5,49 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Publishdrive
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Harness the Power of the Vagus Nerve and Change Your Life!
The Vagus Nerve and Polyvagal Theory invites you on an enlightening journey deep into the intricate web of our neurophysiology, uncovering the remarkable power of the vagus nerve and the transformative potential of the Polyvagal Theory.
In this book, delve into the hidden mechanisms that influence healing, communication, and self-regulation, offering a path to overcome anxiety, trauma, inflammation, mental stress, and a range of other challenges.
Unlock a treasure trove of practical knowledge, empowering techniques, and light-hearted explanations that anyone can appreciate.
Explore actionable steps to harness the innate healing potential of the vagus nerve and activate the Polyvagal Theory in your own life so you can finally live the peaceful, mentally stable life that you deserve.
You’ll also discover:
- How to cultivate a deeper connection with yourself: Get to know your own body, mind, and emotions, allowing for profound self-discovery and personal growth.
- Practical exercises to incorporate the theory in your daily life: Develop the tools needed to promote healing, improve communication, and establish a foundation of balance and resilience.
- Everything you need to know about the Vagus Nerve: These books explain everything in a friendly, and easy to follow way without skimping over important information.
- And more!
This isn’t just a resource for understanding the science behind our neurophysiological responses, but also a practical roadmap towards greater emotional well-being.
Whether you're a healthcare professional, therapist, researcher, or an individual seeking to enhance your overall well-being, this 2-in-1 offers invaluable insights and transformative guidance that you can’t get anywhere else.
Scroll up, Get Your Copy, and Unlock the Healing Potential of the Vagus Nerve!
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Ähnliche
The Vagus Nerve and Polyvagal Theory
Exploring the Neurophysiological Foundations of Healing, Communication, and Self-Regulation to Overcome Anxiety, Trauma, Inflammation, Mental Stress, & More.
Unleash Your Vagus Nerve
The Polyvagal Theory
Yumi Park
Copyright © 2023 by Yumi Park
All rights reserved.
It is not legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Unleash Your Vagus Nerve
Stimulate Your Vagal Tone and Activate Its Healing Power with Daily Exercises to overcome Anxiety, Depression, Inflammation, Autoimmunity, Brain Fog, and Gut Sensitivities.
Yumi Park
Contents
The What Nerve, Now?
The vagus nerve. If that doesn’t ring any bells for you, then you’ve come to the right place. Because, as we’ll come to see, this nerve plays a fantastically huge role in many aspects of our physical health and a surprisingly powerful part of our emotional states. This book will discuss how and why the vagus nerve is vital. Perhaps most importantly, it will discuss how to use this understanding to harness its power to help those of us who feel the constant burden of depression and anxiety. But before we dive into all things vagus, let’s take a minute to discuss these emotional afflictions that have come to cast their shadows over so many of us.
It is no secret that the incidents of depression, anxiety, and other related stressors in our emotional lives are affecting an ever-widening percentage of people in the 21st century than before. According to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization, in 2017, more than 264 million people suffered from depression worldwide. Approximately 800,000 of these people commit suicide every year, making it the second leading cause of death in individuals aged 15–29 years. It is the leading cause of disability in the United States among people aged 15-44 years and if you are a person who believes that, as Bob Dylan put it, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears,” here comes a big F-bomb (F stands for financial, of course): The U.S. economy in 2017 lost roughly $210.5 billion dollars through work time losses directly traceable to depression (National Network of Depression Centers).
Symptoms of persistent anxiety have a large overlap with those of depression, which is to be expected, as the two are essentially different sides of the same coin. But there are a few new tell-tale signs that anxiety brings to the table. They include trouble controlling one’s breathing, feelings of nausea, increased irritability, sweating, heart palpitations, and, perhaps worst of all, a general and often untraceable but a bone-deep feeling of dread and despair.
We are citing all of this not to make you feel hopeless; it is our hope that if you struggle with depression or anxiety, talking frankly at the outset about what’s been happening to an increasing number of us over the last few decades will make you feel better. Even if you’re not more comfortable with your depression/anxiety, you should feel more comfortable with the fact you are struggling because the numbers of individuals who are suffering like you are legion.
Here’s a little more news that shines a light or perhaps more aptly casts a deeper shadow on the above information. Unsurprisingly, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has only increased these numbers. According to the CDC:
“Between August 2020 and February 2021, the percentage of adults with recent symptoms of anxiety or a depressive disorder increased from 36.4% to 41.5%, and the percentage of those reporting unmet mental health care needs increased from 9.2% to 11.7%. Increases were largest among adults aged 18–29 years and those with less than a high school education.”
With much of the world closing restaurants, bars, cinemas, theaters, sporting arenas, cafes, and parks and moving schools to remote learning, thousands of businesses drowned in the treacherous economic waters roiled by the coronavirus, and most people were forced to shelter in place for months at a time. Because of this, it makes complete sense that the rates of mental health crises would skyrocket. This is to say nothing of the punishing and inhumane pressures, traumas, and hours first responders such as EMTs, nurses, and doctors had to endure, which led more than a few otherwise mentally stable medical professionals to resign due to profound trauma. Some of these workers were so emotionally savaged by the pandemic they even resorted to suicide.
