“The Mind-Body Connection-The Vagus Nerve”
We know today that both our mental and physical health are influenced by a combination of biological, psychological, and social factors. Therefore, the philosophies of mind body dualism and reductionism are antiquated and obsolete.
Mind body dualism had its roots in the philosophy of science that goes back several centuries. In the seventeenth century, the mind and body were considered to be two very different entities, largely unrelated to each other and influenced by a discrete sets of factors. It was Rene Descartes, a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician (1596-1650), whom considered the functioning body should fall into the realm of the biological sciences, while the workings of the mind and soul should be the concern of philosophy and, subsequently psychology. “Cartesian dualism”went even further and provided an important restraint on the influence of the Christian church from interfering in scientific activities such as the dissection of the human corpses which at that time was considered sinful and forbidden.
In the context of “Enlightenment thinking” that occurred in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, the influence of the Christian church in the scientific world began to recede. Even though the church may have receded back then from the interfering in scientific research and affairs, the soul and mind continued to be the domain of its theological clergy. To this extent, mind and body continued to be conceptualized separately even though today in reality we know both comprise the definition of the human species.
Believe or not mind-body dualism, that way of thinking still exists in various forms even to this day. The lines of demarcation between separate departments of medicine and psychiatry in our Western medical model still exists and has even spawned a necessary profession known as “liaison psychiatry”that attempts to bridge the gap between these two specialities. Even the existence of the liaison psychiatry underscores the existence and persistence of this dualism today, and in providing a stop-gap response perpetuates it.
Along with mind-body dualism, the philosophical theory of “reductionism” continues to exist within our Western medical model. This philosophical theory hypothesizes that any phenomena may be easier to understand when it is broken down or reduced into smaller parts.
No one can deny that the philosophy of “reductionism” postulating that disease can be best be understood at the molecular and cellular level of human anatomy and physiology has its place in studying the human body.
It cannot be denied that mind-body dualism and reductionism at the foundational level of our medical culture have been responsible for much of our medical and scientific success. However, it is time for our Western minds to break away from these more isolated and linear cause and effect views that come from the scientific ideas of Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton.
These concepts have become way too restrictive for what has been discovered today in the world of science and especially physics. Therefore, a paradigm shift is necessary in how science continues to view the body from a reductionist point of view, breaking the body into its isolated parts to a more global and integrated view. Along with that, understand that everything in the human body is integrated together through its nervous, fascial, and circulatory systems.
In the 20th century due to Einstein and Bohr, physics and science gained momentum more toward the direction of relationships and a circular view where everything in our body is related, everything integrated together rather than the linear cause and effect..
A perspective that arises from the relationships of the body’s various systems working together to keep you alive or more or less a “general systems” theory.
I know change is a process and it takes time, but we continue to get stuck within these antiquated and obsolete philosophies of mind-body dualism and reductionism preventing treatments in today’s world. As a result, the research in medical psychology that demonstrates the interplay between our body’s soft tissues and the environment as well as how genetics and lifestyles, play an integral part in most modern diseases afflicting us today is sometimes cast aside as a viable treatment. Even long before Descarte, Hippocrates argued that it is more important to know what kind of person has a disease, than what disease a person has.
The philosophies of mind-body dualism and reductionism creates the problem for research to search for mediating mechanisms in treatment today’s illnesses. For example, “How do we get from the nonmaterial mind to the material body and how do we get from the viewpoint of reductionism to holism?” If we give up dualism and reductionism and put the mind and body back together in integration, the problem will just vanish. However, mind-body dualism and reductionism still exists in how we view the human body and will not go away.
The answer maybe in understanding the actual physical connection between our mind and body that already exists within each and every one of us. That is, the “vagus nerve.”
The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in your body that originates in the brain stem and extends all the way down into your abdomen. It receives information about the functioning of of your heart, lungs, and other internal organs so that you can focus your attention on other matters during your activities of daily life.
It is the duty of the vagus nerve to orchestrate your bodily responses in order to keep you safe or warn you about danger before you even have a chance to think about it. It’s about your survivability! Even without your awareness and at the subconscious level, your brain scans your environment for cues of danger, pitching you into high alert to fight or flee or, in extreme situations to shut you down. As I always tell my clients, the number one job of your nervous system is your survivability. But your brain also scans for cues of safety, which allow you enough calm to socially engage with others. To live!
Vagus actually means “wandering,” and the vagus nerve, after it leaves your base of the brain, sends branches to your ears, your throat, your heart, your lungs, and your digestive tract having stops along the way at your vocal cords and your diaphragm, before ascending into your abdomen.
