The vagus nerve has grow to be the web's favorite body part.
On social media, it's all over the place. People fiddle with their phones, fiddle with theatrical enthusiasm, put their faces in bowls of ice water and squish their ears in hopes of “turning it on.” Influencers describe it because the hidden master switch for calm, digestive and emotional balance. Some claim that learning to regulate it could turn every little thing from anxiety to inflammation.
All this makes him faintly mystical. In reality, the vagus nerve shouldn't be a well-being phenomenon. It's an actual, physical nerve. And surprisingly essential.
In the fourth episode of Strange health podcast, we turn our attention to the body The longest cranial nerve And ask an easy query: What does the vagus nerve actually do, and might we actually hack it?
To discover, we spoke to Irshad Majid, a professor of brain neuroscience on the University of Sheffield and an authority in vagus nerve stimulation. As he explains, the vagus nerve is one in every of 12 cranial nerves that come directly from the brain. Its name comes from the Latin for “wanderer,” which is suitable. It starts within the brain and travels down the neck to the chest and abdomen, connecting to the center, lungs, intestines and even the liver.
It is a single-purpose wire and a much busier two-way information highway. Much of its activity involves carrying signals from the body back to the brain, updating it on what is going on on internally. It can be a part of the autonomic nervous system, which regulates processes that we don't consciously control, akin to heart rate, respiration and digestion.
Within this method, the vagus nerve plays a key role within the parasympathetic response, sometimes called “rest and digest.” When this method dominates, the center rate slows, blood pressure drops and the body shifts right into a calmer, more restorative state. It could be very well established. What is less clear is how easily we are able to influence it ourselves.
Despite the explosion of vagus nerve material online, Majid is wary of claims that it could be manipulated like light. Breathing slowly, singing, humming or splashing cold water on the face can not directly affect vagus nerve activity, nevertheless it's not an on-off button and its effects vary widely between people. In some cases attempting to stimulate the vagus nerve can trigger headaches and even depression.
Stimulation of the vagus nerve is more firmly grounded in medicine. Implanted devices that directly stimulate nerves have been used for years to treat conditions akin to Treatment-resistant epilepsy And depression. More recently, researchers have begun exploring noninvasive approaches. Some medical devices use mild electrical pulses to stimulate a small branch of the vagus nerve within the ear.
Majid and colleagues are currently conducting a pivotal clinical trial investigating whether such non-invasive stimulation might be effective. Improve arm function in people recovering from stroke By encouraging the brain to rebuild itself. If successful, it could transform rehabilitation for a lot of patients.
Despite the web hype, then, scientists are only starting to grasp what this vagus nerve can do and the way it is likely to be used therapeutically.
Listen to Weird Health to search out out why the vagus nerve has gotten a lot attention, what the science really says, and why the following few years of research could reshape how we treat conditions from stroke to depression.
In the meantime, possibly stop poking your ear aggressively.