The vagus nerve is an important nerve when it comes to health. It is the largest nerve in the body and is part of the autonomic nervous system. Vagal tone has been linked to health and vitality, and there are ways you can stimulate the vagus nerve from the comfort of your own home.

The pathway of the Vagus Nerve

The vagus nerve begins in the brain, and exits through the brainstem. This part of the brain is primitive, meaning it’s part of our ‘animal brain’, involved in a lot of bodily processes that are completely automated. The vagus nerve travels down the front of your neck bones, through your thorax and chest, through your digestive tract, all the way into your pelvis. It is the largest nerve in the body and is one of the twelve cranial nerves.

The vagus contains fibres that control muscle as well as organs. It also has sensory fibres that detect what is happening in organs and let the body know, as well as motor fibres that send messages from the brain to the body (such as telling the bowels to contract and move food through).

What is the function of the Vagus Nerve?

The vagus, being part of the autonomic nervous system, plays a large role in automatic processes. These include swallowing, digestion and absorption of food, ensuring your bowels are moving at an appropriate rate (peristalsis), and that your stomach doesn’t regurgitate your food (acid reflux). It controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, and your sweat response.

Many people don’t realise that the vagus nerve is also involved in facial expressions, mouth movements, your ability to make eye contact and your desire to socialise. This part of the vagus nerve is called the social engagement system, and forms part of your stress response.

The vagus forms part of the parasympathetic nervous system which acts like a seesaw alongside the sympathetic nervous system.

Your Vagus Nerve and Stress Response

In a healthy nervous system, when there are moments of stress, the sympathetic nervous system activates. This allows you to deal with the stress at hand. Once the stress is over, the parasympathetic activates and brings your system back to balance. This can also be thought of as stress resilience.

When the nervous system is under too much load, such as from chronic stress, it remains in a sympathetic state for long periods of time. This leads to an overflow effect through the rest of the body (which is enough for another blog post), and it reduces the ability of the vagus to activate. In fact chronic high cortisol causes the vagus to ‘shut down’. It then becomes more difficult to release yourself from a sympathetic state and stimulate your vagus. This may be expressed as anxiety, burnout, adrenal fatigue, or chronic fatigue.

To further complicate things, the vagus nerve can also be involved in a high stress situation. In typical stress, your body would enter fight or flight (sympathetic state). However if your system perceives the threat to be too great (or you’ve been under a lot of chronic stress or trauma), your vagus can become overactive which leads to the freeze response. If you faint during stress, this could be why. The most common feeling is one of paralysis, kind of like a deer in headlights, like you can’t do anything to get out of the stress you’re in.

What is Vagal Tone?

Vagal tone is what health professionals call the ‘strength’ of your vagus nerve. High vagal tone means your vagus is ‘strong’, adapts well to stress, and performs its job properly. Low vagal tone means your vagus needs a bit of love, and may not support your body and nervous system at its best capacity.

How to Stimulate the Vagus Nerve

Stimulating the vagus nerve is a popular approach for people wanting to biohack their health. It has become one of the most important things to do to ensure health and longevity.
There are simple things you can do at home to increase your vagal tone. These include gargling, gagging, singing loudly, and cold water over your face (you don’t have to have a completely cold shower!). You can also care for your gut with a whole foods diet, bone broth and fermented foods.

I’ve created a video and uploaded onto my IGTV which includes an eye exercise for stimulating the vagus nerve. It’s a favourite of mine and I can quickly and easily do it while working at the computer, stopped at a traffic light, or cooking in the kitchen. The video has three steps, to increase vagus activation, increase focus, and then be present in the moment. I’d love you to check it out!

It is common for people with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, burnout, migraines, and even autism to have low vagal tone. In my clinical experience, these types of exercises are useful in the moment. However unless you find the cause of low vagal tone in the first place, you’ll never get full stimulation of the vagus nerve.

To learn more ways to stimulate your vagus nerve and when to do it click here.