Episode 3: How to Stimulate the Vagus Nerve for Better Digestion
Did you know there’s a way to link your gut and brain before meals for better digestion?
The vagus nerve may be the key to improving digestion for all, improving symptoms like pain for those with IBS, and decreasing stress. This episode will uncover the role of this nerve, how to activate it, and the benefits you can get from it!
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Welcome back to the gut show, I'm so glad you're here! I am thrilled about the conversation that we get to have today, which is all about the vagus nerve!
The vagus nerve is probably one of the missing pieces when it comes to regulating mood, digestion, and the gut-brain connection. What I love the most about this topic is that you are going to get really great information and understanding of and tools for improving your digestion without taking foods away, without any restriction at all. This is all about elevating the digestive system you already have, and elevating what your body is already meant to do so that you can get the most out of that process. So let's dig into the vagus nerve and talk a little bit more about why this is so important!
With those who have IBS or other functional gut disorders, there's a common symptom that's called visceral hypersensitivity. So this is in the organs whenever there's a change....so the stretching of the stomach, the stretching of the small intestine, the large intestine, whether that just be from food and the intake that you have, or from water being pulled in, or gas accumulating, that stretch is then communicated back to the brain. Then, because there's a dysfunction between the gut and the brain and their communication, the brain then communicates, which is very painful and more painful than it should be, so then the body experiences and feels that pain. That's what we call visceral hypersensitivity, more sensitivity to what is happening in the organ.
This does lead to more pain and the intensity of sensations that are found in the gut, and can actually be explained by the interaction between the gut and the central nervous system in the brain. Like I mentioned, with IBS, we know that this communication pathway is off, so it's dysfunctional. And this communication pathway happened along the HPA axis and the vagus nerve. So the vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body that connects the brain to the rest of the body. Cranial means brain, so it runs from the brainstem, all the way down to the colon. And because it goes all the way throughout the body, we call it the wanderer nerve, it's involved in a lot of different functions of the body.
The vagus nerve has two main sensory functions: somatic components, which are usually sensations felt on the skin, and visceral components, which are sensations felt in the organs of the body. So those visceral components are the ones that we are going to look at the most.
The main function of the vagus nerve is to help stimulate muscle activity. In terms of digestion, the vagus nerve can stimulate the involuntary contractions of the digestive tract to allow food to move through the digestive tract more efficiently. This means that this will help improve the motility of the gut, so the gut is moving at the right speed in order to get the food moving through whether you're constipated, make sure food is moving through appropriately so that there's proper absorption and digestion, which maybe it's happening if you have diarrhea. And so we want to make sure that the muscles of the gut are moving at the right speed in the right way and coordinating with each other in order for the digestive process to work well, and the vagus nerve is part of that.
Another really cool thing about the vagus nerve is that it also allows hormones in the body to communicate and have their roles done. And so one of these is our hunger hormone called ghrelin, and our enteric nervous system and they get actually releases ghrelin, it crosses over the blood-brain barrier and actually works with the vagus nerve to regulate our food intake and appetite, which is so cool to think about! So our hunger and fullness are also key with proper vagus nerve function.
We know that the vagus nerve can also regulate other organ functions like heart rate and respiratory rate. It can regulate certain reflex actions like coughing, sneezing, swallowing, and vomiting, which could also be really important when it comes to gut disorders and gut conditions. And we know that it could also be a key player in our stress management plan.
We know that the vagus nerve is able to regulate the functions of what we call our autonomic nervous system. So that's the sympathetic state and the parasympathetic state. Our sympathetic state is our stress state/stress response. Our parasympathetic state is called our rest and digest mode, and that is where we are not stressed. Stress is down, our bodies are calm and they are digesting our food. During the parasympathetic state (so that rest and digest period), the vagus nerve can actually stimulate digestive organs and be able to contribute to proper digestion.
We know that with those who have GERD, IBS, and SIBO, it's been shown that the vagal nerve response has been delayed or impaired for many. So this is something that might not be working appropriately, which may explain why the gut-brain connection might be off and can explain why motility is off. So damage to the vagus nerve is a common cause of some of these gut conditions, especially gastroparesis, which is on slow stomach emptying because poor muscle activity can cause the stomach to empty more slowly. It's also important to check on the health of the vagus nerve, which is something that you can talk to your doctor about, and just make sure that you're having communications about it.
