The nervous system is adaptable, flexible and fortunately…teachable.
For a really simple breakdown, we have a sympathetic nervous system which allows us to respond to stress, perform, exercise and work hard to meet goals. We also have our parasympathetic nervous system which keeps us relaxed, feeling safe and able to connect socially, recover and repair.
Evolutionarily when faced with a threat, we needed to be able to run away really fast or fight off our attacker, and if neither of those was a valid option, freezing in place made us less of a threat and passing that, complete collapse (like a possum) made us even less of a threat.
Now in modern times when our stressors are less direct and short lived than a predator, it can be hard leave our stress response and come back to safe, connected and resting. Sometimes our bodies don’t recognize that a vague stressor has passed, or maybe we are continually exposed to these indirect, confusing stressors and we never end up leaving our fight/flight or freeze/collapse response. Some of us fluctuate back and forth between a collapse state and a fight or flight state and don’t really get back to our realxation response.
Amongst many other effects, mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, ADHD, ASD and PTSD tend to produce more stress hormones in our bodies and leave us in a constant state of stress response.
The Vagus Nerve
This brings us to the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is a cranial nerve that travels from the brain to the throat, heart, lungs, diaphragm, stomach, intestines and all the critical organs. It primarily brings info from the body into the brain for processing. It’s the foundation of our body-mind connection, and allows us to know how we feel about our internal state. It’s also the full connection between the gut and the brain, linking the nervous system in our digestive system with our central processing nervous system in the brain.
And critically, the vagus nerve is what turns on our parasympathetic response, getting us out of fight/flight or freeze/collapse and back to rest and repair.
Because of how widespread the vagus nerve is and all the vital structures it deals with, the symptoms of dysfunction are varied. Vagus nerve dysfunction can result in chronic headache and migraine, brain fog and memory problems, emotional processing problems, chronic gut inflammation, pain processing issues, tinnitus, heartburn and nervous system dys-regulation.
We can stimulate the vagus nerve through a variety of ways and the best news is, it feels relaxing, and calming and it's easy and accessible to everyone.
I don't make any promises about “healing” as the conditions we are talking about are complex and difficult, and I don’t mean to imply that this one simple method of NS regulation is the cure all. That being said, many of my clients have seen significant changes in symptoms of vagus nerve dysfunction. We’ve seen changes for clients with chronic headache and migraine, IBS, facial pain and swelling, tinnitus, depression and anxiety and ADHD. This is also work I do for myself to manage my stress and my ADHD symptoms.
For mental health conditions and stress relief, the work I do in my massage practice is oriented around soothing the nervous system and teaching my clients self care skills to practice returning to the parasympathetic system. Relaxing massage or self-massage to structures in the face, neck and shoulders can stimulate the vagus nerve and some breathing and eye exercises done regularly can help to access the parasympathetic NS.
The self massage I recommend is described under the Nerve Massage section of the website and the vagus nerve Basic Exercise is foundational to decrease the nervous system fatigue and make progress. The nervous system loves consistency and I highly recommend doing some vagus nerve stimulation daily or several times per day.
If you have any questions about this work, please get in touch or book in for a treatment. I'd love to find out if this work is helpful for you!
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