In Episode 2 , we dive deep into the science behind the vagus nerve and explore how it helps regulate your nervous system and influences your overall well-being. Learn about the two states of your nervous system: the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight) and the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest). You'll learn the how to calm anxiety and other benefits of toning your vagus nerve, including:
Reduced anxiety and stress
Improved heart health
Better digestion
Enhanced mood and emotional regulation
Improved sleep quality
I'm also share simple techniques you can incorporate into your daily routine to stimulate your vagus nerve:
Deep breathing exercises
Mindful meditation
Regular exercise
Cold water therapy
Massage and reflexology
Singing and humming
Gut health practices
Podcast Transcript: H
ow to Calm Anxiety
Welcome to episode two of the 10,000 Swords Podcast. If this is your first episode, I am thrilled that you are here. If this is your second episode, welcome back. My name is Megan Devito and I am the Life Coach for women and teens who want more out of life than their anxiety cares to allow. Last week, I introduced the idea of a little caveman or in episode one and how this caveman that kind of lives inside your brain does his very best work to keep you alive in the worst possible ways. And this week, I'm going to share more about how this caveman works and how we can really calm him down so that you can start to feel good. And this all comes back to the idea of the vagus nerve. Now I'm going to warn you that I'm from Indiana and sometimes I have Hoosierisms and Hoosierisms are these ways of saying words that are wrong, like straight up wrong. But sometimes I say Vegas nerve and I meant vagus nerve. So just know that if you hear Vegas that will be a lot more fun but we are going to talk about the vagus nerve, okay? Just a heads up that sometimes my who's your voice comes out and I try very hard to keep it away. But that's your warning. So let's talk about the nervous system. You have two sets of ways that your body can function in your nervous systems. You have the parasympathetic nervous system, and you have the sympathetic nervous system. So your parasympathetic nervous system, let's start there, because it's a feel good place to start. And we want to feel good first. And actually, when I'm coaching people, the first thing I ask in every single session is tell me something good! What good happened? We want to really focus our brains in on that and start focusing things on what's going well. What's going well for you, your parasympathetic nervous system is making sure that things are going well, because when you're running in the parasympathetic nervous system, you feel you feel good. This is your calm nervous system. It's like your zen nervous system. It's the one that it's it's like your Netflix and chill nervous system. When your parasympathetic nervous system is in control, your heartbeat is slow and rhythmic. And you don't really notice it, because it's just doing its normal thing, we don't have to focus on our heartbeat, right just goes. And when your parasympathetic nervous system is in control your heart is nice and slow, we're not paying attention to it, we're not worked up, everything feels good. Your breathing is slow, and you're breathing all the way down to that bottom hand, on your belly. Like if you put a hand on your belly and a hand on your chest and we were breathing. We would notice that that bottom hand was rising and falling. That's called belly breathing. And that's a parasympathetic nervous system thing. Your food is digesting. You might notice that your acid reflux isn't like making you cough or sniff. You don't have heartburn as much. The blood is flowing to your lungs and to your brain. And you just breathe and you can think. You get this really great hormone rush when you're in parasympathetic as well. And it's not like the one that we get when we're anxious. The parasympathetic hormone rush is dopamine, serotonin oxy and like oxytocin and all of those things that help you feel really, really good. Anyway, let's get back to this parasympathetic nervous system. Your hormones are rushing in, you feel really good, you're in a good mood. You're relaxed, your pupils are shrunk down because when you're anxious, they pop open, which is why your eyes can be light sensitive. Your light, that's parasympathetic, it's a great place to be.
04:52
But on the other side of the street, we have the sympathetic nervous system and today we're going to focus a lot little bit more on how that side feels, and how we can get back to feeling really good with the vagus nerve. The sympathetic nervous system is your fight or flight, nervous system. Your heart's beating faster and you're really noticing it. And maybe it feels like it's skipping beats and it's freaking you out and you think you might be having a heart attack. And you're already like, remember, this caveman is going bananas, and he's trying to get you ready to outrun that fictional saber toothed Tiger that's after you. Your mouth might be dry, and it's really kind of hard to swallow because my muscles and my throat are tense. And you might be breathing pretty fast and pretty shallow. So a minute ago, I said you have a hand on your chest and on your belly. When you're in sympathetic, you might notice that that top hand on your chest is moving more than the bottom hand, that air is shallow. It's not getting just going fast in and out. And because again, we're getting ready to outrun that saber toothed Tiger, your gut turns off your digestion. You don't need to be digesting any lunch, you just need to run or fight or freeze. And you feel really anxious, which is why people experience things like nasty diarrhea and constipation or really upset stomachs. And there's also a component here of why people who are constantly stressed and living in their sympathetic nervous system tend to gain weight. Because if you remember, I mentioned in episode one, that your body is pushing out cortisol, and cortisol causes you to hang on to belly fat. Again, so you can fight flight or freeze. It seems so unfair, doesn't it? The plan is the same, survive, don't die, whatever it takes. Your caveman is just trying to keep you alive. That is what the sympathetic nervous system is about, even when you don't want to feel that way, and you know that you're being a little bit irrational. Your caveman has already taken over and is doing his very best work to keep you safe. That's sympathetic.
