Vagus Nerve stress & anxiety
1. The Soul Nerve
The vagus nerve was appropriately named as its Latin meaning is 'wanderer" and the vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve, wandering from your brain to your large intestine. this nerve reaches into most of your body, including your throat, lungs, heart, stomach, liver, spleens, pancreas, kidney and gut (both your large and small intestines).
De nervus vagus is de 10e zenuw behorend bij de hersenzenuwen. Het vagetatieve zenuwstelsel heeft een (orhto)sympatisch deel en een parasympatisch deel. De nervus vagus reguleert dit parasympatische deel van het zenuwstelsel. Deze zenuw verbindt jouw hersenen met jouw lichaam/body. Er wordt via deze zenuw voortdurend informatie uitgezonden. Informatie over jouw vitale functies, jouw hormonen maar ook emoties, pijn, stress, slaap en verdriet.
The vagus nerve connects the gut and brain and communicates information from the gut to the brain using neurotransmitters, such as serotonin and glutamate, and gut hormones, all of which play a vital role in sleep, mood, pain, stress and hunger. Meaning the vagal pathway is bidirectional with 80 percent of the information going from the body to the brain and 20 percent from the brain to the body.
Resma Menakem, the author of My Grandmother's Hands, accurately describes the vagus nerve as the soul nerve because it not only communicates between different parts of the body but also from one person to another.
The vagus nerve is the largest organ in your body's autonomic nervous system, which regulates all of your body's basic functions like breathing, your heartbeat, and the dilation of your eyes. This 'soul' nerve unifies your entire nervous system.
Much of what we know about the vagus nerve was discovered in the past two decades, and there is undoubtedly much more then we need to learn.
One of the main functions of the vagus nerve is to receive fight, flee or freeze messages from your brainstem, aka your lizard brain, and help the rest of your body prepare to engage in a suvival response. The same nerve is responsible for receiving and spreading the message that you are safe, so it can restore regular functions, and you can relax.
Om zijn taak optimaal te kunnen uitoefenen, mag de vagus nerve niet overprikkeld raken door bakken met ellende gedurende lange tijd. Net als overtrainen. Overeten. Systemen raken uitgeput en fuctioneren niet meer optimaal. Pas na langere tijd krijg je er last voortdurend last van. Niet meer af en toe. Je krijgt phychisch last door middel van klachten of ziekten. En je krijgt fysiek last en pijn.
The connection of your vagus nerve to your brainstem is different from being connected to your thinking brain. There is only one language the brainstem speaks: Am I safe or am I unsafe? Through your brainstem, your vagus nerve - along with the cranial nerves responsible for senses like sight and hearing - scan both your internal and external environments for safety and danger.
With practice, you can consciously use your vagus nerve, as well as other cranial nerves, to settle your nerve system and body, which will help you avoid reflexively sliding into a fight, flee of freeze response in situations where such a response is unnecessary.
To get a better sense of the system that is your soul nerve and its many branches, put your left hand on the base of your neck and with your right hand trace the pathway of the vagus nerve around the side of your neck, down your throat, to your lungs, your heart, and finally four abdomen. Imagine energy moving up and down this pathway.
video??
Now place your right hand over your heart. Imagine the vagal nerve pathway and feel the energy moving between your two hands. Let's take a moment and acknowlegde the powerful ability of your soul nerve to unify your nervous system and its ability to regulate and connect.
Now move your hand from your heart to your stomach and take a moment to acknowledge the ways this system works on your behalf to protect you when necessary.
Stimulating your vagus never and utilizing your cranial nerves can help restore a sense of safety and regulation, allowing you to better connect with yourself, your surroundings and others around you.
Together we'll practice Stanley Rosenberg's Basic Exercise, which repositions the atlas and the axis, which is where your brainstem and your spine connect to increase blood flow and restore a sense of safety and connection.
The first few fimes you do the exercise, you should lie on your back. After you are familiar with the exercise, you can do it sitting on a chair, standing of lying on your back.
1. Lying comfortably on your back, weave the vingers of one hand together with the fingers of the other hand.
2. Put your hands behind the back of your head, with the weight of your head resting comfortably on your interwoven fingers, you should feel the bones of your fingers on the back of your head.
If you have a stiff shoulder and cannot bring both of your hands up behind the back of your head, it is sufficient to use one hand, with the fingers and palm contacting both sides of yur head.
3. Keeping your head in place, look to the right, moving only your eyes, as fas as you comforabley can. Do not turn your head, just move your eyes. Keep looking to the right.
