What a NERVE!

THE VAGUS NERVE IS A SUPERHIGHWAY CARRYING INFO BETWEEN YOUR BRAIN AND ALMOST EVERY ORGAN IN YOUR BODY. IT PRESENTS POSSIBILITIES TO ADDRESS A RANGE OF PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS.

- GLYNIS HORNING

The vagus nerve is your longest cranial nerve – technically, twin nerves that emerge from either side of your brainstem and wander through your body like, well, vagabonds (hence the name). It forms a network of some 100000 fibres running to nearly every internal organ and carrying information back to your brain for analysis. The brain then sends commands down to the organs, with effects only recently becoming better understood in terms of stress, epilepsy and, increasingly, inflammation.

STRESS

The vagus nerve is a major part of the parasympathetic nervous system, a counterpoint to the sympathetic nervous system – the one responsible for the fight­or­flight survival response. In the past, this response would have been triggered by the occasional encounter with a woolly mammoth, but today your sympathetic nervous system can be on almost constant alert due to the stresses of modern life, such as work deadlines, traffic jams, and the relentless pressure of being plugged in electronically, always on call.

While your sympathetic nervous system galvanises you to escape danger, making your muscles tense up and your heartbeat and breathing accelerate by releasing a flood of stress hormones, your parasympathetic system, through the vagus nerve, works to relax and slow your body’s response. It puts on the brakes to spare you the long­ term effects of prolonged exposure to stress hormones, which are now linked to everything from high blood pressure to changes in your brain that may contribute to anxiety, depression, addiction and obesity.

Help steady your nerve!