07:30
All right, quick recap. Parasympathetic is rest and digest. Sympathetic, is fight or flight. Also, when you're in that sympathetic state, all of the blood is rushing from your brain, out into your extremities, out into your arms and legs. So your brains not getting the oxygen that it needs. It makes it hard to think, you're foggy brained, your arms and legs might feel heavy and tingly, or hot. And we're going to work on that today. We're going to work on really getting out of that very anxious keyed up state and into more of that zenned out Netflix and chill state that is the parasympathetic nervous system. And the way that we do that is to learn to tone the vagus nerve. Are you with me?
08:26
Okay, I'm gonna tell you a story. Um, it's a little embarrassing, or actually kind of a lot embarrassing, but I'm a passer-outer and I have passed out more times than I care to admit in public. And it all comes down to my ridiculously untuned vagus nerve. So when I say toned, I think of like, sexy biceps or like abs. And I don't know why we call this toning your vagus nerve, but we do. So once upon a time when I was in third grade, I was going - my mom took me to get my ears pierced and I was so excited you guys! I wanted to get my ears pierced so badly from like, the time I think I was in kindergarten. And my mom took me and I remember my two next door neighbors who were twins. We were all going together and we had been outside; I actually remember we were flying a kite which is strange but we were we were out flying a kite. And it was Girl Scout Cookie time and we were eating Thin Mints. ... This so disgusting. We My mom says, "hey we're gonna get your ears pierced" and I'm so excited. But my very dysregulated nervous system at that point in my life which, mind you guys I was in third grade when I got my ears pierced and this is really when I remember my anxiety starting was when I was in third grade. So I got inside we went, we went to this like little hair salon in town. They pierced My ears I pass out, throw up Girl Scout cookies all over myself, and they have to take my shirt off because I barfed on myself. How gross and embarrassing, is that right? So that was my first experience with passing out. And here's how it just gets better just wait. And then I used like, fast forward until I'm in high school, right and I had already in between times I had passed out once at basketball practice. When I was in middle school... I, I think I passed out once when I was doing something else at school, like I remember kind of like putting up a bulletin board and kind of passing out. But I got to high school and I was going to a tanning bed at the same salon where I got my hair, my ears pierced when I was in third grade. And I had an ear infection and I hadn't really eaten very much, and it was the end of the school day I was in high school. And I had this really amazing prom date, who happens to be my husband's best friend, and who was the best man in our wedding. But I wasn't dating my husband yet. And his very sweet girlfriend who is now his wife couldn't go to prom, so I was gonna go with him. But are you ready? I got too hot in the tanning bed and I walked out and I passed out in front of him at the same salon where I passed out when I was in third grade. And this was all because of my really untoned vagus nerve, apparently. Anyways, there's so many more stories about me passing out Yes, multiple times. Like it's a little ridiculous. So your vagus nerve controls so much of your bodily functions that when it's not toned, and it is dysregulated, you can have really embarrassing situations where you pass out and throw up in public like I do. However, during this podcast, I really want to talk about less about the physical symptoms of a low vibing, vagus nerve, and more about some simple steps that you can take to improve the tone of this vagus nerve. And what I really want to talk about how it can help you with those physical symptoms and with your anxiousness because it's all tied up into this nice, nice, neat little package.
