COVID is this was a very traumatic thing for for the world. You know, we're going through this worldwide crisis, and so the immune system is getting activated, but at the same time, the nervous system is going into fight, flight, freeze. And so we're, we're not trusting our doctors, we're not trusting our bodies, we can't even go to the grocery store. When people deliver groceries, we wash them before we bring them in. And so what we see sometimes, especially in the field of psychoneuroimmunology, which is that relationship between our emotions our nervous system and our immune system is that even long after the infection has passed, the nervous system can use the mechanisms that it learned from the immune system to continue a process. So we can still feel sick. And it can happen in the reverse too, where if somebody has Which, which way did I just say it first? Did I say the immune system first? Because I'm gonna do the opposite, but I just missed it.

Yes. Yeah. Immune system first.

Yeah. So on the other hand, if somebody goes through something emotionally traumatic, the immune system is part of what helps us mount a response to survive in that fight, flight, freeze. And so that could be the release of histamine, which can be stimulating like adrenaline. And so then even after the trauma is past, the immune system can keep going. So I'm wondering if it's kind of a bidirectional, like you were saying with vagus nerve, it's very bidirectional. And I'm wondering if there's a bidirectionality of the immune system process that could be taking place here and how using vagus nerve stimulation and repairing of that ascending and the descending branch could actually have clinical use in people who appear to be suffering from a prolonged or a protracted immune system issue. where maybe they haven't identified it as nervous system, but that they often go together. Does— how have you seen anything with that yet? I know we're still in the, the early infancy of this.

Um, I haven't really looked at that specifically. It's kind of the first time I'm hearing about that connection, but I think definitely right about that. Um, you know, I knew— I know You know, people with higher vagal tone tend to not get sick as often. Sickness is not as severe, um, doesn't last as long. And, you know, I, I, I think it's just because, you know, the nervous system, when, I mean, it, it just goes back to the basics, right? Like your body can't heal when your sympathetic nervous system is on for very long because Every part of your body down to the cellular level is in a stressed out state and it's in a defense mode. And it's not like your body doesn't heal unless you're in the recover mode, that rest and digest relaxed state. So that's why sleep is so important because sleep is when your body recovers and when it heals itself. So I mean, there's definitely a connection between any kind of immune system dysfunction with, you know, nervous system dysfunction. Um, I mean, it just— like long COVID, I know, like vagal nerve stim is a huge, you know, technology right now for anybody with long COVID, and it has been ever since COVID Like COVID really put vagal nerve stimulation technology and just techniques in general on the map because You know, it's, it's not just nervous system issues, it's immune system issues. People are prone to getting sick and their symptoms get, you know, exacerbated and they last really long. And somehow the vagus nerve is implicated in just helping the body heal better. Um, so yeah, I mean, I know, like, like when people with concussion, you know, I, I've Talked to a lot of those people, and once they had their injury, they get sick a lot. And things, you know, that typically wouldn't make them sick, suddenly they're, they're in bed a lot more frequently and they're, they get colds a lot more frequently. I mean, there's definitely a link between the immune system and the nervous system. Probably to my knowledge, there's no direct line, you know, from the vagus nerve to the immune system. But like inflammation is, you know, a big factor that determines the health of your immune system. If you've got a lot of inflammation in the body, you're gonna get sick a lot more frequently. Like you're gonna have a lot more pain. And I know vagal nerve stim is, you know, really effective for reducing inflammation in the body. It's not like an instant thing. You don't stimulate it once and suddenly the inflammation's gone. It's like, kind of a daily habit, you know, to maintain reduced inflammation. But, um, no, it's definitely interesting, and I, at some point, I'd like to look into that. But for now, we're just kind of focused on helping people get out of that sympathetic state as fast as possible without drugs.

There is, there is one interface that's a little bit newer in the research, which is, it's called a NeuroPod, and we've seen that in the enteric nervous system, which is the nervous system of the gut, which I think you probably know a lot more about. But for those who are listening that don't know, is that there are these little neuropods and the vagus nerve will innervate or connect with the neuropod. And then that neuropod connects with the enteric nervous system, which is then interfacing directly with the gut microbiome. And so there's like all these different points where we have the opportunity to go in and say, okay, like Where can we leverage this for healing, or how is this maybe not working optimally so that we could get to a real root cause of that? So I love everything that you're saying, and I have, I have a couple of testimonials from— so you were kind enough to share this with me, and I used it. And so I have the little portable one that you were showing, and I didn't get detained at TSA, so that was awesome.

