4 Practices That Activate the Vagus Nerve
The key to feeling less reactive, anxious, and “all over the place” is activating the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve is the main nerve of your parasympathetic nervous system or the relaxation state of your nervous system. This system controls specific body functions such as digestion, heart rate, and immune system.
Activating the vagus nerve is aligned with the belief that our state of mind and body are directly related to our emotional resilience and regulating our nervous system. As you learn to stimulate the vagus nerve, you can learn how to respond effectively to the symptoms of anxiety, depression, and trauma.
But, what exactly does it mean to “activate” your vagus nerve? How does it impact your health and wellness? Here is everything you should know:
What is the Vagus Nerve? What Does it Mean to Activate it?
The vagus nerve, or nerves, are the main nerves of your parasympathetic nervous. It controls specific body functions that are involuntary - or ones that you can’t consciously control. Body functions it controls include digestion, heart rate, and your immune system.
It also helps regulate body functions such as:
Speech
Blood pressure
Muscle & skin sensations
Immune response
Taste
Mucus & saliva production
Mood
Additionally, your vagus nerve is part of the system that is responsible for calming your body after a stressful situation, like exiting from fight-flight-fawn. It carries signals from your brain throughout your body to initiate the process.
The vagus nerve starts in your brain, continues down your neck, and connects to your vital abdominal organs - it’s also the longest of any of the cranial nerves.
Stimulating or “activating” your vagus nerve essentially means you’re going to take an action that would cause the nerve to send impulses to the brain when it otherwise isn’t - even if it should be. This impulse alters your brain and helps treat certain conditions in your mind and body.
When Should You Activate Your Vagus Nerve?
In its most essential form, you should stimulate your vagus nerve when you need to de-stress. Stimulating your vagus nerve convinces your brain to believe that everything is okay, which can help you calm down in moments of high anxiety or stress.
When something begins to feel or feels out of control, try stimulating your vagus nerve. This applies when you have an obvious stressor and when you don’t, but you still feel stressed.
When you’re dealing with a nasty email or upset customer, you’re feeling overwhelmed with your work or at your job, you’re stuck in slow traffic, or you’ve simply had a fight with someone close to you. These are all situations in which you can use vagus nerve stimulation to calm down.
It’s also important to note that it’s not a requirement to wait until you feel stressed to stimulate your vagus nerve. You can add vagus nerve stimulation exercises to your daily routine to build up your resilience to stress - making it easier to deal with when you do experience it.
How Do You Activate Your Vagus Nerve?
To naturally stimulate or activate your vagus nerve, there are a few key practices to try. In fact, there are four specific practices that I recommend to activate the vagus nerve to help regulate your nervous system.
As always, I recommend trying each one and picking your favorite to utilize when you feel dysregulated.
#1. Breath Exercise: “Through a Straw”
For our first method of activating your vagus nerve, we utilize the “through a straw” breath exercise. During this exercise, you’re going to take deep inhales and exhale through your mouth like you’re sipping through a straw for 60-90 seconds.
Follow this quick guideline:
Take a big inhale, then exhale and hold on to the exhale for 60 seconds (or hold as long as you can)
Deep inhale and hold for 15 seconds
Pause and take some regular breaths for 30 seconds
Repeat 2-3 times
You might feel a little tingly or other similar sensations and that’s okay! It’s expected! This specific activation method is a go-to in our holistic therapy in Texas.
#2. Gargle Water
The vagus nerve is close to the brainstem, and thanks to this, gargling water helps activate the nerve. You should only gargle for 10-20 seconds to successfully activate the nerve.
#3. Singing Out Loud
The vagus nerve is connected to the muscles at the back of your throat and your vocal cords. When you sing, you’re giving that nerve energy! Plus, singing out loud is a great way to move energy and life into your mood.
#4. Neck Self-Massage
Giving yourself a neck massage is another great way to activate your vagus nerve. To do so, you’re going to use your fingertips to gently massage right behind your earlobes and at the back of your neck. Then, you’re going to take two fingers and massage right underneath your chin.
Make sure to use a light touch and move over a spot 20 times until moving on to the next. Really breathe deeply and become present with what you’re doing.
Are There Other Ways to Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve?
Yes and no. These four methods are the best physical methods that you can use to activate your vagus nerve and de-stress after or during a stressful situation or event. Other ways do exist, with a few more physical practices you can try along with psychological vagus nerve exercises that can be just as effective for most.
The Benefits of Activating Your Vagus Nerve
Activating your vagus nerve helps regulate your nervous system and get your body out of fight-or-flight mode. When your body is in survival mode, your body is prepped for perceived danger. You have an increased heart rate and dilated pupils, and the systems within your body that are not needed to “escape danger” are pushed to the side and neglected.
These main systems, like your digestion, immune system, and reproductive system all slow down - causing chronic illnesses, gut issues, and more. When you activate your vagus nerve, you’re allowing your body to recover and redirect its energy into these main systems.
As your body and mind begin to heal, your body will begin to heal. Regulating your nervous system can allow your body to begin to heal itself from trauma, build a strong foundation in wellness, and relieve symptoms of chronic illness and stress.
More visible, or recognizable effects of activating or stimulating your vagus nerve include:
Reduced Seizures Related to Epilepsy
Vagus nerve stimulator or VNS therapy is a treatment for epilepsy. By stimulating the vagus nerve, seizures related to epilepsy can be prevented or shortened.
Reduced Blood Pressure
As your vagus nerve is stimulated or activated, your body and brain work to trigger your systems and lower your blood pressure.
Reduced Inflammation
One of the many involuntary actions that your nervous system is a part of, inflammation can be reduced by stimulating your vagus nerve.
Other Common Benefits
As your nervous system plays an important and integral role in your body, there are many other benefits associated with activating your vagus nerve. This includes treating your anxiety and depression, regulating your emotions, and treating migraines and cluster headaches.
If you continue to activate your vagus nerve, you can improve your vagal tone - your ability to handle stress and how quickly you can recover from stressful events. As your vagal tone increases, so does your resilience to stress.
How to Start Improving Your Wellness Through Holistic Therapy
Activating your vagus nerve is just a small portion of our holistic therapy in Texas. It’s just one step in healing your body and regulating your nervous system. As you find means and methods that you like to rely on, you’ll find that different practices can help in different ways and situations.
One simple example is understanding when your body is in survival mode and which mode you’re in - fight, flight, or fawn. The method you use to re-center your mind and body may be different based on your symptoms.
As you begin healing, you’ll need to understand why you’re feeling certain ways and how they’re affecting you. How your anxiety is related to your chronic pain and situations that tend to make it worse.
If you’re ready to begin your healing journey and regulate your nervous system, I invite you to download my free nervous system workbook & meditation.