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You may have heard about the vagus nerve before, but if you have, you may be unsure of what it is and what it has to do with anxiety or trauma. The vagus nerve is vital for many bodily functions, such as breathing and heart rate, but it has a significant role in mental health because of its ability to help regulate our stress response. Read on to learn about the vagus nerve, polyvagal theory, and how vagus nerve stimulation can help you reduce anxiety and recover from trauma.
Why the Vagus Nerve Is So Important
The vagus nerve is one of 12 cranial nerves, each of which plays a role in different bodily and brain functions. The vagus nerve begins in the brain and extends throughout the body to our organs. Because it extends so long throughout our bodies, it has been referred to as “the wandering nerve.”
The vagus nerve regulates autonomic (automatic) body responses, such as:
- Digestion
- Heart Rate
- Respiration
- Reflexes like coughing, sneezing, and swallowing
The vagus nerve is involved with your autonomic nervous system, which has two main parts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system triggers the “fight-or-flight” response, preparing the body to deal with a crisis or flee from an unsafe situation.
In contrast, the parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for your “rest and digest” mechanism, and assists with relaxation. The vagus nerve’s role in this system is to return you to a peaceful state after being in fight-or-flight mode. The parasympathetic nervous system is also linked to our freeze response, which can be triggered by long-term stress or trauma.
How Trauma and Anxiety Affect our Nervous System
In the aftermath of trauma, you can feel stuck in any of the fight-or-flight or freeze responses. Often, that feeling of danger lingers, even when it’s no longer a threat. You may also be stuck in the freeze response, feeling immobilized or helpless.
Similarly to trauma, anxiety can wreak havoc on our nervous system. When anxious, our stress response can become over-activated, often giving off a “false alarm,” sending us into fight-or-flight mode. Although these primal responses evolved to protect us from danger, they are not always helpful.
The Vagus Nerve and Polyvagal Theory
Before exploring how you can stimulate your vagus nerve to feel calmer, let’s look at an important theory concerning the vagus nerve. Polyvagal theory was developed by neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Porges.
Polyvagal theory maintains that three essential states of the autonomic nervous system involve the vagus nerve: sympathetic activation, dorsal vagal shutdown, and social engagement. While some schools of thought believe our body can only be in fight-or-flight or rest and digest – according to polyvagal theory, that’s not always the case.
Sympathetic activation – In this state, we are tense and anxious, and our bodies are releasing the stress hormone cortisol. When people are recovering from trauma or if they struggle with anxiety, they are often in this state. Feeling hypervigilant or paranoid can also occur.
Dorsal vagal shutdown – This describes our freeze response, which results from prolonged stress. During dorsal vagal shutdown, we may experience feelings such as lethargy, numbness, hopelessness, shame, inability to cope, or helplessness, which are all trauma responses.
Social engagement – A third possible state is social engagement, a state in which we can relate to others, feel empathy, interpret facial expressions, and feel in harmony with ourselves and others. Social engagement comes into play when the vagus nerve is activated. In this state, our autonomic nervous system can enter fight-or-flight when needed, and return to a resting state with ease.
Why Vagus Nerve Stimulation Can Help
High levels of stress or trauma can cause your nervous system to become “out of whack.” When this is the case, you may either be stuck too much in sympathetic activation A.K.A “fight-or-flight”, or experiencingdorsal vagal shutdown, which is that “freeze response.” Stimulating the vagus nerve can help it get back on track so we can get out of those uncomfortable states and find peace of mind.
Stimulating the vagus nerve through manual massage, deep breathing, or using devices such as transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, can help your body to relax. Vagus nerve stimulation cancounteract your overactive fight-or-flight response when you are highly anxious or going through a period of prolonged stress.
Benefits of stimulating the vagus nerve:
- Reduced depression
- Emotional regulation
- Reduced blood pressure
- Lowered inflammation
- Lower your heart rate
- Migraine relief
Ways to Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve Manually
It’s possible to stimulate your vagus nerve to help reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and improve your mood. Some methods of stimulating the vagus nerve are considered invasive, such as implanting a device into the chest to deliver electrical signals to the nerve. However, there are many ways to manually stimulate the vagus nerve without surgery.
- Manual Massage – There are a few different ways you can stimulate the vagus nerve to help yourself relax. These include massaging the ear through direct manual stimulation.
- Diaphragmatic Breathing – Slow abdominal breathing can stimulate the vagus nerve. The diaphragm is a muscle located at the bottom of your lungs. Your abdominal muscles assist you in moving it. Diaphragmatic breathing, also called belly breathing, can slow your breathing rate and help you calm down when you’re feeling especially tense or in a panic.
- The Diving Reflex – This reflex can help you regulate your emotions if you are experiencing a panic attack. You can do this by dunking your face in cold water. Fill a large bowl, add ice, and dunk your face for a few seconds. When you do this, signals sent by the facial muscles can stimulate your vagus nerve to help you calm down. It quickly slows your heart rate, which has a relaxing effect.
- Singing or Humming – The vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords. Therefore, singing can activate these muscles to stimulate the nerve. You can try singing or humming in the shower or car while driving to work.
- Laughing – It is thought that laughing can stimulate the vagus nerve through the diaphragm in your stomach. Even if you fake it by making yourself laugh, it can stimulate the vagus nerve and help you feel happier and more relaxed.
Key Takeaways
The vagus nerve plays a crucial role in mental health because of its ability to help us heal from trauma and reduce anxiety. Often when we are stressed, anxious, or have a history of trauma, we experience hypervigilance and tension, or feel immobilized and helpless. By accessing the vagus nerve, we can help regulate the nervous system and return to a state where we feel in harmony with ourselves and the world.
If you’re interested in counseling for anxiety, depression, trauma, or other mental health conditions, contact our Boulder, Colorado office for a free 20-minute phone consultation. We also offer telehealth throughout the state of Colorado. https://somethingwildwellness.com/contact/
