Activate your Parasympathetic Nervous System
Activate Your Vagus Nerve
The Vagus Nerve is the brain’s method of controlling the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest system. It is not the only nerve controlling our ability to decrease stressors, but it is by far the single most important nerve due to its far reaching effects. The word “vagus” means wanderer, as this nerve wanders throughout the body to many important organs and imparts signals from the brain regarding their level of function. This nerve connects the brain to the gut (intestines and stomach), heart, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, kidney, ureter, spleen, lungs, sex organs (in females), neck (pharynx, larynx and esophagus), ears and the tongue. No other nerve in the body has such a broad and far reaching effect as the Vagus Nerve.
Vagus nerve stimulation has the potential to help those suffering from various health conditions, including but certainly not limited to anxiety disorders, heart disease, some forms of cancer, poor circulation, leaky gut syndrome, alzheimer’s, memory and mood disorders, migraine’s and headaches, fibromyalgia, obesity, tinnitus, addiction, autism and autoimmune conditions.
So how can we stimulate this nerve to ensure that this nerve is functioning optimally?
Here are a few ways you can exercise and stimulate your vagus nerve. As you move through the list, choose 2 or 3 new activities that you can introduce daily.
Breath Work
Breathwork is a powerful tool that can help activate the vagus nerve simply by taking deep breaths. This can help to decrease anxiety, boost your nervous system, improve your immune system and decrease heart rate. There are a wide variety of breathing techniques that can be beneficial to your health. Here are some of them:
Focus on your deep breaths and mindfully follow the air that you breathe in and out through your nose, lungs, and belly.
Take six deep breaths from the diaphragm in the span of one minute. Long and slow exhales are important. Diaphragmatic breaths are more relaxing than the quick, shallow breaths associated with the stress response.
Exhale longer, breathe in for four counts, and breath out for six counts. If you are deeply focused, you can get into this state in about five minutes.
be mindful - don’t multitask
Being mindful can help activate your parasympathetic nervous system. To be more mindful, do a single task at a time rather than working on several things at once. Additionally, activate your 5 senses to help you root yourself in the moment. To activate your 5 senses, focus on the things you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste in your environment.
Meditation - daily for 20min
Meditation has been proven to improve stress and anxiety. It can help reduce the responsiveness to stresses that aren’t under our control. Meditation helps to manage triggers, decrease heart and blood pressure, muscles’ lactic acid, or even deal with pain. It improves sleep, lowers stress and can help with strong, difficult emotions. There are many studies that show the positive effects of various meditation techniques such as, e.g. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).
Visualization
Calming visualizations have the ability to help the parasympathetic state engage, by helping the body feel like it is actually happening in reality. You can use your past memories to move in your imagination to the places where you used to feel relaxed and calm. Visualize relaxation and notice every detail, every color, sounds and smells, and shape in this space; feel the sensations of being in your calm place. As your mind focuses on these details rather than the current stress you're experiencing, you'll notice you naturally begin to calm down.
Pranayama
Exhale against a closed airway by keeping your mouth closed and pinching your nose while trying to breathe out. It increases the pressure inside of your chest cavity thereby stimulating your vagus nerve. This method can be used for many different purposes, e.g., to normalize middle ear pressure, for cardiological diagnosis, for strength training, or the regulation of heart rhythm.
Feet on the earth
Grounding allows us to absorb the negative ions from the earth, which act as antioxidants. It has been shown that when our feet are on the ground, the muscles begin to relax, causing a shift into the parasympathetic nervous system state. The earth releases negative ions that go into our bodies, creating a positive effect. There are plenty of positive effects of grounding, such as improved sleep, reduced inflammation, enhanced blood flow, or even improved tissue and cell repair!
Cultivate healthy intestinal bacteria, use probiotics
Fermented foods are full of probiotic bacteria. They support absorption of B vitamins, fat-soluble vitamins and folic acid and play a large role in immunity. Research on healthy probiotic flora have also been linked to mental and emotional health. There are more and more studies that show that correlation, which means that we can take care of our mental health by delivering probiotic bacteria to our intestines.
Non Sleep / Deep Rest
Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) is a practice that puts you in a dreamy, semi-focused, calm state where you can recharge your batteries and feel more energized afterward. It is something you can experience through Hypnosis or Yoga Nidra, which is a form of sleeping yoga. Achieving a state of deep rest without falling asleep allows your brain to slip into a hypnotic state, which then triggers the parasympathetic nervous system to engage.
Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi
Mindful movements can activate the parasympathetic nervous system by improving fight or flight response. People who practice Yoga, Qigong, Tai Chi tend to feel a release in tension. This may be due to the recognition of the tension quicker in the body. Pranayama are very beneficial breathing techniques that help activate the parasympathetic nervous system and feel more relaxed.
progressive muscle relaxation
Lie down in a comfortable position and take several deep breaths to calm yourself. Start at your toes and tense your muscles for 1-2 seconds before releasing. Move to the next muscle group, then tense and release. Continue tensing and releasing your muscles until you reach your head. After you tense and release all of your muscles, your body should feel calm. Pay attention to the minute areas of tension in your body (your jaw, your forehead)
Touch your lips gently
Did you know the lips have parasympathetic fibers running through them? Something as simple as gently running your finger over your lips can stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Also, it has been proven that our mouth can put us in a better mood. How? Try to take a pen and put it horizontally in your mouth so it automatically looks like you are smiling. Studies show that your brain will recognize it as a smile and adjust your mood accordingly.
Yawning
Scientists have proven that yawning is something that signals the parasympathetic system to activate, which results in stress reduction and lowers the risk of high blood pressure. If you practice yawning, you can intentionally put your body into this rest and digest state with a simple yawn.
Mantra and Humming
Humming, or making a “vooooooo” or “om” sound stimulates the vocal cords and facilitates long, slow, exhalation.
cold shower/plunge
Any acute cold exposure will increase vagus nerve stimulation. Studies have shown that when your body adjusts to cold, your fight or flight sympathetic system declines and your rest and digest, parasympathetic system increases, which is mediated by the vagus nerve.
Take a hot bath
Studies have shown that immersing oneself in 102F/38C water can reduce the sympathetic nervous system response, calming the body with heat. Adding Epsom salt can increase magnesium levels, inducing relaxation. To make the bath even more relaxing, you can add some bath essential oil and put on your favorite soothing music. This way, you will engage more senses in this relaxing process.
Put on relaxing music
Music can help activate the parasympathetic nervous system by helping relax the mind. Listening to sedative music decreases blood pressure, heart rate, and respiration rate. There are specific musical frequencies that are shown to have more benefits than others. Some studies show that listening to music at a frequency of 432 Hz is more calming for our bodies and minds than one of 440 Hz, which is the frequency that most modern day music is tuned at.
Cuddle a human/pet
Cuddling someone you love can activate the parasympathetic nervous system; it releases serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin. Oxytocin, specifically, is the love and bonding chemical. Living with a pet? Pets really are therapeutic and can help reduce stress or stimulate happiness hormones.
Exercise
Intensive exercise stimulates our sympathetic nervous system. However, light cardio exercise can actually decrease the sympathetic nervous system and activate our parasympathetic nervous system. The key is to balance high intensity work with slower paced activities.
Talk therapy
It is important to talk to someone, whether family, friends or a professional therapist who can help you identify anxiety triggers. Therapists can help to develop coping strategies to prevent long-term anxiety that negatively affects your health.
Remember, small steps create big, positive changes in the long term.
These are challenging times, be kind to yourself and take each day as it comes.
How do you know if your parasympathetic nervous system is working properly?
One good test can be done if you have a heart rate monitor handy. Look at your resting heart rate, take a deep breath in and hold it, and note how high your heart rate increases—say, 20 beats per minute. When you exhale, if your heart rate drops back down to your resting heart rate pretty quickly, then your parasympathetic nervous system is working very well. If you inhale and your heart rate jumps and stays high, that means your body is in a higher state of stress and your parasympathetic nervous system is not jumping in to downregulate.
Vagal Tone and Heart rate variability
The tone of the vagus nerve is significant to the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. Heart rate variability is a way to measure vagal tone. As you breathe in, your heart-rate speeds up a little. As you breathe out, it slows down a little. The higher your vagal tone, the greater the difference between your inhalation heart-rate and your exhalation heart-rate. The higher the tone, the more efficient you are at relaxing.
Higher vagal tone is associated with better general health. It leads to better blood sugar regulation, reduced risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease, improved digestion and a reduction in migraines. Most importantly, it is associated with increased emotional stability, resiliency and longevity.
Lower vagal tone is associated with mood instability, depression, diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome, cognitive impairment, chronic inflammation, and cardiovascular disease.
Stimulating the vagus nerve stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turns reduces our neurophysiological experience of stress. It reduces our heart rate and blood pressure. It influences the limbic system in our brain, where emotions are processed. It stimulates digestion and creates an increased feeling of well-being.
Start practicing the art of stimulating your vagus nerve to relieve anxiety, depression, tension and the general sense of unease when stress builds up.