The branches of the vagus nerve enable your organs to adjust instantly to the demands of your environment within both the body itself and outside your body as perceived by your peripheral (PNS) and central nervous systems (CNS).
The vagus nerve is why your heart will race and stomach curdles when you sense a threat and why your breathing slows and your body relaxes when friends welcome you to their house for dinner. The vagus nerve is the key player your body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS) controlling your internal organs and your internal environment.
The vagus nerve is a major pathway of the parasympathetic nervous system and along with the sympathetic nervous system making up the body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS).
Normally, sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves act synergistically and together to create the state of equilibrium and balance of your nervous system known as “homeostasis.”
Disruption of the balance of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity is characteristic of a number of physical disorders with a strong psychological component such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). As a result, some therapies today target stimulating the vagus nerve as a way to restore physiological and psychological balance.
Consider the often used phrases like “trusting your gut instinct” or “going with your gut.” Our language even reflects this link between the the mind and gut often times today referred to as the brain-gut axis. This connection is suggested to manifest as the communication between the gut and brain and the communication pathway that exists through your vagus nerve.
It is now known through research that the more you increase your vagal tone and activate the vagus nerve, the better your physical and mental well-being. A strong vagal tone is now being linked to emotional stability, low inflammation, and improved body function. However, the reverse is also being found to be true.
Consider the well documented relationship between exercise and mood, or between nutrition, gut microbiome and mental health. The gut today has even been given the nickname of the second brain by scientists, due to the network of neurons it contains. Research has shown the neurotransmitter serotonin plays a key role in our mood and our emotional regulation, and 95% of serotonin is produced in your gut.
When your body does go through stress or mental health problems, it can weaken your vagal tone. Vagal tone simply refers to how active your vagal nerve is.
Vagal tone can be weakened by unresolved physical or emotional trauma as your body will continue to feel a constant threat and remain stuck in the sympathetic nervous system “fight of flight mode.” As a result, weak vagal tone is associated with high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, illness, and digestive issues.
As mentioned, the vagus nerve monitors your environment both inside and outside of your body. One facet of your environment that it monitors is your skeletal balance and equilibrium against the vertical forces of gravity and ground reaction force (GRF).
Skeletal balance and equilibrium is created by how your peripheral nervous system (PNS) and central nervous system (CNS) reacts to these vertical forces. Simply, it is a brain driven response by your neuromyofascial and fascial systems of your body to create enough internal force to offset or equal these vertical, external forces thereby creating skeletal homeostasis.
Your peripheral and central nervous systems (PNS and CNS) create your skeletal balance and equilibrium through vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive sensory input. Skeletal equilibrium and balance is a continuum, with “ideal skeletal alignment” being optimal.
“Ideal skeletal alignment” is the optimal skeletal equilibrium and balance achieved creating optimal alignment of your structure. That is, your center of gravity (COG) in standing will be located at its ideal position at S2 and slightly lower as shown below while sitting.
By achieving ideal skeletal alignment, your body’s isolated joints will then and only then be be positioned at the optimal center of axis allowing for optimal motion against these vertical forces. When this is achieved, it allows your structure optimum stability and mobility against these vertical forces of gravity and GRF.
When talking about the alignment of your structure, it is referring to the relationship of your head, shoulders, spine, hips, knees, and ankles and how they line up with each other. Ideal skeletal alignment of your structure will put less stress on the soft tissues of your body as well as bones and joints. Therefore, causing less inflammation.
The more your structure deviates from ideal skeletal alignment, the less stability and mobility of your structure will result. The greater the instability of your structure, the more your autonomic nervous system and its sympathetic division perceives a threat to your survivability and is facilitated more than your parasympathetic system. Conversely, the closer your structure is to achieving ideal skeletal alignment, the greater your stability and mobility that will increase the tone of your vagus nerve and your parasympathetic system.
Keeping all this information about the vagus nerve in mind, it makes sense that regularly stimulating the vagus nerves maintains a crucial balance between your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems creating a state of “homestasis” within your nervous system. This balance will influence your heart rate, digestion, stress response, and inflammation, promoting an overall sense of health and well-being.
By fine tuning this balance, vagus nerve stimulation fosters a calmer nervous system with less chaos, reduces stress, improves digestion, and supports your mental and physical health.
Here are some natural ways to stimulate the action of your vagus nerve:
• Understand there is no mind-body dualism because the mind and body are not two separate entities. If my clients get anything out of my treatment for their musculoskeletal symptomatology, it is that everything in our body is integrated through the nervous (PNS and CNS), circulatory, and fascial systems.