4. After a short period of time, 30-60 seconds, you will swallow, sigh of yawn. This is a sign of relaxation in your autonomic nervous system. A normal in breath is followed by an out breath, but a sigh is different, after you breathe in, a second in breath follows on top of the first in breath, before the out breath.
5. Bring your eyes back and looking straight ahead.
6. Leave your hands in place, and keep your head still. this time move your eyes to the left.
7. Hold your eyes there until you notice a sigh, a yawn or a swallow.
8. Now that you have completed the basic exercise, take your hands away, and sit up or stand up.
Vagus nerve practices are best utilized with a little and often approach: a little bit at a time often. Every time you go to the bathroom, practice this basic exercise. This will enable you to effectively implement the practice by attaching it to something you regularly do daily and in a space that can be both inherently safe and vulnerable.
Lesson 1 Homework
The Basic Exercise repositions the atlas (C1, the first cervical/neck vertebra) and the axis (C2) and increases mobility in the neck and the entire spine. It increases blood flow to the brainstem and has a positive effect on the ventral branch of the vagus nerve, restoring your sense of safety and social engagement.
Before and after doing the basic exercise: Evaluate the relative freedom of the movement of your head and neck. rotate your head to the ridht as far as it goes comfortably. Then come back to center, pause, and rotate your headd to the left as fas as it goes comfortably.
How far do you rotate to each side? Is there pain of stiffness? After doning the exercise, make these same movements again. Is there an improvement in range of motion? A decrease in pain and stiffness?
Practise this exercise every time you are in the bathroom. Why in the bathroom?
- It is exponentially easier to introduce a new practice into your day when you anchor it to an already existing habit.
- The bathroom can feel like a safe space while being inherently vulnerable, allowing your nerve system a powerful environment for healing.
A whole body balace goes with a optimal working vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve and it governs crucial parts of your health, like breathing, blood pressure, digestion, immunity and stress prevention. All of these things can be a cause of bloating, hormonal imbalances, fatigue and weight gain.
Today's practice targets your upper vagus nerve. You'll use massage and fascial (connective tissue) stretch techniques to open more space for your vagus nerve, as well as release chronic muscle tension and knots.
When your vagus nerve functions properly, your gut works better and with smooth digestion, comes less bloating in your belly and less inflammation and exhaustion overall.
You should begin to feel better as you incorporate this massage into your life. I recommend doing this once or twice a week, and the same goes for the lower vagus massage that you'll learn in lesson 2.
Enjoy the release.
Recommended props:
something you can sit on for a while like a chair, sitting cushion or one or two yoga blocks.
Block the Bloat Tip
Today, watch for when tension starts to build in your neck and shoulders. Inhale, then exhale. Relax these areas more.
When you learn to prevent tension before it can take hold, you'll develop a lifestyle of cath-and-release that will keep neck and shoulder pain at bay and help your vagus nerve work its best.
Tip
Reset jouw nervus vagus met manuele lymfedrainage. Je bereikt hiermee een positief effect op jouw gezondheid en wellbeing. Ik boek een lymfe massage 4 keer per jaar.
Oorzaken van een verstoorde werking van jouw nervus vagus:
chronische stress (vermoeidheid, slaapproblemen, fibromyalgie, irritatie, angst, onrust, hoofdpijn, verminderde weerstand en slecht herstel, energieproblemen, focusproblemen, lustproblemen)
Functies nervus vagus:
een deel van de uitwendige akoestische gehoorgang (horen)
harde hersenvlies (dura mater) van de achterste schedelgroeve
aansturing van het gehemelte
de keelholte en het strottenhoofd (slikken en proeven)
autonome functies als hartslag, bloeddruk, ademhalen, spijsverteren en de blaasfunctie
spieraansturing van de bronchien (luchtwegvertakkingen), longen, stembanden, klierafscheidingen, ton en het zachte gehemelte, keelholte en strottenhoofd en stembanden.
voortbeweging van voedsel (peristaltiek) van maag tot aan de linker buiging van de dikke darm
stuurt andere buikorganen aan als lever, milt, alvleesklier, etc etc
ontsteking
pijn en pijnregulatie
stemming en stressniveaus
reguleert het parasympatisch zenuwstelsel dat het lichaam in een toestand van rust en herstel brengt.
vertraagd hartslag
verlaagd bloeddruk
helpt spijsvertering op gang
beheerst stress niveaus
bewaakt via 4 vagale kernen de cardiovasculaire (hart en bloedvaten) respiratoire (ademhaling) en voedingssystemen (vertering en klier afscheiding)
betrokken bij ontsteking, stemming, pijnregulatie.