The CDC goes further, stating, “Limits on operating nonessential businesses and other measures to reduce pandemic-related mortality led to isolation and unemployment or underemployment, further increasing the risk for mental health problems“ (Vahratian, Blumberg, Terlizzi, Schiller, CDC, 2021). Frankly, it will be years before we as a society will be able to accurately process and assess the amount and depth of scars that the worldwide COVID-19 crisis wrought on populations as a whole. This is even worse for children and young adults whose childhoods and young adulthoods were robbed of many of the normal interactions and rites of passage most mental health experts consider an essential part of emotional development.
Now, I know that this is not the most cheerful way to start a book, even if this book is about giving you real ideas and techniques that will help you to better cope with depression and anxiety. Also, we just threw a lot of numbers your way, which is usually not the punchy opening readers want as they crack open a new book. And what does all of this depressing news have to do with the vagus nerve? I mean, that is pretty much why you bought this book, isn’t it? Let’s get vagusing, you might well be saying.
I promise that I’ll soon get to that without much further ado. But first, we need to know about what we’re trying to battle against and how and why a growing number of experts believe the vagus nerve is one of our best hopes for coping with and even overcoming these dark feelings that so many of us are going through.
Yes, I will use more statistics to be sure but not at anything like this early rate. I feel it is important to provide some context for the problems we are dealing with. Understanding how the vagus nerve has an effect on all of this is important. Most of all, I want you to understand these numbers to put into perspective that you are not alone in your suffering or the suffering of one of your loved ones.
This is a book that will rely heavily on hard science but is not written in jargon. As such, I should be precise where I can. I just rattled off some pretty grim statistics about depression, both in the United States and around the world. But, not to be too simplistic, let’s start off by clarifying our terms, namely, what, exactly, according to medical authorities, constitutes depression? It’s a word people like to throw around but how is it classified by the experts in mental health?
Doctors define depression as a syndrome. To better understand this, we should first define the word “syndrome.” A syndrome, medically speaking, is not one basic attribute, but rather an amalgam of attributes, like bipolar and recurrent or monopolar depressive disorder. These are diagnosed when a patient presents with diminished or non-existent interest or pleasure in activities, which, as a direct result, makes it anywhere from very difficult to impossible to participate in the activities that make up everyday life.
There are other symptoms that branch out from this, including irregular sleep patterns (insomnia or its exact opposite, hyposomnia), loss of appetite or increase in appetite, impairment of cognitive functions, and a formless but palpable feeling of guilt.
There are many factors involved and the predominant agents of these troubling feelings and thoughts vary to one degree or another from individual to individual. Yet, for all of the miracles of modern science and medicine that we are blessed to have at our disposal, one area that has been relatively lacking is our knowledge of the workings of the brain, or more accurately, the mind.
However, we are quickly catching up and there is no shortage of positive news in this field. Researchers are steadily closing the knowledge gap and have made great progress in learning how our minds operate in just the last few decades; our collective understanding of the physiological operations regulating our emotional lives expands each year.
Anyone who has suffered from severe and persistent depression and/or anxiety is probably aware that there is no shortage of treatments. Many more are developed all the time. Medication has been a mainstay in such treatment for decades but the variety of medications available now is staggering. The specificity with which they target certain areas of the brain can sometimes yield promising results. In addition, there are many other options, such as transcranial magnetic therapy, ketamine, and even electroconvulsive therapy, known more commonly as electroshock. The latter has made a comeback in a far safer and more effective way than the type that was so calamitously employed in the early 20th century.
Of all of these treatments and discoveries, perhaps one of the most significant is the discovery of the crucial role the vagus nerve plays in affecting our state of mind. As we will come to see, it’s a stunningly important component of our mental health, which is vital in fighting depression and anxiety and reducing stress. So, it’s perfectly natural to ask yourself the question, “What on earth is the vagus nerve and why, if it’s so important, haven’t I heard of it?”
It’s a fair point. After all, many of you could name at least a few antidepressants off the top of your heads, not to mention other treatments. If it is so crucial to our mental wellbeing (and the science consistently bears out that it is) then why isn’t the vagus nerve more widely discussed? In truth, it is starting to gain a foothold in the public consciousness but we as a society need to become more aware of the myriad ways it is deeply involved with both our physical and emotional wellbeing.
This is one of this book’s key aims. Another is to assist you in your fight against depression and/or anxiety by offering concrete advice on how to help you access the tremendous power of the vagus nerve to help you push back hard against these sometimes debilitating conditions. The possibilities for physical and emotional improvement by learning about and attending to the vagus nerve are real and quite profound. So, are you ready to learn about your relationship with this vital part of your body? Great! Let’s start off, as any good relationship should, with a proper introduction.
