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Tired of playing guessing games with your digestive system? 🤔 In this video, learn simple tips and tricks to stimulate the vagus nerve for better health. The vagus nerve is the superhighway of the gut-brain connection! This video explores the connection between the gut brain axis, and the longest cranial nerve in the body. Discover how to stimulate your vagus nerve with these simple vagus nerve exercises.
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Full Transcript
Introduction to the Vagus Nerve 0:00
Today, I'd like to give you some tips and tricks to stimulate the vagus nerve. The vagous nerve, it sounds just like Las Vegas, spelled a little bit differently, but it is one of our longest nerves, longest cranial nerve in the body. And it starts in our brain and goes all the way to our large intestine. We've heard of the gut-brain connection. You'd heard this gut brain axis. one of the primary reasons why that gut-brain connection is so strong. This is a nerve that we want to be strong, we wanted to have good tone.
We want it to engaged enough that can get into a parasympathetic state, a rest and digest state for meal times, certainly. But it's something that you can also tap into throughout our day. If we're feeling stressed and we wanna come back down, comeback to that nice, easeful place. So I'd like to give you three ways to stimulate the vagus nerve specifically. The first one, we might all be very familiar with it. Meditation helps to simulate the Vagus nerve, but more specifically, deep belly breathing.
Deep Belly Breathing Exercise 1:32
Because I want us to feel the pace of a deep belly breath. Let's take a moment to deep-belly breathe together. So if you haven't already, find a comfortable seat. Make it easeful. No need to tone the belly. Can we let that soften? Let the shoulders fall away from the ears. Maybe even place a 2% smile on the face. And then notice, notice your normal everyday breathing. You might choose to place a hand on your belly and see if you can move the breath down to your bell. If the belly feels hard to access today, maybe it's the diaphragm, this place where you find your ribs, you come off of the ribs and find the squishy stuff.
The diaphragms lives right there. Inhale into your belly. And exhale, let your bell collapse. Okay, lets start to deepen the breathing now. Inhale. Exhale. inhale. exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale Exhale Inhale, exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale Exhale Inhale, Exhale, Inhale Exhale. And then return to normal, everyday breathing. Let the eyes open. This deep belly breathing, you might have noticed, has a hitch in the rhythm. We want to do about six breath cycles per minute to stimulate the vagus nerve.
So this means about 10 seconds per breath cycle, but we want the exhale to be longer than the inhale. I usually like to about four seconds inhale, six seconds exhale. And this, I put a lot of stock into your body's intuition. If we're ever doing a breathwork technique and you feel stress come on, you your whole system tightening, then it's time to modify. You know your body better than anybody. And if there is an alternate pattern and alternate pacing that feels more easeful and more soothing to you, please do that one.
With this knowledge in mind, let's take two more minutes of that pace, that 10 second breath cycles, and all guide us through about a four second inhale, six second exhale. We'll return to your breathing posture. If you'd like to place your hand on your belly again, please do. Let the eyes close if that feels comfortable. And take a normal breath in. normal breath out. Inhale, exhale, inhale, Exhale, Inhale. Exhale.
Cold Water Stimulation 7:00
Inhale, exhale, inhale, Exhale, Inhale Exhale Inhale Inhale, exhale, inhale, and exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Last paced inhale. Exhale, release. Return to normal, everyday breathing. So just a couple of minutes really soothes the system and it stimulates and tones that vagus nerve. Deep belly breathing, trick number one. Trick number two, splashing cold water on your face. It could be right when you wake up in the morning, wake the system with some cold waters splashed to the face, some people like to take a cold shower, even if it's just for six deep belly breaths or a quick splash.
The cold you might notice even just the thought makes you inhale. and then exhale to really sink right in. So that cold water not only changes your breath pattern, but it changes the whole tone of your vagus nerve. This is very good for digestion. Cold water to the face, cold to water the body. It's very for decreasing blood pressure. When you have a strong and soothed vagal nerve, people tend to have healthy or lower blood pressure. So people that have high blood, pressure do these techniques to strengthen their vagus nerve and soothe it.
And they notice their blood. Pressure comes down.
Singing and Humming for Vagus Tone 9:39
It's also very good for your immune system. Taking a cold shower helps to stimulate new white blood cells to be made and then a fresh water, cold, fresh, water just to the face. can be not as specific to the whole immune system, but especially to lymph nodes under the chin. And usually people notice their skin clears up pretty well too because they're starting to manipulate some blood flow to their cheeks and the forehead and chin, so deep belly breathing, cold water to face or the body. The third trick is singing.
Now I will spare you the singing demonstration, but I would recommend as much as you can throughout the day, sing loudly. Sing like your whole soul is on fire. It's not only helps to open up the larynx and open this place where the vagus nerve starts, but it helps to put yourself in a parasympathetic state, a rest and digest state. When was the last time that you were so stressed out and you are singing a song? It's so rare. So this singing technique helps trick our bodies and trick out brains into going from sympathetic, flight or flight, into parasympathy rest then digest.
Humming helps too. If you're in place where you not quite comfortable singing it, humming, loudly, great option. Sing in your car, hum in the shower, sing throughout your day. If you are stressed, maybe say, I'm so stressed just to get yourself out of that stressed out place. So deep belly breathing, cold water to the face or body, loud singing, and loud humming. These are great ways to stimulate your vagus nerve, help to connect that brain, gut, mind, body, and gut-brain axis. These will be some helpful tips if you can do them every day.
Please give them a try. Let me know how it goes. And if have any questions, let me
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