Imagine your body is an orchestra. And there is a silent conductor who is directing a symphony of responses that influence both your mental health and any other chronic health issues you may face. That music maker is the vagus nerve, and today we’ll tell you how to take more control over it to improve your health. First, three relevant stories on The Mighty.

• 5 Ways to Stimulate the Vagus Nerve for Better Mental Health

• My Experience With a ‘Vagus Nerve Stimulator’ Clinical Trial for Depression

• 15 Grounding Exercises to Manage Stress From Anxiety or Trauma

“The vagus nerve starts at the base of your head, extends down your spinal column, wraps through the body (hitting pretty much every organ along the way), and ends in the stomach. It helps you breathe, sneeze, taste, make memories, control your heart rate, and decompress after stressful situations,” Eileen Conroy writes on The Mighty.

Unlike many other nerves that mainly carry signals from the body to the brain, the vagus nerve is bi-directional. It transmits sensory information from the organs back to the brain, and carries motor commands from the brain back to those organs.

For those living with mental health conditions, the vagus nerve acts as a direct line of communication between your brain and vital organs — like your heart and gut. It's involved in regulating emotions, calming anxiety, and promoting a sense of well-being by releasing neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine.

It can also influence chronic physical health issues by mediating the body's inflammatory response. That can play a large impact on conditions ranging from autoimmune diseases to digestive disorders. And it does more than just the physical part — it can also affect the perception of pain and the body's ability to heal.

As we all look for ways to improve our own mental and physical health, the vagus nerve has become a pivotal player. And key studies on the mental components and physical components back this up.

There are many ways to stimulate the vagus nerve to improve your health. Eileen writes about five very simple methods here: deep breathing, singing, cold exposure, meditation, and laughing.

Our friends at DailyOM have a very popular seven-part course to help you as well. Nearly 70,000 have taken “The Vagus Miracle” with rave reviews. And you can pay as little as $19 for it if you’d like. Learn more about it here.

A Mighty community member living with depression has also written about their own experiences about a clinical trial for a vagus nerve stimulator.

Thanks for stopping by The Mighty today. We hope you’ll be back tomorrow, too.

Mike

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