Five, four, three, two, one.
So I've been hearing a lot lately about the vagus nerve.
There's a trend on TikTok where people ice their chest or even submerge their whole face
in ice water, all in the name of this nerve.
I want everybody to know about this magic.
My skeptical alarm bells started ringing, and I wondered what even is the vagus nerve
in the first place?
And are these home techniques to stimulate the vagus nerve legit?
I dug deeper and below the ice.
It turns out the story of the vagus nerve goes all the way to cutting edge tech that
aims to target chronic diseases.
It's fascinating.
And this story is still being written.
This video is sponsored by Merck Kgaa, Darmstadt, Germany.
Okay, first, a quick anatomy refresher.
So your vagus nerve is really, really, really big.
It starts in your brain stem.
And then it connects to your heart, your lungs, your stomach, your large intestines, your
small intestines, your adrenal glands, all kinds of stuff happening in this area.
You actually have a pair of vagus nerve, right side and left side.
Vagus nerve and vagus is actually the Latin word for wandering.
So you can imagine that this big nerve starts in the brain and then it wanders down and
connects to all of these different parts of your body and has a lot of different roles.
The vagus nerve carries information in both directions.
Sensory information is carried from other organs to the brain, while the brain sends
information to these organs to help regulate functions like breathing, heart rate and digestion,
and it intersects with your parasympathetic nervous system.
Now, the parasympathetic nervous system is best known for two things.
One is the fight or flight response, your response to things that are stressful or fearful.
The other is the relaxation response, which, let's be honest, that's where we all want
to be.
We all want to be relaxed, less anxious, less stressed, all that good stuff.
So your vagus nerve, it plays a really important role in both of these systems, which is why
a lot of people try to tap into it because they're trying to get out of the stress response
and into this relaxation response.
It's been praised as one solution to our stress and anxiety and insomnia.
But is that actually true?
Because if it is, I kind of want in on that.
So the first call in my vagus nerve investigation, it was to Dr. Ali Mattu.
Ali is an expert in anxiety and has treated it at the best hospitals.
Vanessa, So, so much attention gets focused on all the stuff that activates us.
So can the vagus nerve be used to relieve my own anxiety?
And how.
And here is this thing that is majorly involved in in calming us down in activating the parasympathetic
nervous system and getting us back to homeostasis.
So in my old age, I've become quite anxious and I would love to be more relaxed.
I am just kind of getting a feel for the vagus nerve, what it is.
What would you recommend me doing?
Well, you're not alone.
Anxiety related problems are the most common problem in in all of mental health world.
I love really basic physical things.
The first one is breathing.
Just finding ways to slow your breath down.
You can do a slow inhale of five and then a slow exhale of seven.
You're basically wanting to get that oxygen CO2 level back in balance.
And anything that slows your breath down, it's going to help trigger that parasympathetic
nervous system.
Have you ever heard of progressive muscle relaxation?
Yes, I really like that.
It's actually really good when you can't sleep.
I love tightening my fist, imagining I've got a lemon in there.
I'm squeezing all that lemon juice out.
Holding on to that tension, holding onto it, and let go.
And you notice how different your muscles feel.
You notice some of that relaxation kick in.
But I still have a niggling question.
So for all of these stress relief techniques, how do we actually know that the vagus nerve
is what is responsible for how we're feeling?
Could it be something else going on in our body instead?
So I'm going to do something that my fact check sent me about the vagus nerve.
My fact check guy is skeptic number one.
That's why she's my fact checker.
While it's somewhat straight forward to show that a certain activity causes a response
in the vagus nerve or that a technique reduces anxiety.
It's pretty hard to prove that that thing reduces anxiety by activating the vagus nerve.
A lot of techniques are questionable overall that they might reduce anxiety, but they might
not have anything to do with the vagus nerve.
I'm a behaviouralist.
I am most interested in the function in what's going on with your emotions and what can we
do to help you to function better.
And if you're kind of noticing really carefully, I was talking a lot more about the parasympathetic
nervous system, and I was talking a little bit less about the vagus nerve because it
is no one is doing this kind of research.
For most people, I think what's much more important is learning what are the different
ways in which you can soothe your body when it needs to be sued?
And Ali's last piece of advice is one that actually does work by stimulating the vagus
nerve.
There's a lot of research on it, how it can do everything from lowering anxiety to helping
treat PTSD and COVID 19 patients.
It may be the best and most reliable vagus nerve stimulation technique to use at home.
My all time favourite one is the dive reflex.
Do you know about this thing?
Okay.
This is the moment where Ali's advice perfectly intersects with the TikTok trends of icing
and head dunking to activate the vagus nerve, which I hadn't even mentioned yet.
I was going to specifically ask you about this.
Okay.
I came across all of these videos on YouTube about icing.
Icing your chest.
Icing your face.
Is this a legit thing?
I can do a lot of different things.
One thing it does is that it really shocks your nervous system.
So I think can totally be a thing.
The dive reflex goes like a little beyond that.
Ali is very poetic about the dive reflex.
It is so beautifully optimistic to me because this this dive reflex is something that we
share with every vertebrate on this planet which shows us this like shared history.
Now, this mammalian dive reflex happens when our bodies think they're diving into water.
It triggers relaxation and it slows down your heart rate, your parasympathetic nervous systems
like you're in water.
Okay, time to get to work because I need you to stay alive in water for a long time and
I need to slow down your oxygen consumption and all that sort of stuff.
Okay.
Have a guess.
What do you think it is that plays a role in this dive reflex?
I really hope you would have got it by now, because the vagus nerve, it carries information
to your organs to regulate those things like breathing and heart rate.
But the coolest thing is that you don't have to dive your entire body into water to activate
this.
You can kind of trick yourself to do it.
All you need to do is you need to kind of get this area, the like ski mask area covered
in water.
Hold your breath for about 15, 30 seconds.
You'll feel it kick in.
It's uncontrollable.
It goes into gear.
You might not want to do it if you have a heart condition.
Talk to your doctor about that because it does slow your heart rate.
But this is your parasympathetic nervous system.
This is your vagus nerve doing what it's built to do.
So at this point, my clinical advice and my TikTok trend curiosity kind of intersected
at this point where they determined my next move.
I'm going underwater.
I'm going to submerge my face into a really, really cold mixture of ice and water to try
to tap into my vagus nerve.
I really hope it works because it sounds terrible.
Things that I'm concerned about include getting water in my eyes.
I really hate getting water in my eyes, not being able to hold my breath.
The general discomfort of having my face in ice water for 15 to 30 seconds.
To me, it seems like a form of torture, actually.
I just want to check that I'm doing this right.
She has a towel.
That's really good intel.
Five, four, three, two, one.
Good job.
Hang in there.
It's so cold!
You got to put it back in.
You got.
You got it multiple times.
Oh, I feel like I'm in Antarctica.
No, I can't even see where this is.
Oh.
Oh, it's terrible.
I do feel like a lift.
It's a thrill.
Maybe it's the thrill of survival.
Maybe that's what people get out of this stuff.
There's this feeling that I want to do it again.
Like, I didn't expect to like this at all.
But over the next few days, I dunked my face another seven times because I really liked
how it felt.
I feel really good.
I'm not just saying that to the camera so I can have this really juicy video.
I can't feel my anxious emotions as much now, but they'll come back and then I'll just dunk
again.
Vagus nerve, who knew, who knew.
Honestly, one of the coolest things that I found out about Vagus nerve was that beyond
its role in reducing anxiety, reducing stress, it may actually play a role in treating depression
and epilepsy and a whole bunch of other things through a potential bioelectronic devices
that people could possibly get implanted in their body to stimulate the vagus nerve using
electricity.
Really cool.
So, well, the way that some of these home remedies can target the vagus nerve is quite
well vague.
There is a lot more research and development that is happening right now in a way that
is really, really precise.
And through that, we'll learn even more about the vagus nerve.
And in a way, they can help us target and trace chronic diseases.
0 There's this whole area of research and development
called Bioelectronics.
And in this field, scientists are developing smart neurostimulators to treat chronic diseases.
Now, you're probably familiar with neurostimulators, even if you might not realise it, A pacemaker
is one, for example.
But smart neurostimulator is currently being researched to go further.
Not only are they hoped to treat chronic diseases by stimulating specific nerves, but also to
potentially monitor and record what's happening in the body to create a feedback loop where
they deliver precise treatment.
In the U.S., the FDA has approved vagus nerve stimulation to treat things like epilepsy
and depression in certain patients, as well as for stroke rehabilitation.
Merck Kgaa, Darmstadt, Germany are working to develop smart bioelectronic medical devices
that are aimed to work in part by targeting the vagus nerve.
And this is where everything comes full circle with the vagus nerve.
You might recall that Merck Kgaa, Darmstadt, Germany, are also the sponsor of this video.
And what their bioelectronic devices could look like in the future is an electrode wrapped
around the vagus nerve that selectively stimulates the nerve when necessary to treat people in
this personalised and coordinated way.
Research and development is ongoing, but it's pretty exciting just to see what the future
of bioelectronics holds.
So while it is an excellent trait to be a little bit skeptical of random trends that
you see on TikTok, it's an even better trait to be able to change your mind about something.
When I started making this video, I was pretty skeptical, but I learned the vagus nerve.
Actually, it helps regulate a lot of your bodily functions without you even realising
it.
It happens unconsciously, and you can consciously activate it to help relieve stress and anxiety.
And who knows all the different ways it'll be harnessed in the future.
So not only did I change my mind, I dunked my mind in ice water eight times, and I can't
recommend that enough.
If you'd like to learn even more about Bioelectronics and the future of personalised medicine in
a place, head over to the link in the top line of the description.
A big thanks to Merck Kgaa Darmstadt, Germany for sponsoring this video.
They're applying all of their expertise in health care and materials to advance this
area of medicine, all aiming to bring new hope and treatments for people living with
severe and chronic diseases.