Nice.

Yeah, I was really happy about that. And I put it in my panic pack. And so I teach people how to activate brainstem, activate vagus nerve through the sense, touch, fidgets, smell, temperature. But this little guy fits super perfectly in there. And then we were going to be flying over a giant storm. And everyone who's listened to this podcast probably has an idea how I feel about flying. I don't really love it. And I was like, well, I'm just going to use the vagus nerve stimulator and just see how it goes. And I wasn't feeling anxious or activated, but I was anticipating getting anxious and activated. Okay. So I'm sitting there and I just pull this little device out and I place it under my ear, kind of where you were gesturing. And it felt like a million spiders crawling up the cartilage of my ear.

Yeah,

and I was like, oh, this is fun, and I didn't feel like that drop in the moment. And so I'm like cranking it up, and then I'm switching sides, and then the flight is over, and I hadn't been stressed. I hadn't really noticed the turbulence. I hadn't noticed bumps. My husband is like side-eyeing me, and I'm just like da da da da da playing with my gadget. And so then I'm like, this thing is pretty cool. And so I'm at the Integrative Medicine for Mental Health Conference. And the executive director is jet-lagged. She's from London. She's jet-lagged. So she's in kind of this, like, wired and tired kind of state. Like, she's just running on, like, pure adrenaline and just trying to survive. And her heart is palpitating. And she's like, Dr. Nicole, I don't know how I'm going to make it. Yeah. And so I was like, I have this fun gadget. You should borrow it. And so she uses it. And within like 2 minutes of applying this thing to her neck, she's like, oh my God, my heart isn't palpitating. And she's yawning and she's feeling relaxed. And then her boyfriend is like, what is this? I want it. So then he's using it and he's feeling calm. And so everybody's happy. And then one more story. And so I've been engaging in very bad lifestyle habits. I've been like on my phone at night and Just making poor choices as one does. And

I got Taco Bell the other day, so same. Sorry.

Confessions time.

Yeah. Well, Hadley, I'm sure that you did some— you did yoga for 10 minutes less than you should have. Hadley's amazing. I— we all want to be more like Hadley because you're so disciplined. I say this in jest, but also sincerely. I want to be just like you, Hadley. And so I have insomnia. I'm like laying there, I'm like rolling around, and I'm like, I have an emergency prescription for Xanax if I really, really need it. And I'm like, do I want to take this Xanax? And I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'll play with my vagus nerve device. So I go and I get it, and I'm like laying there and I'm like yawning and I'm like pretty tired, but I'm not— I don't know if it's really working. Meh. So I set it down on my pillow and then I wake up the next morning. I'd like crashed out. Wow. And it works really well. So I, I tell these stories because they're— these are like different case scenarios. Sure. Where they were helpful. And then also for people who may not get that like in the moment, like positive feedback, like, oh, I feel instantly calm like my colleague did. You still may be getting benefit in the nervous system. Like, I didn't notice the flight. Yeah. I fell asleep. So I would encourage those who've tried this or who are interested in trying it is give it some time. And so, Nick, what would you suggest, like, before people really decide is like if they use it X amount of times or X amount of days?

Well, we give people 60 days to try it and we give them their money back if they don't like it. So it's like,

okay.

