The power of the Vagus Nerve
The vagus nerve regulates the body’s stress response and promotes relaxation. It is the largest cranial nerve, running from the brain to the colon. It connects all the major internal organs including the heart, lungs, and digestive tract.
This nerve plays a role in controlling involuntary sensory and motor functions like your heart rate, mood, urine output, blood pressure changes, digestion and immune system. It helps your body switch between your sympathetic (fight/flight/fawn) and parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).
Since the vagus nerve runs from the brain to the colon, it runs through the 7 main chakras from the Crown in the brain to the Root, bridging the physical and the metaphysical within the body. Balancing your chakras can help balance and sooth your vagus nerves, promoting relaxation and shifting your nervous system towards the parasympathetic state.
The vagus nerve serves as the physical extension of the chakras, intricately connected and intertwined with our body's energetic centers.
Starting from the Root, which anchors stability and survival needs, the vagus nerve provides the foundational support for higher chakras.
Moving to the Sacral, governing emotions and creativity, disruptions here can trigger stress responses, leading to chronic fatigue due to continuous cortisol release. By attentively observing physical cues and signals from the vagus nerve, we empower ourselves to establish healthy boundaries, fostering self-care and balance.
The Solar Plexus, shaping our personality and identity, connects to the vagus nerve through the endocrine system, influencing stress responses and hormone regulation.
Transitioning to the Heart, the bridge between earthly and heavenly chakras, an open and balanced heart chakra facilitates harmony and alignment in our being. Managing breath and heart rate can effectively soothe an overactive nervous system.
This nerve can become underactive if the body is in a constant state of fight/flight/freeze due to stress, keeping the nervous system in survival overdrive. This state affects your breathing, increases heart rate increases and digestion becomes impaired, which can cause a whole host of chronic illnesses.
Being in this constant state of fight/flight/freeze can take a toll on your body, which is why activating your parasympathetic nervous system is so vital.
This flows onto the polyvagal theory, the idea proposed by Dr. Stephen Porges, that explains the role the autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays in regulating emotional states, social behavior and stress response. Our ANS consists of three states, each of which affects our emotional response differently.
The first being the ventral vagal state, controlled by the parasympathetic nervous system and promotes social engagement and connection.
It is our rest and digest state, we feel safe and secure, and therefore our emotional response is healthy. We feel mindful, present, and grounded.
The second is the sympathetic state, this state activates your fight or flight response. This is our sympathetic nervous system, which increases heart rate and breathing rate, and decreases our digestion. We perceive we are in danger and so our bodies prepare to fight or run. Our emotions can quickly escalate to rage, and we have no emotional regulation.
And the third is the dorsal vagal state, this state activates our freeze response, associated with dissociation and shut down, linked to trauma and extreme stress. This is our body's emergency state, we feel ourselves closing down, we disassociate from fear. We feel heavy, numb, emotionless or hopeless, checked out.
In recent years, there has been a new response identified, fawn. This state aims to avoid danger and conflict through people pleasing behaviors. You may feel like you can't stand up for yourself and are overwhelmed. While fawn is not a part of the polyvagal theory, I think it important to be aware of this 4th trauma response the body may experience.
However, we can start to heal and reactivate our vagus nerve through breathing, meditation, and by balancing our chakras. Strategies to calm the vagus nerve include:
Deep breathing:
Engaging in slow, deep breathing can stimulate a relaxation response by the vagus nerve, shifting us to the ventral vagal state. Try inhaling through the nose slowly, pulling your breath down into your belly, feeling it expand away from your spine. Release the breath slowly through your mouth for a count of 4, feeling your belly constrict back to your spine. Repeat as needed.
Meditation:
Daily or weekly to cultivate mindfulness and promote relaxation, stimulating the vagus nerve
Humming and chanting:
Humming or chanting can stimulate and soothe the vagus nerve through vibrations produced by vocalisation.
Cold exposure:
Breif exposure to the cold can activate the vagus nerve. As your body is adjusting to the cold by slowing your heart rate and directly blood flow to your brain, sympathetic activity declines while the parasympathetic activity increases, promoting relaxation.
Laughter and Social Connection:
Engage in activities that promote laughter and social connection, as these can help stimulate the vagus nerve and release feel-good hormones like oxytocin.
By incorporating these strategies into your routine, you can nurture vagus nerve health, alleviate stress, and enhance overall well-being.