• Achieving as close as possible “ideal skeletal alignment” where your COG is positioned at its ideal location standing and sitting. Then and only then will the isolated joints of the structure be positioned at their ideal axis of motion.
• As the old saying goes, “nobody is perfect, but all of us can be better than we are. You begin by becoming consciously aware of your skeletal alignment while sitting and standing and the position of your COG in all three planes of human posture and movement.
Understand how you sit and/or stand, simply your posture, affects your PNS and CNS that will affect how you move and ultimately your autonomic nervous system involving its sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions.
You can achieve “ideal skeletal alignment” through various isolated and integrated exercises. But the first step to transforming your posture and movement is becoming aware of the position of your COG. Along with this, understand the close proximity of your atlas and axis to the vagus nerve as it exits the brain.
If your posture and movement is compensated in any way, you can bet the position and motion of these two upper cervical vertebrae are affected indirectly affecting your vagus nerve and the parasympathetic tone.
• Everything we are talking about here from posture and movement, skeletal equilibrium and balance, and the autonomic nervous system is brain driven that involves your memory.
Your memories are not just stored in one part of the brain. Different types of memories are stored across different, interconnected brain regions. For your “explicit memories” which are about episodic events that happened to you as well as general facts and information (sematic), there are three important areas of the brain: the hippocampus, the neocortex, and the amygdala.
“Implicit” memories, on the other hand, such as motor memories involving your neuromyofascial and fascial systems in creating your skeletal equilibrium and balance, posture and movement, and stability and mobility, rely on the basal ganglia and cerebellum. Whereas with short-term memory, it relies most heavily on the prefrontal cortex.
With the exercises I give my clients to transform their posture and movement, I work with their implicit memories and more specifically their “myomemory.” Simply the neuronal patterns of their posture and movement involving their fascial and neuromyofascial systems so as to transform these patterns or their habits and behaviors.
I do this by using both imagery and exercise while altering their vestibular, visual, and proprioceptive sensory input. I am simply trying to give their nervous system new memories, new habits and behaviors in creating their skeletal balance and equilibrium, posture and movement, and stability and mobility in response to the vertical forces of gravity and GRF.
• Deep breathing. As physician Karl Lewit, a Czech neurologist once stated, “If breathing is not normalized, no other movement pattern can be.” Keep in mind that every deep breath sends a signal to your parasympathetic nervous system involving the vagus nerve. The easiest way to start this transformation is try to develop a pattern where your exhalations are twice as long as your inhalations. For example, two counts in with each breath and four counts out with each breath.
I often ask my patients, “what is the first movement you did when coming into this environment of gravity out of your mother’s womb?” I usually get a blank stare and “I don’t know.” I can just hear Elf saying, “Breathing you silly, cotton headed ninny muggins!”
• Mediation. The relaxation response triggered by meditation stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which in turns to help increase the vagal tone. Meditation = relaxation.
• Mental techniques for transforming your posture and movement. Have you ever had a thought pop up in your head that made you feel physical changes in your body? If so, you experienced what is often times referred to as the mind-body connection. Down to the smallest cell in your body every mental act vibrates in your physical being. Completely the opposite from what we discussed earlier with mind-body dualism.
Yes, every chemical and biomechanical process in your body helps weave the patterns of your thinking. If you can comprehend this interaction of your mind and body, you are ready to transform your posture and movement and increase your vagal tone.
Connecting to your body’s innate wisdom, however, requires attention, curiosity, and yes, effort. When you become attentive to how you think about your posture and movement in this environment of gravity and GRF, you are able to transform harmful thought patterns with positive reinforcement.
This positive change in your thinking in turn leads to better posture and movement during your activities of daily life.
Practicing this with presence of mind and body as well as a clear understanding of how your body works to create your posture and movement, allows you to gain strength and flexibility much faster than the mindless repetition most of us do during our exercise regimes.
When you learn how to perceive the influence of your thoughts in your posture and movements and actions of your muscles and joints, exercise will become more interesting and even more pleasurable because you can fully experience your muscles, joints, and organs giving you optimal support of your posture and movement.
I know from my experience in the sport of nordic ski jumping, the importance of “imagery” in training. In retrospect, I wish I would have spent more time on this aspect of my training. But in the 70’s, imagery training was just in its infancy as an crucial aspect of an athlete’s training.
With the exercises I give my clients in trying to transform their posture and movement, I emphasize what Eric Franklin, an internationally known instructor of dance, calls Dynamic Neuro-Cognitive Imagery (DNI).
DNI enhances motor strength, efficiency, accuracy, and non-motor self awareness and concentration in transforming your posture and movement toward the optimal. It systemically combines imagery with movement practice.