12:27
The vagus nerve is a nerve that runs from your gut, like from your large intestine, up to your brain. And it controls everything, from your blood pressure, to your heart rate, how you digest food, all of these things. And when you're thinking about all the ways that you experience anxiety, it might start to make sense to you how important getting this nerve toned and working properly can be because of how much it controls. Now, you might say yes, but what does having...what does passing out have to do with this vagus nerve? Well, it has to do with the vagus nerve because it controls your blood pressure and your heart rate, and for me, when I would quickly switch into my sympathetic nervous system, and my heart rate would speed up and my blood pressure would drop, and then I would drop. So that's what was happening. So but there's a lot of benefits to stimulating this vagus nerve and really toning it. Think of it like a workout for a nerve, a really, really important nerve that wanders all through your body. One thing that I didn't know until I really started looking into this is that they use vagal toning, that sounds dirty.. it sounds dirty... it's not though. They use vagal or vagus nerve toning, to minimize seizures with people in epilepsy and to treat resistant depression, which is like depression for people who have tried, excuse me, all the medication and things like that, and they're still extremely depressed. Toning this vagus nerve and stimulating it artificially with an electrical impulse has been incredibly promising and beneficial for those people. So to a lesser extent, for those of us who struggle with mental health issues, especially with anxiety, being able to do this easily. And I mean, these are simple, simple things you can do at home that I'm going to share with you today is incredibly powerful. You're going to learn how to regulate your emotions better. How to bring down inflammation. So if you're struggling with fibromyalgia, or just achiness, cluster headaches, migraines, brain fog, this nerve is responsible for all of those things.
15:01
This nerve is also known as the love nerve, which I think is so awesome. And when this nerve is activated, we are more able to feel compassion for other people to be sympathetic and caring, because we are in tune with the world around us instead of focused on ourselves, which is, wow! What kind of crazy good could we do in the world if everybody started really paying attention to this one nerve and caring about other people? And imagine not noticing those things in your body that are causing you to feel anxious, that's where we're going with this. It's a big deal.
15:41
So the places that we often notice anxious symptoms in the body are all tied to the vagus nerve. Things like acid reflux, a racing heart, feeling dizzy, that upset stomach, nausea, if your ears are ringing, if your vision is blurry; It's all on this nerve. And when the vagus nerve isn't able to do its job, because you're super stressed out, or super anxious, or you have a really bad diet, you're going to feel more stress, and then more restless and more symptoms of the body. And then guess what? When you start feeling more symptoms, you start having more thoughts, which repeats the cycle. More symptoms, more thoughts, more symptoms, more thoughts; we've got to cut that off. That's what we're doing today. All right.
16:38
So if you need paper, I told I told you in episode one, if you need paper, pause and come back, and I'm telling you again, if you need paper, this is a chance. Go ahead, hit pause. I'll be right here when you come back.
16:52
So why is this a problem? Why is the vagus nerve such a problem? Here's why your body stores the experiences that you've had in your nervous system. So if you had a scary experience in the past, it stores in your nervous system. And this nerve, this vagus nerve is the conductor of your fight or flight, or your rest and digest states of being. And what I mean is that when you begin to tone this vagus nerve, you are able to turn off that fight or flight response, and give your body a chance to literally rest and catch up, you are flipping the switch on the fight or flight response, you can turn that off, and you can get to the point where it doesn't react inappropriately. Now remember, we don't want it to go away entirely, we want to be able to jump back if something's coming at us, like if we're about to get hit by a car. But we don't want it going off every time you experience something that feels slightly unsure, and that's when we get stuck in a anxious state of being that's what's happening. So when we are working on toning the vagus nerve, we are bringing ourselves back into a state of normalcy, like the rest of the world that isn't running on a chronic cycle of anxiety.
