Regulating the vagus nerve – with its links to depression, anxiety, arthritis and diabetes – could aid physical and mental wellbeing.
Womens Weekly - by EVA-MARIA BOBBERT - June 2024

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Also see our other article on the Vagus Nerve here.

Imagine you’re on your first roller-coaster ride at the tender age of 10: The anticipatory thrill. The whoosh of air that sends your hair skywards as you swing round that first loop. It’s a rush like no other. But then … slam! Your cart collides with one in front of you that has malfunctioned and stopped in its tracks, throwing your body forward with a dodgemlike bang that breaks bones and permanently damages your heart.

“Statistically, the chance of being injured in a roller-coaster accident is only one in 24 million, so it’s shocking that it happened to me,” notes counsellor Anna Ferguson, author of The Vagus Nerve Reset (Penguin Random House, RRP $35), who says the trauma of that accident not only caused physical injury but also affected her nervous system, leading to years of mental health struggle.

“Your past experiences are held within your body, physiology and nervous system,” Anna believes. “Anxiety, brain fog and imposter syndrome as well as physical issues such as inflammation ... can be signs of a nervous system out of balance.”
While Anna’s physical trauma mostly healed in time, that pivotal accident changed the course of her life in other ways – it led her to study psychology, embarking on a journey to becoming an expert on the vagus nerve, our inner “electric superhighway”. It’s actually a pair of nerves that regulate everything from your heart rate, lungs, digestion and insulin release to your voice box and the muscles that control facial expression – a whopping 80 per cent of its communications are messages carried from your body to your brain.

“Your vagus nerve is busy 24/7 sending messages to let the brain know what’s going on throughout the body and in your organs,” says Anna. “Think of the phone alert that goes off when you receive a text. If you could hear the number of messages that your vagus nerve is pinging through to your brain it would be like white noise – truly gobsmacking.”

The vagus nerve splits at the brain stem and runs down through the abdomen. Together, your brain and vagus nerve are constantly assessing the safety of any given situation, including the mood of people around you.

“We used to look at the body and the brain as being separate but we can’t do that anymore,” says Jessica Maguire, a physiotherapist who runs interactive courses on regulating the vagus nerve online. “The brain really is sitting in the dark in the skull. It is relying on the signals coming up from your sensory systems to let it know how everything is going.

“We now know that irritable bowel syndrome, gut issues or even chronic constipation can be linked to how well the vagus nerve is regulating our organs, particularly if we have been under chronic or traumatic stress. This is important because, although we’ve heard stress is bad for us, this provides that fuller understanding.”

According to Jessica, a little bit of stress is normal – in fact, it’s actually good for you. Lightly exercising your vagus nerve makes it more efficient at returning to a calm baseline quickly.
But if the stress load becomes too much of a strain to lift, your nervous system can become stuck in fight and flight or freeze mode – that could show up as a mental health issue (think depression or anxiety) or a physical problem (everything from autoimmune diseases, diabetes, arthritis and weight gain has been linked to vagal tone).

Poor vagal tone is not something you can think yourself out of.
“How our neural circuits distinguish between safe and dangerous is below the level of conscious awareness,” explains Jessica. “We aren’t consciously choosing to get anxious. That’s why telling ourselves to think more positively or be stronger can minimise what is happening in our body.” Jessica believes the “survival” part of the brain “is a bit like a kid – it gets noisier when it’s being ignored”.

She says paying it some much-needed attention is more about what you do than what you say to it.
“Things like our posture and movement can dramatically influence what’s happening in our nervous system because our sensory system communicates directly to the ‘survival’ brain involved with the vagus nerve,” says Jessica. “If you’re walking around all day with a clenched jaw or sunken chest it’s sending a message that something is not right.”
 

Low vagal tone may mean you have less tolerance for stress, change or challenges. There is a fairly simple, if indirect, way to test this: Measuring your cardiac response to stress.
Your heart rate variability (the difference in time between each heart beat) should vary notably for your vagal tone to be considered healthy. Research also suggests a higher resting heart rate may correlate to a lower vagal tone –the theory is that a faster heartbeat offers less opportunity for healthy variability.
An out-of-whack vagus nerve may be regulated by incorporating small practices into your life. “If you are feeling anxious or irritable, you might practise slower deeper breaths, or do something that slows you down like a yoga class,” says Jessica Maguire.

“If you feel shut down, try an upregulating breath pattern, a shorter sharper breath such as the [yogic breathing technique] Breath of Fire. If you integrate small practices into the heat of a moment, that can bring you back to regulation.”
“The foundations for your emotions are in the sensations in your body,” explains Jessica. “Let’s say I feel bad. What does that tell me? I just feel bad. If I can be more granular, I might say I feel disappointed or frustrated or angry because I feel overloaded. Then you need to look at what action you can take to proactively take care of your emotions and your nervous system. In this case, you might choose to push some things back to other people to lighten the load.

“Learning to read and understand our internal bodily signals is vital because our body will nag us until we set boundaries that are congruent with our values.”

“Our stress response system, which is heavily focused in the gut, is influenced by what we eat,” says Felice Jacka, Professor of Nutritional Psychiatry and the Director of the Food & Mood Centre at Deakin University. “Studies on animals with a dysbiotic gut in the US have shown that the same bacteria can also be observed in the brain. It’s the vagus nerve that connects the gut and brain – it acts like a highway. Experiments have shown that when you cut the vagus nerve, that bacteria is no longer able to get to the brain.” Though she notes “this is a really new field so there is still so much we don’t know”.

Who you spend time with could also make a difference. “Being with other people who are in a calm, regulated state will bring in more vagal tone,” Jessica believes. “Babies are highly influenced by touch, facial expression and tone of voice. As adults we still have these relational circuits, just a lot of it is outside of our conscious awareness.”

There’s no shortage of treatment suggestions for improving vagal tone, from vibrating pendants and electrical vagus nerve stimulators to ice bathing and chanting. Another option is Spinal Energetics, a treatment modality founded by chiropractor and counsellor Dr Sarah Jane that has been described as a blend of chiropractic, reiki and shamanism.

“By focusing on the body’s ability to self-regulate and release stored tension patterns through gentle touches of the spine, we are able to influence the vagus nerve and parasympathetic nervous system,” says Dr Jane. “This promotes homeostasis, stress reduction and greater mind-body awareness.”