Because you are composed of muscles, bones, fascia, organs, a brain, and nervous system as well as other components, your body is your instrument to use in order to function against the vertical forces of gravity and GRF during your activities of daily living.
Therefore, anatomical imagery is an important aspect of the exercises my clients will do to transform their posture and movement. To do this, you have to have a basic knowledge of where important structures are located, how they are designed to move well, and how they function optimally from a biomechanical perspective.
Heck, most of my client’s don’t even know where there hips joints are located or for that matter that the their hamstrings is not one muscle, but four on each side of the body. Knowing where structures are located is called topographical anatomy and it is the basis for the functional aspect of anatomical imagery and DNI.
When doing the exercises to transform their posture and movement, my clients must be present within their body. They need to focus on what they are feeling rather than thinking. Notice their breathing, their posture, and their tension levels.
The ability to focus on your body is a prerequisite to transforming your posture and movement. If you cannot be present and sense what is happening with your body, you will not notice whether your posture, coordination, or any other aspect of your movement is in need of change. All transformation, all change starts with noticing what you are doing, deciding if this is the best strategy for the movement at hand, and if not choose a better strategy.
• Try a cold plunge. Research has found that short-term exposure to very cold temperatures helps stimulate vagal nerve pathways and reduces the body’s natural stress response. The research shows that immersing yourself in cold water can help slow your heart rate and redirect blood flow to your brain. But first, check with your doctor for any possible cardiovascular complications.
• Lose any excess weight. Carrying extra pounds can have a detrimental effect on your vagus nerve. This can be a “Catch 22”: poor vagus nerve function can make it harder to realize you are full which can lead to overeating. The best approach is a natural foods diet that doesn’t stress your body and is sustainable over the long haul.
• Eat the right foods. Studies have found that foods high in trytophan can help reduce inflammation in the nervous system. Good sources of tryptophan include nuts, turkey, leafy greens, and bananas.
Excess sugar consumption can trigger inflammation and hurt nerve function, so work to reduce sweets from your diet and that includes sodas that are so popular in this country.
Because of its role in the gut-brain axis, a healthybalance of gut bacteria helps support your vagus nerve function. Fermented food like sauerkraut and natural yogurt contain beneficial probiotics your gut needs to thrive.
• Try intermittent fasting. Research shows that restricting meals at certain windows can improve vagus nerve function. However, it is important to work with your healthcare provider to determine if fasting is safe for you.
• Activities that involve the muscles in the back of your throat, like gargling or singing, activate the vagus nerve, contributing to its stimulation and relaxation response.
• Therapies like massage, rolfing, or acupuncture can trigger the vagus nerve by stimulating specific pressure points, contributing to relaxation and improved mood.
• Use of Pulsetto. Vagus nerve stimulation or VNS as it is commonly used today, works by delivering electrical impulses to the vagus nerve which as mentioned is the major highway between your brain and your internal organs.
By using the this technology as I have recently been doing, you can stimulate the vagus nerve by using a non-invasive vagus nerve stimulator without having surgery to implant the stimulator. Nor the use of needles.
A study on non-invasive cervical VNS like using the Pulsetto for stress reduction generated increased parasympathetic activity. After VNS stimulation, the research observed a 64.5% in heart rate variability (HRV) which adds up to a reduction in stress and anxiety for long lasting relief.
With the use of the Pulsetto, it helps your parasympathetic nervous system do its job of slowing down your heart rate, turning off stress responses of your nervous system, and instilling calm across your entire nervous system. Simply, it reduces the chaos within your nervous system that occurs with stress to slow your heart rate, improve your digestion, and ease your breathing.
Don’t overlook the importance of the vagus nerve in maintaining your overall wellness! Its role in regulating your body’s nervous system is key to managing stress, digestion, inflammation, and more.
Evidence indicates that stimulating the vagus nerve can help people with epilepsy, diabetes, treatment resistant depression, and post traumatic stress disorder as well as inflammatory autoimmune conditions like Crohn’s disease or rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
There is even now some preliminary research suggesting that long COVID symptoms could originate, in part, from the virus’s effect on the vagus nerve.
Simply, the vagus nerve is your body’s source of calm, balance, and homeostasis. And it may hold the key to helping you respond better to stressful situations. And can’t we all use more of that?
So as you can see, the vagus nerve is the actual physical proof within our body that refutes the existence of mind-body dualism and reductionism in our medical model still used today. These philosophies are antiquated and obsolete preventing us as health care providers to provide the optimal treatment in today’s world of health and wellbeing.
Terry