I was pondering about the topic of my first blog and then it suddenly came to me. The vagus nerve! It made complete sense that it had to be about one of the most important nerves influencing our nervous system and wellbeing.
So here goes, let’s discover the vital role of this nerve in stress regulation, emotional balance, and trauma recovery. And begin to understand how it supports your wellbeing and why it is important in somatic therapy.
The vagus nerve has gained much attention in neuroscience, trauma recovery, and wellness communities, and for good reasons. It plays a vital role in regulating your body’s stress response and emotional balance. Some describe it as the gateway to calm and healing. From my own experience, getting curious about my vagus nerve and learning what supports it has been key to building my inner capacity and resilience. But what exactly is it, and why is it so important?
What is the Vagus Nerve?
The vagus nerve (cranial nerve X) is the longest cranial nerve in your body, stretching from your brainstem, through the neck and down to the abdomen. “Vagus” means “wandering” in Latin, referring to its long and branching path. It connects to many major organs including your heart, lungs, stomach and intestines. It functions as a communication superhighway between your brain and your body controlling things like heart rate, breathing, digestion, and certain reflex actions such as coughing, sneezing, and yawning. As well as controlling muscles of the soft palate, pharynx and larynx, all important for speaking and swallowing.
The Autonomic Nervous System
Your autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls various automatic systems in your body such as breathing and digestion. It has two main parts, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). Your SNS operates your body’s “fight or flight” mode which is activated by stress or danger. This mode mobilises various systems in your body ready to support you in moving away from danger. The vagus nerve is a major component of the PNS, helping calm your body after stress and supporting emotional regulation. It has therefore a big influence on your perceived sense of wellbeing and felt sense of safety.
The Ventral and Dorsal States
The PNS has two branches called ventral and dorsal. Ventral state is often referred to as the “rest and digest” state, and helps your body relax, soothe and recover. This state is also where we feel more engaged, socially connected and can experience more positive emotions such as joy. Dorsal state in contrast can cause various degrees of the shutdown response. This is an evolutionary survival response, which in extreme can cause immobilisation, commonly called “freeze” and serves to save energy and preserve life when under significant threat. Freeze state (dorsal) can cause your body to feel disconnected, numb, or switched off.
So you can hopefully begin to understand now how the PNS state, ventral or dorsal will influence how you are feeling and how you are showing up in that moment. It’s complex because the nervous system continuously transitions across spectrums of various states (SNS and PNS) of activation responding to cues both from your environment and your mind. Many of these fluctuations are outside of your usual awareness.
The ways in which you relate to yourself and others, your behaviours, the early conditions of your nervous system development, past traumatic experiences and/or attachment wounds, all influence responses in your nervous system. There can also be unconscious unfinished loops or survival patterns continually replaying resulting in a feeling of becoming stuck in a particular state eg sympathetic (hyper-aroused) anxious state or a dorsal vagal (hypo-aroused) freeze state. It’s important to remember is that your body is constantly scanning for danger. So its not your fault!
Read more about the Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation in Stephen Porges book ‘The Polyvagal Theory’.
How the Vagus Nerve Supports Somatic Therapy
Somatic therapy is all about body-based approaches which focus on the awareness and connection of the mind and body, particularly in the context of processing stress, trauma and regulation of emotions. Since the vagus nerve plays such a big role in how your body does this, it’s a powerful focus in this therapy in supporting you to learn how to regulate your nervous system, build new neural pathways, and expand your capacity. Doing this improves your mental and emotional wellbeing and resilience and empowers you to influence how you are feeling.
Why the Vagus Nerve Matters
In summary, you can see now that your vagus nerve is essential for resilience, calm, and connection. Whether you’re healing from trauma, managing anxiety, feeling stuck in chronic freeze state, or simply looking to feel more grounded, supporting this nerve through regular somatic practices can have a huge impact on how you feel.
Reflecting now on that moment some years ago when I noticed my own feeling of being chronically stuck in a combined high SNS state and PNS dorsal freeze state. I realised I couldn’t do this work alone. I needed a Somatic Therapist to help me to experience regulation (ventral mode) again and help me to learn how my own nervous system responds. Then I could begin to build more capacity and resilience by using the practices I learnt.
So if you’re feeling curious about supporting your own vagus nerve, you could check out our services on the menu above or it would be lovely to have a chat to explore how I can help you. We all need a bit of help sometimes to reconnect to the wisdom of our body.
Angela Green, The BodyWise Facilitator.
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