M3 : Lesson 2: WHAT is the vagus nerve? Why use vagal toning practices
Transcript
Module 3 lesson 2, more in the bay. Vegged nerve and using bagel toning to improve nervous system resiliency. The first set of tools we’re gonna learn to use to improve nervous system resiliency are vagal toning techniques, which directly target the vagus nerve. Almost all of your body functions are affected by your vagus nerve And if you decide to take care of it, you’ll notice improvements in your sleep, social engagement, and you’ll more easily overcome stressful experiences. One of the most direct ways to improve your nervous system’s tolerance for stress and improve its ability to regulate the autonomic nervous system is bagel toning.
This is how we send cues of safety to the brain, to the body, and causes your overall protection response to calm down so that you can climb that polyvago ladder of safety. Now next let’s learn a little bit more about the vagus nerve. I know I went over this in module 2, but because it’s such an important part of our body, I’m going to repeat myself a little bit so that you just have a clear understanding. Like we learn, it’s the 10th cranial nerve also called the wandering nerve, running from your brainstem down both sides of your neck into the pestin abdomen. It has the 2 branches we discussed, the dorsal branch below the diaphragm and the ventil branch above the diaphragm.
When it’s stimulated, it decreases inflammation. And there’s promising research in using vagal tone exercise to help with conditions such as depression, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, post traumatic stress disorder, immune function, chronic illness, and much more. There’s a lot of functions of the vagus nerve. It communicates between the gut and the brain. It controls your throat muscles to send food and air down the right tubes.
It’s responsible for muscles of speech and sound. It lowers your blood pressure and your heart rate in the case of illness or emotional stress. It causes relaxation with breathing and healthy organ function like your heart, liver, lung, pancreas, and intestines, controls digestion and is responsible for your full feeling. And acts like a brake lever to the gas pedal of your sympathetic nervous system slowing down your autonomic nervous system response. It’s what helps you feel safe and at home in your body when it’s functioning well.
It provides fear management in the body. And healthy vagal tone is the foundation for feeling primal trust, the inherent sense of okayness. And I’ve heard some practitioners claim that vagal toning or healthy vagal nerve function is a potential off switch for disease. You can see why I think vagus nerve toning is so darn important. And if you’re having issues with any of these things knowing that working with your vagus nerve is likely to help you.
One of the most direct ways to improve your nervous system’s tolerance for stress and improve its overall ability to regulate is by improving the function of your vagus nerve through bagel toning activities. Vaggle toning helps to send signals or cues of safety to the brain. We’ll work on bagel toning exercises in the following ways. Breathing, sound and vibration, and eye movements. And it’s important to note that the vagus nerve is toned primarily through bottom stimulation, meaning it is sending signals from the body back up to the brain, and only about 20% of the signaling is going from the brain to the body.
This is a big reason why brain retraining alone is not taught in the regulate program. I believe vagal toning and specifically body based practices like breathing and somatics are crucial to nervous system retraining and regulation. In the following lessons, you’re gonna be learning bagel toning tools of breath and sound. See you in the next lesson.