Okay, so let's talk about how we can actually stimulate this nerve!
So the beauty of this is that just because your vagus nerve may not be working as well as it possibly can right now, whether that be due to past experiences, or maybe even just a disconnect over time that your body's adapted to, we can still work in ways to stimulate this nerve in order to get it back up and running, and also have it working as effectively as it possibly can with where you're at right now.
One way that we can do this is vagus nerve stimulation treatment, this is where they apply electrical impulses directly to the vagus nerve. This would be done by a provider, this is something that you could do if your motility is very off and you believe that the vagus nerve is kind of silent, this is something that could be a potential treatment option.
Another treatment option would be gut-directed hypnotherapy. So this is the use of hypnotherapy from potentially gut psychologists or someone who is well trained in this specific area of hypnosis. It's to basically get the getting the brain communicating back together so that things can work well. So that could be helpful for vagus nerve stimulation.
Some non-therapy ways that you can start doing today include slowing down and chewing thoroughly through meals. This is a secret weapon when it comes to digestive disorders because many of us do not chew enough, and we typically don't slow down when we're eating meals. Making sure that we're honoring our meal, assigning a mealtime, and making sure to slow down as well as chew way more than you think you possibly need to in order to get all of the hormones working so that they're communicating with each other and the vagus nerve has time to turn on and get ready and help kind of activate that that whole system that the food is about to go through. Be present with meals without distractions, which really ties into that slow down and chew, being present with meals that mind connection actually can help stimulate the vagus nerve because of the mental side of it. That's one that we can easily do...reduce the distractions, sit down with your meal and be present with your food.
Diaphragmatic breathing before meals and throughout the day can also stimulate this nerve. So means breathing through the diaphragm, taking really, slow controlled breaths. If you don't know how to connect this type of breathwork, that's where a physical therapist, specifically that the pelvic floor specialties are like visceral and specialty, can help you really connect and understand where your diaphragm is and what that breathing looks like, which can help tremendously with activating that rest and digest mode that also stimulate this nerve. Taking a cold shower, splashing your face with cold water can also help, which is a really fun one. So if you're taking a warm shower, you just turn the water on to cold, allow that cold to hit you and that can stimulate splashing your face with cold water before you go eat a meal that can be really helpful and so those are some different ideas.
You can sing, hum, chant or gurgle to activate the muscles in the back of your throat and the vocal cords which are connected to the Vegas nerve, and that can help stimulate the nerve activity. That's one thing that you could try. You can try meditation which can increase parasympathetic activity and make the job of the vagus nerve easier.
Acupuncture might be able to help as well and massaging the keratin sinus on the right side of your neck can also be helpful. And again, physical therapists or someone who specializes in that area might be able to help you with those connections and some things that you can do at home in order to take advantage of that.
The value in trying these out and building them into your day is improved mood! Remember, this is gut and brain so not only are we thinking about the gut when we're looking at vagus nerve activity, we're also thinking about our parasympathetic nervous system, our rest, and digest, which is combating that stress response. And so this can help you with improved mood. This can help with improved digestion, can help you decrease your symptoms, and it can help with better gut-brain communication, which might lead to better symptom control more intuneness with your hunger and fullness cues, more intuition, all of those good things. For IBS is also may help decrease visceral hypersensitivity, which is so important.
If you're interested in diving deeper into vagus nerve stimulation treatment, you can ask your doctor about that. And if you feel like you need some extra support, if you are looking for care with your IBS, your other digestive disorder, your GI condition, whatever it may be, and you want people on your team who are taking a holistic approach, looking at the body as a whole and diving far deeper than just food restrictions, then our team might be the right fit for you.
At Gutivate, we are a team of dieticians who are specialized in gi and passionate about helping you take control of your symptoms, and also your choices to get the most out of your life, while connecting to the beauty of food and the pieces of your life that matter so much to you. If you're interested in learning more about how we could help you and to see if we're a good fit, click here to schedule a complimentary consult call and we can see if that would be the right fit for you.
If this episode was helpful for you, first off, I want you to take action on it. I want you to actually apply some of these tips we talked about for your vagus nerve, give it a try and see what happens. Think about this as a way to practice self-care!
Second, if this was helpful and interesting to you, take a screenshot of the episode, share the episode, post on social media and tag me @erinjudge.rd or our practice @gutivate so that we can continue the conversation there and see what you learned.
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