Can Stimulating the Vagus Nerve Actually Transform Your Health?

Recently, hundreds of men and women on social media have been saying a person nerve in your body, called the vagus nerve, is related to a slew of health conditions like panic, despair, coronary heart condition, and autoimmune issues. The hashtag #vagusnerve has been viewed more than 47 million instances on TikTok on your own.

If you search “vagus nerve” on Instagram and Google, you are going to find even much more individuals asserting how you can live a superior lifetime by “releasing or resetting” this component of your entire body. 

New reports also advise that some long COVID-19 signs and symptoms, which includes persistent voice challenges, difficulty swallowing, dizziness, minimal blood pressure, and significant coronary heart costs could be joined to the effect of the virus on the vagus nerve. 

But how genuine are these social media claims? Is this a single nerve certainly connected to all these health situations? Here’s what you will need to know.

Why Is the Vagus Nerve Critical? 

The vagus nerve is the longest and most complicated of the cranial nerves. It originates in the brain stem and runs down both sides of the neck into the chest and abdomen. The nerve carries both motor and sensory information and facts and supplies reinforcement to the heart, major blood vessels, lungs, abdomen, esophagus, and intestines.

The vagus nerve performs an vital purpose in:

• Digestion
• Respiration
• Mood
• Immune process response
• Speech
• Style
• Mucus and saliva creation
• Urine output

However, the best significance of the vagus nerve is that it is a key component of the parasympathetic anxious method, which controls the body’s rest and digestion functions.

“The vagus nerve is the most important part of our parasympathetic nervous system, which balances our fright, flight, and combat responses,” Melanie Weller, MPT, a actual physical therapist, told Verywell in an e-mail. “The 73% of people with a dread of general public speaking are extremely familiar with what takes place when their vagus nerve will get dialed down: The lump in the throat, sweaty palms, racing heart, shallow respiration, and churning tummy are all the consequence of lowered vagus nerve functionality.”

Situations Connected With the Vagus Nerve 

Given that the vagus nerve is so extensive, any damage to it can affect numerous locations. Feasible signs of damage to the nerve can include things like:

• Loss or improve of voice
• Reduction of the gag reflex
• Issue swallowing or speaking
• Sluggish heart fee
• Very low blood pressure
• Nausea or vomiting
• Stomach pain 

Weller says signs and symptoms and particular circumstances can rely on what section of the nerve is ruined having said that, the vagus nerve is linked to a broad variety of circumstances.

“The vagus nerve is also joined to seizures, heart arrhythmias, vocal cord health and fitness, anxiousness, melancholy and a lot more,” Weller reported. “Neurosurgeons will often implant a vagus nerve stimulator for managing epileptic seizures. This is also accomplished for some long-term pain circumstances and depression.”

Gastroparesis 

Damage to the vagus nerve could induce a issue referred to as gastroparesis. This occurs when the belly are unable to empty alone of food items in a ordinary vogue. In circumstances of gastroparesis, the vagus nerve is weakened by diabetic issues, which prevents the muscle groups of the abdomen and intestine from performing effectively. Signs and symptoms can involve heartburn, vomiting, nausea and feeling comprehensive when taking in.

Vasovagal Syncope 

The vagus nerve stimulates selected muscular tissues in the heart to aid sluggish heart amount, but when it overreacts, it can induce a fall in heart level and blood strain, major to fainting or passing out. Vasovagal syncope takes place when a nerve to your coronary heart overreacts to selected circumstances like panic, starvation, pain, anxiety, and excessive warmth.

But Are the Social Media Claims True?

According to Weller, proof is expanding that the vagus nerve is joined to other health problems these types of as depression and heart illness as claimed by individuals on social media. She adds coronary heart diseases, strokes, and other gastrointestinal ailments are rooted in irritation and the vagus nerve is properly recognized to minimize inflammation. Still, extra research is necessary.

Charles Conway, MD, a psychiatrist at Washington College School of Medication in St. Louis, explained to Verywell in an e mail what individuals are professing on the web is in line with depression therapy. He explained there are now 5 fairly huge trials of vagus nerve stimulation that have all demonstrated a subset of people with treatment method-resistant despair react to sustained vagus nerve stimulation.

“Some of the reports recommend that sustained vagus nerve stimulation also effects in reductions in nervousness,” Conway said. “As it turns out, the afferent (towards the mind) projections of the vagus do synapse in various areas of the brain recognised to be crucial in temper regulation.”

Connection to COVID-19 

Latest exploration exhibits that long COVID indications are reflective of poor vagus nerve function. Very long COVID can have an impact on up to 15% of those people who survive their infections and some might experience exhaustion, muscle suffering, and cognitive troubles months or even yrs later.

Researchers a short while ago performed a review to search at vagus nerve working in long COVID sufferers. They identified most lengthy COVID subjects with vagus nerve dysfunction signs had a assortment of significantly, clinically appropriate, structural and/or practical alterations in their vagus nerve, like nerve thickening, difficulty swallowing, and indicators of impaired respiratory.

How to Promote the Vagus Nerve 

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) utilizes electrical impulses to promote the still left vagus nerve. It is authorised by the Foodstuff and Drug Administration (Food and drug administration) to address some kinds of epilepsy, as effectively as melancholy.

For VNS therapy, healthcare providers implant a modest gadget in the upper body, under the pores and skin. The system can mail gentle, pain-free electrical indicators by the still left vagus nerve to the brain. These impulses can tranquil down irregular electrical activity in the brain.

Conway said electrical stimulation of the vagus nerve has been productive in reducing seizures in refractory epilepsy, as very well as lowering depressive indications in patients with refractory depressive conditions. He provides stimulation of the vagus nerve might be valuable in weight problems and long-term inflammatory disorders, far too.

Weller claims other approaches you can stimulate the vagus nerve contain:

• Cold immersion/publicity (cold showers, go exterior in chilly temperatures with minimal clothes)
• Humming and singing 
• Meditation/mindfulness 
• Deep and sluggish respiration
• Workout
• Foot massage (gentle or organization contact can assign in the stimulation of the nerve) 

“Breathing routines can aid far too if breathing is accomplished effectively, and this is the major trouble as many men and women do not have breathing mechanics that assistance balanced vagus nerve perform,” Weller stated. “More usually, people are respiratory in a way that supports a long-term point out of combat and flight.”

Ongoing studies are examining the backlink in between the vagus nerve and despair, metabolic ailment, and coronary heart condition. If demonstrated with a lot more evidence, specialists say VNS can enable deal with and address a assortment of wellness problems and ailments in the foreseeable future. 

“Clearly, the vagus performs a crucial job in the brain-entire body connection and we very likely are only scratching the surface of how vital this nerve is with regards to psychological effectively-being and other health situations,” Conway stated.