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Vague about the Vagus Nerve?
Vague about the vagus nerve? Don’t feel alone because most people are. Did you know it is referred to by the medical community as the MIRACLE NERVE?
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I first became aware of the importance of the vagus nerve while watching a medical mystery show on TV. The main character in the true story, a woman, kept on passing out while she was eating. The doctors were stymied and she bounced to specialist after specialist until one finally diagnosed her with a vagus nerve abnormality. Every time she ate something the food would apply pressure to her vagus nerve and she would pass out. Weird and very unusual but it peaked my interest.
What is a vagus nerve? The vagus nerve is either one of two cranial nerves which are extremely long, extending from the brain stem all the way to the viscera. The vagus nerves carry a wide assortment of signals to and from the brain, and they are responsible for a number of instinctive responses in the body. (The vagus nerves are paired; however, they are normally referred to in the singular.)
The vagus nerve helps to regulate the heart beat, control muscle movement, keep a person breathing, and to transmit a variety of chemicals through the body. It is also responsible for keeping the digestive tract in working order, contracting the muscles of the stomach and intestines to help process food, and sending back information about what is being digested and what the body is getting out of it.
When the vagus nerve is stimulated, the response is often a reduction in heart-rate or breathing. In some cases, excessive stimulation can cause someone to have what is known as a vaso-vagal response, appearing to fall into a faint or coma because his or her heart rate and blood pressure drop so much. Selective stimulation of this nerve is also used in some medical treatment; vagus stimulation appears to benefit people who suffer from depression, for example, and it is also sometimes used to treat epilepsy.
Most of the time, you don’t notice the actions of the right and left vagus nerves, but you probably would notice if this nerve ceased to function as a result of disease or trauma, because the vagus nerve is one of the many vital nerves which keeps your body in working order. Without the functions of the vagus nerve, you would find it difficult to speak, breathe, or eat, and your heartbeat would become extremely irregular.
Vagus nerve stimulation has been used to treat obesity, tinnitus, Crohn’s disease, strokes and headaches. Vagus nerve stimulation is going to be used more and more in the future.
The Treatment
Gentle pulses of electricity is applied to the vagus nerve. It is relatively painless. The FDA has approved an device that is implanted in the neck and connected to the vagus nerve to treat obesity. The vagus nerve is full of fibers like an electric wire, and each wire relates to a different area in your body. It turns out that the vagus nerve tells your stomach when to empty and your brain when it is full.
How to self-stimulate your vagus nerve
Read more: Simple Trick to Relieve Stress: Vagus Nerve Stimulation
My husband purchased a device that helps him slow his breathing in an attempt to naturally lower his stress and blood pressure. He lies in bed with ear phone on and tries to breath along with the tempo of the machine. I have tried it and it was really difficult to slow my breathing to the timing of the machine, but according to my husband, it works.
Here is his Resperate
In the future researchers will find ways to harness the power of the vagus nerve from outside the body through the ear, skin or devices delievered by needles or just a topical ointment.
The human body is amazing. Thank you for reading my blog on the vagus nerve.
Be healthy,
Terry Ryan, Blogger