The vagus nerve, like virtually every nerve in the human body, starts in the brain. Technically, it’s actually two nerves that branch off from a single course. For the purposes of our discussion, we will generally refer to them as one. And while the vagus nerve is only one of twelve cranial nerves, “this particular nerve is unique because it is associated with both sensory and motor functions“ (The Filtery, 2021).
The vagus nerve was first discovered relatively recently in terms of medicine. It was discovered about a hundred years ago, in 1921, by a doctor named Otto Lowei. It was shortly thereafter discovered as the first neurotransmitter, which is defined by Webster’s as a “chemical substance that is released at the end of a nerve fiber by the arrival of a nerve impulse and by diffusing across the synapse or junction.” In plain language, it means that it releases a chemical that can send information to your brain by going through long channels and branches of subsidiary nerves.
The fact that the vagus nerve plays a central role in regulating our emotions didn’t enter the mainstream of scientific thought until 1988, which is more recent still. Given this, the amount of progress that has been made since is beyond impressive.
Stimulation of the vagal nerve decelerates the heart rate due to the release of acetylcholine (ACh). And while this information isn’t important to know (if there were a quiz at the end of this book you wouldn’t be required to remember it) the vagus became the first neurotransmitter ever discovered. However, this is partially why, unlike many other nerves (fun fact: our bodies have approximately 100 billion of them), which focus on a single area of the body, the vagus nerve is linked to many parts of our anatomy. In fact, it derives its name from the Latin word that means “to wander.” It’s an apt moniker. It is the longest nerve in the human body (another fun fact: if nothing else, our book has already helped you become the hit of any boring party) and is connected to a staggering number of organs, such as your liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, digestive system, lungs, heart, and beyond. Most critically for the purposes of our discussion, it plays a major role in regulating what is known as the “parasympathetic nervous system.”
A quick word about that term you just read. This is a book that involves explaining an important scientific discovery, but it is absolutely not a science textbook. So don’t be worried that you need a medical license to follow what we’ll be delving into. For anything that may sound too technical, we will explain in plain language. There will be no pop quizzes or final exams.
Ok then, back to the parasympathetic nervous system. Its main responsibilities are the regulation of your digestion and rest. More broadly, it is a bit like your nervous system’s behind the scenes movie director that makes sure that your body’s various systems are working in harmony with each other. It plays a large part in helping our bodies recuperate from injuries and disease. It also has a heavy to-do list involving many other functions, including your body’s involuntary or autonomic function or the things you do without giving them any thought but without which, you’d die. These include breathing, heartbeat, and your circulatory system.
It also involves vital functions such as speech, breathing, swallowing, libido, and taste. It even tells you when you need to pee. And what oversees this vastly important system? Our friend, the vagus nerve does. Therefore, the vagus nerve is indispensable for many of our most important anatomical processes. It also plays a critical role in our moods and sense of well-being.
For example, it notes when you’ve expended or are expending a great deal of energy (as shown by your heart rate) and ensures that your body will be primed for rest. It is able to prepare you more easily for rest by a variety of means, such as slowing your digestion and lowering your blood pressure. Have you ever wondered why, after a day of strenuous labor, you often feel exhausted? Of course you haven’t; it’s the most natural and logical thing in the world. No argument here; however, it is the Vagus nerve that largely creates that feeling. It is essentially ordering your body to get some rest.
Studies show that something on the order of 80% of the information transmitted by the vagus nerve goes from the body to the brain, which means that the brain transmits about 20% of the signals to the vagus nerve. This is perhaps why many scientists refer to the vagus nerve as our body’s “second brain.” In other words, the vagus nerve seems to literally have a mind of its own.
However, the vagus nerve is, so to speak, only human. If you find yourself under persistent stress and tension, which is a state that millions of us find ourselves in when navigating our daily lives, the vagus nerve itself doesn’t get much of a breather. In fact, constant stress makes it overwhelmed. It then calls in what doctors call the sympathetic nervous system (this is in charge of what is commonly known as the “fight or flight” mode that your body switches on during stressful moments).
The vagus nerve seems to be a biological genius and it is. However, it is not immune to making the occasional error. When you feel overwhelmed, like when you have to make a presentation at work or have to endure a family gathering in which your uncle will explain his eccentric political beliefs in maddening detail, your vagus nerve is in the thick of it. However, if that nerve is in some way damaged (and many of ours are to some degree, for a multitude of potential reasons that we will get into more specifically later), it often misinterprets your garden variety nervousness or discomfort for legitimate danger and activates the sympathetic nervous system.
When the vagus nerve isn’t functioning properly, the sympathetic nervous system can sometimes lose perspective, which often results in high levels of anxiety and even outright panic attacks. It can act like the anatomical equivalent of calling in a military airstrike over a parking ticket and it takes a real toll on our emotional experiences. This is why when we’re anxious, we often experience unpleasant physical symptoms such as sweating, an accelerated heartbeat, nausea, and so on.