18:28
All right, and I promised you this was going to be easy. So we're going to dive into some really, really simple ways that you can do this. And there are a ton of them; I just picked eight. All right, we're gonna give you eight ways to do this today. If you want to get on Google, you can probably find like 20 of them. There are more, I just picked eight. These are eight that we really work on a lot when I'm coaching people. And one of the first things we really practice is breathing. Now, I'm going to do this with a caveat. All right, once upon a time, I went to therapy for a while and we practiced breathing and I thought it was the biggest bunch of garbage that I had ever been told. One because they had me actually do the thing where you put the hand on your chest and the hand on your stomach, and they told me I needed to breathe so that the hands on my stomach would rise and fall and I thought it was impossible. I couldn't do it. Like it took me weeks and then I kind of did it, but I still felt so incredibly anxious that it didn't matter. I didn't understand the why of what was happening in my brain, which is what Episode One is about. And so I gave up. Do not give up on this! It's not an instant fix. Nothing is an instant fix. This is a habit, and it is a pattern, and it is a quick response in your brain that you have to learn to manage. It's not a one and done solution. Never once am I going to tell you this is a one and done solution. Okay, I am all All about the facts, I give you the cold, hard truth on this. You're going to work it because you deserve to work it and you deserve to feel better. So step one, number one, one thing you can do to start toning this vagus nerve is meditation and deep breathing. So most people take about 10 to 14 breaths a minute. We want to try and get to six. And when I first read that, and I first heard that, I'm like, Whoa, hey, six, I'm gonna be out of breath! That's not true. This is a really great way to way to relieve stress. Here's what I teach when I'm coaching people. Now, if you're living in a really constant, pretty heavy state of anxiety, the numbers I tell you might be too much air for you. If that's the case, you might start to feel dizzy, or you might start to feel like you're hyperventilating, because you might be hyperventilating. It's okay, it's not a problem. It's okay, we're just going to shorten the cycle. For me, I breathe in for five seconds, I hold my breath for five seconds, and I exhale for seven seconds. For you, you might need to do breathe in for three, hold for three, exhale for five. There is not a right or wrong answer to this. The key is exhaling longer than you inhale and really, really pushing that air out. This is a really great way to start being mindful of how you are breathing and slowing it down. Breathe in, hold, exhale.
21:50
And you just repeat that pattern for five minutes, and you've exercised your vagus nerve. That's one way to do it. So simple. And the coolest part is you can do this while you're driving your car, you can do this while you're walking through the grocery store, you can do this while you're sitting in class, nobody's going to know. I mean, you could let them know you could be really dramatic about it, but you don't have to, you can do this anywhere. It shuts off your fight or flight response. It lets it take a break and gets you back into center. And when you do that you are allowing your brain to be able to think because that frontal lobe portion of your brain is able to work when you're not running on your sympathetic nervous system, which is fight or flight. That was number one.
22:39
Number two. People get mad when I say this one, but I'm always gonna bring it up: working out regulates your vagus nerve. Yeah, actually working out. The thing that sometimes scares people because their heart rate increases helps to lower your heart rate. We know this is true. People who work out have lower heart rates. Interval training, like a hit workout endurance training, lifting weights, this can all increase your vagus nerve activity and help you deal with heart rate variability. What I mean is you start to notice that it's okay for your heart to beat faster, and it's safe. It also helps your heart rate to come back to its normal rhythm quicker. The more you work out, the faster you recover. That's all we're doing is we're teaching your body to recover from a heightened state of alert. Simple, right? That's two things already. Two things you can do.
23:45
Number three, like this one, Go get a massage, especially reflexology. If you are in a massage, and someone's doing reflexology on you, and you can say, "Well, I'm really trying to tone my vagus nerve," they'll be like, "Yeah, I got you". They can help you with this massage works on this. It helps to regulate both sides of your body at the same time. It's fantastic. That was a good one right after the workout, right?
24:11
Here's the next one. This one's fun, hum, or sing, turn on the radio in your car or in your house and single along. When you're meditating, do the "OM" thing. Some people get kind of weirded out by this, right? Like it's weird. I know. I mean, when I was teaching my students I would I would have them sometimes, like tried to practice meditating. And they were like, do we have to do that OM thing? And I'm like, I mean, you can if you want, you don't have to, but it's is actually incredibly beneficial. Here's why. The vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords. Remember I told you that it goes from your large intestine all the way up to your brain? It's connected to your vocal cords and the muscles at the back of your throat, so when you're singing or humming or chanting or gargling water, you can activate these muscles. And you can stimulate that nerve and tone it up. Singing along in the car tones your vagus nerve humming while you're vacuuming the carpet tones your vagus nerve. So far, this is pretty easy, right? Not too bad.