It's like you got a lot of time to play around with this. Yeah. Um, you know, it, it should work. I'd say 90% of the time it's gonna work after anywhere from 1 to 3 uses. Um, oftentimes people will use it when they open up outta the box and they'll try it, but if your body is not in a stressed out state, probably not gonna notice a whole lot.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like, If you're relaxed and then you do a vagal nerve activation, you're not gonna suddenly be like ultra relaxed. It's just like you're already relaxed. Your vagus nerve's already doing its work. Um, so people often will take it with them for a few days and try it in various situations, you know, before sleep, in the car, at work, um, anytime that feeling comes up. And then that's when they know, they're like, oh yeah, that feels really nice. So Yeah, I usually say when you first open it, try it out just to get a feel for how to use it and what it feels like so that when the situation comes up, you're comfortable with whipping it out real fast and you can just use it because it's a really strong sensation. If you're not like prepared for that strong sensation, it can kind of like freak people out a little bit. I mean, I get made fun of all the time. They're like, it's like a taser for your stress. I'm like, yeah, puts your stress down, doesn't it? That's usually how I respond. Ease your stress. Yeah. So it's pretty strong, but it's meant to be strong and you don't have to crank it. I mean, start low, you know, and then slowly turn it up, get used to it. You know, for me, I crank the thing. I'm like, give it to me. But I always have to tell people when they're first starting, it's like, hey, start very slow. It's a strong sensation. And work your way up. So yeah, I'd say for sure within the first week, if you're using it daily, you'll notice the benefits. If it doesn't work, oftentimes it's not that it doesn't work; it's that you may need a different type of protocol based on how your nervous system is. Because everybody will respond in some way to auricular vagal nerve stim. It's just like we get a lot of people. With long COVID and other issues that try our product, the problem is when you have real vagus nerve damage, especially if it's the descending branch, it takes it can take months of consistent practice before it becomes strengthened. So I'll plug this real quick. I'll mention it. But for those individuals who want longer sessions, let's say you're on a plane. and you don't wanna hold something the whole time, or you're someone who's like, I need an hour a day because my nervous system is really weak. So we made a hands-free model and that's what I'm wearing right here. So we, instead of making a shock collar, we made a pair of headphones. And you could see right here, it just puts it right under the spot on the vagus nerve. I'm hitting both sides now at the same time. So I'm essentially doubling the amount of activation towards the brainstem. So you get faster And longer lasting effects with this, but it's hands-free. I can sit back, keep it at a low level for like an hour, two hours if I want. Connect it to your phone, listen to any song, any meditation, any any app that you want to connect it to. You don't have to connect it to an app; you can just do it. But when you combine the audio with the vagal nerve stim and slow breathing, it's like that is. the most powerful way to strengthen the nervous system. And so we've been testing these for the last 6 months, sold about 200 of these, um, in like a, a concept test. A lot of, you know, a lot of doctors and people on, you know, in our list have been testing 'em out. But we had one lady who had just horrible vagus nerve damage and trauma, you know,

Mm-hmm.

bad relationship situation. She got long COVID and she got injured, and it's just like, this girl is a wreck. And she was— most people are not committed to like 2 to 3 months of a daily practice. They just want results now. But this, this girl was very like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes. And yeah, within about a couple weeks, her baseline anxiety levels came down. But one of the problems with, with her situation was she lost a lot of her memory. And she couldn't remember a lot of things. And I remember like she called me a few months later and she was just like crying with happiness. And she's like, I cannot tell you, but like my memory has come back and I've— it is the headphones because I've done everything for years and I'm way calmer. I'm sleeping better. My digestion has improved tremendously. I'm remembering a lot of memories that I couldn't recall. And she's like, I'm finally able to go back to work And work a full day. And it's, it's for her protocol, it was an hour a day, like every single day for like 4 months. Took a long time, but she strengthened her vagus nerve by activating it on a daily basis and her nervous system was, was improved. And I think that's the understanding that a lot of people just don't have is they think stimulate the vagus nerve, you'll get benefits immediately. That's true for calming yourself down, but if you want that lasting impact, you just have to work on it. And you honestly, you have to work on it every single day. Because if you think about it, let's say I, I strengthen my vagus nerve, like I'm working out a muscle, right? I, I get giant biceps cuz I did curls every day for 6 months. If I just stop working out my biceps forever, my muscle mass is gonna go away and then I'm gonna be weak again. So it's like, if you want to maintain that strength, you have to do it as part of your lifestyle. The good news is once you've strengthened it, you can dial it back a little bit on how much you're doing. You just can maintain at that point. So I think we're— I'm really excited about, you know, these headphones that are going to come out because it's a little stronger. It's a lot more fun when you combine it with your favorite music. And this is going to do that really heavy lifting for you. And you don't have to step aside. I can keep working. I can just put these on and keep doing what I'm doing. You know, I don't have to, you know, set aside an hour to do crazy breathwork routines. And then once I've maintained it, then you just do this for a couple minutes every day, you know, and, and you're maintaining that, that strong nervous system everywhere you go. Um, so I forgot what the question was again. I, I, uh, got a little scared away.

