welcome i'm dr janine bowring naturopathic doctor and today i'm discussing how to trigger the vagus
nerve so the vagus nerve is our 10th cranial nerve and it is the longest nerve in the body sometimes
it's called the wandering nerve and if you can appreciate it starts right in the brain stem
high up and it goes all the way down touching all of our internal organs and wrapping itself
around our intestinal tract and this is really important in terms of that sympathetic versus
the parasympathetic part of our autonomic nervous system so maybe you've heard about the fight or
flight response when we're stressed out this is our protective mechanisms that we can run away
from whatever is chasing us and unfortunately because we over stimulate our sympathetic
overdrive and that's what it's called the sympathetic part of our nervous system
is that the parasympathetic the more relaxed state is always not the way it should be
and that's why we can develop a lot of illness and this is why having a healthy vagal response
is really important and i'm going to share with you today on some tips that you can do to help to
increase the vagal tone and really focus in on the parasympathetic which is important for digestion
it's important for our moods it's important for the way that we feel it also is important with
our connection with the earth and the universe and really finding that balance in ourselves in terms
of having a good and healthy life so when we talk about you know making sure that we are more in
that parasympathetic state yes we have to decrease our stresses as much as we can in our environment
but also right in the moment what we can do is a special breathing technique in which researchers
found that you can actually stimulate the vagus nerve to slow down the heart rate and when they
were researching on frogs what they discovered was that the vagus nerve actually can squirt
out something called acetylcholine onto the heart tissue itself to slow down its rapid beating and
this is really important for anybody who suffers with anxiety nervousness and that rapid heartbeat
and especially with panic attacks that you think you know that you're having a heart attack and
that's because your your heart is beating out of your chest this will be a great tip that you can
really do at any time anywhere nobody will know that you're doing it to help with that vagus nerve
squirting that acetylcholine right on the heart to help to slow it down so let's do that now i
want you to get nice and comfortable and into if you've seen my videos before i talk about a nice
comfortable sort of meditative stance so you could be sitting ideally you're connected with the earth
and you know both feet or legs on and connected to the earth you can do this lying down as well and
we're just going to focus in and close our eyes and get nice and relaxed and the way that we're
gonna breathe in is we're taking two breaths in then we're going to hold for two breaths and then
we're going to exhale focusing on the exhale for four breaths and by focusing on that exhale for a
little bit longer time this is what's helping with our parasympathetic nervous system and to help for
that vagal tone and to help to really you know decrease that stress response in our autonomic
nervous system so let's try a few breaths together so we're going to breathe in for two
and hold for two and out for four and in for two hold for two
and out for four so yeah so you can do this really at any time of day especially if you're stressed
out i do recommend that you do it regularly you know if you are that person who you know that
stress is a big having a big impact on your life certainly in another video i talk about
pregnenolone steal so i want you to check out that video how that's related to our leptin levels and
our stress response and how that can really offset our hormones and have a negative impact
on our body another thing that's really good for your vagal tone is singing so if you love to sing
even if you don't love to sing that's something that i've taught myself to love to do now because
yeah starting to do karaoke at home with the kids and with my husband who finally
convinced me to start singing it's fantastic for relieving stress but also helps your vagus nerve
as well so really fantastic you know and whether that's in the shower i would love to hear from
you what are your favorite songs this is something i'm putting out a little challenge on tick tock on
you know people duetting me on the video all about vagal tone because i want to hear your
your singing and inspire others to feel better as well especially with their nervous systems
so thanks for joining me today i hope that you share this video with your friends give me a big
thumbs up if you've got ideas for a future video i'd love to hear from you as well
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you