25:32
Okay, the next one. Number five. Cold water exposure. Have you guys seen on social media... I've watched a lot of these on Instagram reels... people getting into ice baths. And I'm going to tell you that I am like a chronically cold person, I am rarely warm. And I keep watching these people do these ice baths and how great it feels and how good it is for your nervous system, and I think those people are crazy. Except, I started reading about it and now I'm a little intrigued and I have not done it yet. I have not set myself in a big tub of ice water because I'm already cold. But, I have been experimenting with this cold water thing. So researchers have found that exposing yourself to cold on a regular basis can actually lower your fight or flight response and increase that parasympathetic activity that we're going for. Okay. You can start by just like sticking your face in a bowl of ice water. This seems like a really good way to start and maybe should have started there. So put ice water in a bowl, get a big breath of air, stick your face in there and hold your breath as long as you can, and then come up and then stick your face back in. That's one way to do cold exposure. You could go outside in the winter in like shorts and a tank top for a while. Put on some socks so you don't like have to step in the snow. But go outside and like maybe make a snow angel in shorts and a tank top for a while. It's gonna be really cold, but it's actually going to help regulate your vagus nerve. I told you about the ice baths. This is how I started. I don't I really like hot showers because I'm cold all the time. And I know that regulating your nervous system comes from cold showers. So I've started doing this thing I've done it four or five times now where at the end of my nice warm shower, I will turn it all the way down to like really cold tap water. And it's kind of like that gradual like it's warm, and oh my god, it's getting really cold! And I stand there for 30 seconds. And usually I'm going gasping like trying to like gasping for air. But I finally got to the point this morning where I was like, Oh, I get it! It was very weird. I was like I can breathe like I'm not choking. Like I wasn't doing that this time it was like 30 seconds of cold water. And then I just got up and you can work yourself up from to like a longer period of time. The first time I did it, I'd gotten maybe 10 seconds and was like - DONE! That was horrible. Cold water exposure or cold weather exposure either one, get cold.
28:31
Number six, probiotics and prebiotics to regulate your gut health. You may have heard that the gut is the second brain and your gut is very much your second brain. Most of your serotonin is produced and absorbed inside your gut, not in your brain. If you have too much bad bacteria in your gut, or not enough good bacteria in your gut. Your vagus nerve is going to suffer. The connection between your gut and your brain isn't going to work as well, and this is when people start saying "but my serotonin!" Yeah, but that's in your gut. A probiotic and a prebiotic can help get the right bacteria in your gut. Eating foods like yogurt, anything like sauerkraut, pickles, fermented foods, ...fantastic for your gut. Get that gut check. You can actually get a blood test from certain holistic doctors that can check what good and bad bacteria you have in your gut just to see where you are with that, but that's pre and probiotics are a great way to do it.
29:42
Number seven, eat more omega three fatty acids. Omega threes are really really essential for your brain and for your hearts. eating things like oily fish is really great. They've been shown to help people overcome Addiction, fix leaky gut and even reverse cognitive decline. And that's why when you older people, a lot of times we'll take Prevagin or omega three, yeah, it's because it helps your brain stay alert and active. Omega threes - you can buy them in a pill form, you can eat more salmon.
29:42
All right, last one. I love this one! Unless you're an introvert, this is gonna sound really great. Socializing and laughing! Laughter remember they used to say that laughter is the best medicine? That wasn't just a fancy saying because you'll be happy for a minute. Laughter is really great medicine because it tones your vagus nerve. It's been shown to increase your heart rate, improve your mood, it stimulates your vagus nerve, and you're connecting with other people. And that is incredibly important because people were designed for connection. And as an introvert, I think yes, but not much connection. But that's still connection, right? We're still looking for connection. Even introverts are looking for connection. And it only has to be with one other person doesn't have to be in a group of ten. That would be very overwhelming for me.
30:19
Okay, eight ways, eight simple ways that you can get started right now, by just humming a song, and eating some really good salmon, and maybe taking a cold shower or whatever you like, eight ways, I've just given you to start toning that vagus nerve and a lot of information on why it's so important.
31:38
So I hope you take some time this week to practice some of these different ways, and to begin toning your vagus nerve, because the change that I've experienced in my own life, since I've started paying attention to this, especially with the probiotics and the prebiotics, and making sure that I am breathing properly has been incredible! Just absolutely incredible!
32:02
If you're ready to learn more about what I do, and how we can incorporate some of these ways to turn your vagus nerve into your life, and you're like, I don't have any idea how to get started, and I'm ready to go deeper with this. Let's talk coaching! Let's talk one on one coaching. It's you and me. It's all about you feeling better, and getting what you want, so that you can do all of those things that are way too scary and way too big and way too hard right now. Okay, super easy to do. You schedule a consultation by going to 10,000 swords.com you click the work with me tab at the top of the page on my website, and you just choose time on your calendar that works for you. We jump on the phone and we talked for an hour and it is fantastic You're gonna love it. You're gonna love it. This has been so much fun. I hope this information was incredibly helpful to you. I hope you learned something new. And I cannot wait to be back next week to talk with you again. Make it a great week and we will talk soon.
33:10
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the 10,000 Swords podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And of course when you're ready to explore coaching with me, just jump over to 10000swords.com and schedule your free consultation. See you soon
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