This blog post Today's Psychology is about telling the nervous health of the human body for a healthy life: phase one of the nine-part series called "The Vagus Nerve Survival Guide." The nine vagal maneuvers displayed on each blog post are designed to help you stimulate your vagus nerve, which can reduce stress, anxiety, anger, and inflammation by activating the "relaxation response" of your parasympathetic nervous system.
Diaphragmatic breathing (also referred to as "slow stomach breathing") is, something you can do anytime and anywhere to instantly regulate and stimulate your vagus nerve and decrease the stress response associated with "fight-or-flight" mechanisms. Deep breathing also increases heart source sebastian
rate variability (HRV), which is a measurement of variation in beat-to-beat intervals.
For thousands of years, yogis and sages of Eastern culture have understood the importance of diaphragmatic breathing. Since the 1970s, the efforts of mind-body leaders such as Herbert Benson and jon kabatzinn have popularized the importance of deep breathing as a major component of maintaining a healthy physiological balance (homeostasis) in your autonomic nervous system, which is widely accepted by the Western "Medicine" today.
In 2010, an international study reaffirmed the wisdom of this eternal life by showing that slow stomach breathing reduces the "fight-or-flight" response of the sympathetic nervous system and can increase vagal activity. The findings are published in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.
In 2014, Paul M. Lehrer (who was a pioneer in HRV research and training) published a hypothesis and a theory paper, "Heart Rate Variation Biofeedback: How and Why Does It Work?" in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
In this review, Lehrer and Gevirtz explore various interesting reasons that HRV biofeedback works and reiterates that diaphragm breathing is part of the feedback loop that improves the vagal tone by stimulating the relaxation response of the parasympathetic nervous system. In particular, researchers also reported that people with higher HRV (who represented a healthy vagal tone) showed lower biomarkers for stress, improved psychological and physical resilience, and improved cognitive function.
In 2016, another study reported that slow-stomach breathing improves autonomic sympathovagal modulation (which minimizes the "fight-or-flight" response) and is very effective at reducing the stress-related cardiovascular response in prehypertensive "stress" students.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) using an implant device is one of the proven ways to live clinically healthy to achieve this outcome. But for some other practical, inexpensive, and available ways to stimulate your vagus nerve - I've curated a variety of empirical evidence into a one-stop-shop resource guide of vagal maneuver that anyone can use. All the nine techniques listed below are in your control locus. They also do not cost a dime or require high-tech gadgets.
Vagus Nerve Survival Guide by Christopher Bergland
- 1.Regular exercise on diaphragmatic breathing
- 2.Daily Physical Activity Tonic Level in the morning.
- 3.Social Relations Face-to-face to train the mental brain.
- 4.Narrative Expressive Journaling
- 5.Gutsy Third Person Self-Talk
- 6.Sense of Awe to Promote Small Self
- 7.Up Spiral through Loving Meditation to keep the body's yogic and yoga movements.
- 8.Superfluidity and secular transcendent ecstasy
- 9.Volunteering and Altruistic Generativity
Tracing the Genesis of The Vagus Nerve Survival Guide
The last study I'm going to reference in this post examines the flip side of having lower heart rate variability as observed in veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2015, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare Source: Wellcome Library/Public Domain
System reported that reduced HRV may be a contributing risk factor for PTSD. These findings were reported in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. In this study, the researchers found that U.S. Marines with lower HRV prior to deployment displayed higher vulnerability to PTSD after they had returned. The good news is that anyone with PTSD can use holistic vagal maneuvers and/or vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) devices to improve his or her HRV.
"What Kind of Exercise and Diaphragm Techniques Should I Use to Train Physically?"
When it comes to effective vagal maneuvering, a deep and slow type of diaphragm breathing as long as you visualize fills the lower part of your lung just above the navel like a balloon and then exhaling it slowly and will stimulate you to the body. and the vagus nerve, activate your parasympathetic nervous system, and improve your HRV.
Some people make time each day to practice diaphragmatic breathing and exercise gymnastics, yoga, as part of meditation practice or mindfulness meditation. Others just take a deep breath every time they find themselves feeling "panicked," need to be blessed under pressure, or want to get rid of frustration. All of these diaphragm breathing apps can reap huge profits.
Some diaphragmatic breathing techniques prescribe inhaling and exhaling only via mouth breathing. Other experts recommend breathing only through your nose. I generally like to use a combination of both. Again, I'd suggest doing whatever type of diaphragmatic breathing fits your lifestyle and feels right.
Generally, when I'm stressed out and really need to do some deep breathing...I'm also in a source sebastian
rush and don't have the time to focus on an extended diaphragmatic or "yogic" breathing session. Of course, any time most of us actually need to create the relaxation response we're also least likely to have the peace of mind and spare time to actually take a few deep breaths.
So when it comes to my daily diaphragm breathing routine, I set the bar very low and tell the third person the drill sergeant sound to myself, "Chris, it will only take a few seconds." Do the three right diaphragm breathing cycles now! Then I would do the diaphragm breathing technique I described above inhaling through my nose and blowing it through the pursed lips for a total of three outgoing cycles. It only takes about 60 seconds and can be done anytime and anywhere.
Hopefully, the clinical evidence and practical advice on using diaphragmatic breathing exercises to stimulate your vagus nerve presented herein will be of some use to you. As I mentioned earlier, this Psychology Today blog post is "phase one" of a nine-part "Vagus Nerve Survival Guide" series. Please stay tuned for upcoming posts.
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