Oh my gosh, that was just so I was actually just—

I just got on the waitlist for the headphones. I just went to your website. I'm on the waitlist officially.

Yeah, there's a little waitlist button on our products page for the headphones that we're gonna— we're gonna release them. No date yet, but early next year. So

that's amazing. So, so here's the million-dollar question. Are you ready?

Yes.

Okay. How's your golf game now?

Well, now it's not great, but when, when I stopped golfing, I was like, I'm done. I'm like, this, it's over. I shot my lowest round I've ever shot in my life, like a week later. Yeah. It's like, are you kidding me right now? Like, I don't— for perspective, for anyone who knows, I shot In that round, I shot a 64 on my home course, which is 8 under par. But yeah, I shot 7 under in my first 9 holes. That's like that was to me. I was like, I'm literally as good as any tour player right now. Like I just shot 29 on a on 9 holes, and then you know I fizzled out a little bit at the end there. But I mean, it's just crazy. Like Once I just let go of all that stuff, you know, I came back and performed better. And over the next several years, I started learning about all these techniques and how to actually handle that stress. So I know the talent is there. At some point in my life, I want to go back and like apply everything I've learned and like, let's go compete and just see what happens. You know, am I going to win a tour event? No, probably not. But hey, if I could get into one, that'd be a pretty cool story, like, hey, had all these problems and played around and, you know, was able to calm myself under pressure and get back to performing well. And, and I think this is what's so cool is if, if you're an elite performer, oftentimes it— you don't need to keep practicing the thing to get better. You need to practice the mind to get better. Because I will still go out, and if, and if I'm loose and I'm feeling myself, I will still shoot pretty well under par. And I don't practice anymore, like, ever. But I have all these calming and visualization techniques that I've learned that I'm able to dial up what I've learned in the past, and I can lock in the zone now better than I've ever been able to. And so vagal nerve stim is a big part of that. That was a study we ran We measured people's ability to get into a flow state, and it was double what a placebo was. So it's like you stimulate your vagus nerve, you have a better chance at getting into a flow state, which is where you perform your best. And it's just like, man, this is so cool. Like, if we can just train people's minds and their nervous systems, maybe you don't need to practice so much to unlock those peak performance levels. You just need to chill out and tap into your, you know, your Your focus states. So anyway, just kind of interesting.

That's brilliant. I feel like that's such a good place to end, is with people thinking about that key piece. Hadz, before we, before we close up, any last questions?

Ooh, I feel like I could talk with you forever. Um, I'm, I, I'm just really excited about— I'm gonna go buy the product. And I got on the waitlist. I, I think the, um, I'm— I do believe that my nervous system has been damaged by some mold exposures, and so I'm like, this, the headphone thing sounds really, really, really amazing to me. Um, so yeah, no, thank you so much for being here. This has been a very enlightening conversation. Really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you guys so much for, for having me and giving me just some time to share my story and perspective. Hopefully that was an interesting perspective on the vagus nerve, and, you know, you can think through a little more, like, is this vagus nerve technique really what I should be investing time in, or maybe that one, right? Um, and if possible, do them all. Do stack them all together, you know, and because that's— that'll give you the best benefit. But yeah, for mold, I mean, you mentioned mold. We've got— I've got a lady Who's a practitioner who specifically works with mold patients, and they use our headphones as part of their practice.

So yeah, I have— I had a hunch that, that, that it's probably very helpful for that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it can provide some benefit.

Yeah. Oh, amazing.

This has been great, everyone. Thank you for listening, and definitely go and find Nick. I'll put all of your contact information But to reserve your doodad, go to theholist.com, H-O-O-L-E-S-T. And you guys are over on Instagram too. And so I'll make sure to have all that info there.

Awesome.

And then you too can be the coolest.

You can be

the holiest. Yes. All right, everyone, we'll see you later.

Awesome. Thanks, guys. See ya.