The vagus nerve is getting a lot of attention these days, and for good reason. It is cranial nerve 10 and is an important part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the “rest and digest” part of our system. The vagus nerve plays an important role in many of the automatic physiological processes that run in the background without our conscious awareness (ie: digestion, heart rate and blood pressure, immune response, etc). It innervates organs such as the heart, lungs, esophagus, stomach, and intestines.
One interesting fact about the vagus nerve is that 80% of the nerve fibers bring information from the body to the brain, and only 20% bring information from the brain to the body. This is why there are so many tips and tricks for ways to stimulate the vagus nerve, with the intention of calming or relaxing the nervous system — if we can get the body to relax, then it sends signals to the brain that we are safe, and it will allow the whole system to calm down.
One very important way we can access the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system is through our breath. It’s the only one of those automatic, background processes that we actually have conscious access to. You can’t think harder and digest faster, but you can think harder and breathe faster or slower. And breathing more slowly — specifically, having a longer, slower exhale than inhale — will stimulate that parasympathetic system and help you calm down. (You can stimulate the sympathetic nervous system and excite the nervous system by emphasizing the inhalation, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
I am going to include a link to a discussion that I had with the inventor of an external vagus nerve stimulator called the Rezzimax Pain Tuner. This is not meant to be an advertisement for the device, necessarily, but the reason I’m promoting it is because I have seen the positive effects it has had for my clients, my family members, and myself.
One of the things that makes me so comfortable sharing about it with others is that the principles behind it, and that its inventor encourages, line up perfectly with my understanding of nervous system regulation. According to Sharik Peck, the inventor of the Rezzimax, you will find the most benefit from using it if you also incorporate things like gratitude, forgiveness, and putting your tongue between your teeth and humming (which relaxes the jaw, slows your breathing, and adds additional stimulation to the vagus nerve). Some of the protocols also encourage you to engage your sense of taste and smell, or to move your eyes or tongue in certain ways while using the device. This is called neural stacking, and stimulates extra blood flow to the brain stem, which is a benefit to the surrounding cranial nerves.
This device can be helpful for headaches, vestibular migraines, tremors, and anxiety, all of which are not uncommon symptoms for people who have experienced head injuries. It can also have a positive impact when it comes to issues such as joint or back pain, repetitive stress injuries, dysmenorrhea, stomach pain, trigeminal neuralgia, seizures, or chronic regional pain syndrome. Whether you want to try the device or not, I hope that this increased understanding of the vagus nerve will be helpful, and I encourage you to incorporate more gratitude, forgiveness, slow breathing, and humming into your life 🙂
Yours,
Bethany
Here is the link to listen to the interview with Sharik and his daughter about the Rezzimax Pain Tuner: