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The vagus nerve impacts mood, anxiety, immune response, digestion and heart rate

May 4, 2020 By Trudy Scott 10 Comments

The vagus nerve forms a bi-directional “super-highway” between your brain and the majority of your internal organs. Unless your vagus nerve is in good shape and activates readily when it is supposed to, the communication between your brain and the body will be disrupted.

This modern world can lead to overstimulation of the nervous system and you can become desensitized to chronic stress. Over time, this can lead to low vagal tone, which has been linked to a variety of mental and physical health issues, including chronic inflammation, poor gut function, neurodegeneration, autoimmunity and cancer.

And we know this to be true: you cannot FULLY heal leaky gut, microbiome function or brain issues WITHOUT optimizing your vagus function.

Host of the Mind, Body & The Vagus Nerve Connection Summit, Eva Detko, PhD, MSc, BA (Hons), mIAHT, shares the above wisdom about the vagus nerve. I’ll add this: this overstimulation of the nervous system is especially high right now during this coronavirus pandemic.

In my interview, Balancing Neurotransmitters to Optimize Vagus Function, we start with a review paper that reports how the vagus nerve is intricately connected with anxiety and mood (and immunity).

I share from Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain–Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders:

The vagus nerve represents the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system, which oversees a vast array of crucial bodily functions, including control of mood, immune response, digestion, and heart rate.
It establishes one of the connections between the brain and the gastrointestinal tract and sends information about the state of the inner organs to the brain via afferent fibers.

The review article goes on to state how the vagus nerve is an attractive tool for treating psychiatric and gastrointestinal disorders: “There is preliminary evidence that vagus nerve stimulation is a promising add-on treatment for treatment-refractory depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and inflammatory bowel disease.”

And as we all know when we hear the term treatment-refractory depression, it means we haven’t got to the root cause of it. It just means that medications haven’t worked for it.

So this allows us to extrapolate and say, well, there’s other lifestyle and dietary, and nutritional approaches that we could use. But they’re saying that stimulating the vagus nerve, activating it, can actually help in this area. And with my work in anxiety, whenever I see depression, I feel like I can replace that with anxiety (because of similar underlying causes). The other thing that they say is that there’s this impact on inflammation: “Treatments that target the vagus nerve increase the vagal tone and inhibit cytokine production.”

And we know that when we’ve got inflammation going on in the body, that’s going to contribute to mood disorders: “Stimulation of vagal efferent fibers in the gut influences neurotransmitters (like serotonin and dopamine, and GABA) that play a crucial role in major psychiatric disorders.”

So the conclusion is that vagal tone is correlated with the capacity to regulate stress responses and can be influenced by breathing. Its increase through meditation and yoga is likely to contribute to resilience, and the mitigation of mood and anxiety symptoms. And we know from other research, and we know from just doing it, that using meditation and yoga is going to affect anxiety levels. We’ve seen research showing that yoga and meditation raises GABA levels, which is one of the neurotransmitters that helps us feel calm. But now we’re also seeing from the research that good vagal tone has an impact as well.

So it’s really exciting to see that there’s many different ways that we can use to approach someone who does have anxiety issues.

I also talk about a very interesting study that brings the connections between GABA and the vagus nerve together very nicely. As I’m talking I see Eva nodding in agreement as I cover this. I wanted to share this study to add another mechanism as to how GABA may work, given so many people don’t believe it can because of the blood brain barrier.

This was an animal study done in 2011 and it’s titled: Ingestion of Lactobacillus Strain Regulates Emotional Behavior and Central GABA Receptor Expression in a Mouse via the Vagus Nerve. You may have had other people in the summit talking about this. I can see you nodding there. Let me just bring it back to this discussion because I’ve got something to add about this. But what they found is this – Lactobacillus rhamnosus increased GABA in the hippocampus. It reduced cortisol levels, which was caused by the increased stress, and it reduced anxiety and the depression in the animals.

When they severed the vagus nerve in some of the mice in the study they found that these neurochemical and behavioral effects were not found. So as soon as the vagus nerve was severed, the effects of the Lactobacillus rhamnosus, which was increasing GABA levels, was not reducing the anxiety and it was not reducing those cortisone levels.

The biggest question that I get about GABA is: “How could GABA possibly work if it can’t cross the blood brain barrier?” Maybe this is one way that is having an impact on anxiety. We know that we’ve got a lot of GABA receptors in our peripheral tissue. We’ve got GABA receptors in our muscles, which probably is the reason why we feel it when we’ve got this physical tension, or we’ve got the spasms. We’ve got GABA receptors in our pancreas. We’ve got GABA receptors in our endocrine system.

But maybe this vagus nerve connection and the fact that when it’s severed we’re not getting those effects, maybe this is another way that GABA is having an impact on anxiety.

Making the vagus nerve connection to serotonin, I share some interesting new research on SSRIs/antidepressants and the vagus nerve: Oral Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors Activate Vagus Nerve Dependent Gut-brain Signalling.

SSRIs like Zoloft or Paxil or Prozac are often prescribed for anxiety, depression, autism and dementia. And there’s a whole host of issues that we have with SSRIs where you’ll have serious withdrawal symptoms in some people.

In the study, the researchers proposed that SSRIs were having an effect on serotonin and it was the vagus nerve that was now communicating to the brain leading to increased serotonin levels. Similar to the GABA study, when they severed the vagus nerve of the mice, they did not see the same benefits from the SSRI.

My thinking is this: could we possibly extrapolate and say the amino acid tryptophan may have similar effects?

We won’t hold our breath for a similar tryptophan study but we can learn from this paper and possible mechanisms.

I also share how I use GABA and tryptophan with clients so if you’re new to using targeted individual amino acids you’ll learn more about this too.

As you know, my work is primarily using the neurotransmitters precursors (such as the amino acids) and using dietary changes, but we don’t want to forget about other approaches like vagus nerve support.

If we can improve vagus function, then we’re going to get even better benefits.

I share some of my favorite vagus nerve exercises. One of them – social interaction – has been challenging lately but cold showers are very do-able.

Let me share some aspects on the importance of social interaction for improving vagal tone.

Research shows that the more social interactions you have, the more it improves vagal tone. And then that improved vagal tone, improves your mood and makes you more social (and has ramifications for so many other areas as you’ll learn on the summit).

However if you have a condition called pyroluria (social anxiety, preferring one-to-one connections rather than being in large groups, not liking small talk, early morning nausea, not really big on animal protein – I go into it in depth during the interview if it’s new to you), getting out and being social can be very challenging when you are forcing yourself and putting on a brave face:

It’s a very stressful situation in doing that, and then it makes your pyroluria worse so your social anxiety gets worse. So when you have pyroluria and you have a stressful situation, you end up dumping high levels of zinc and B6. So it makes things worse.

If you do go out, it’s either very stressful or you just don’t even do it. So my contribution to the discussion is: let’s address pyroluria and that’s going to in turn allow people to get out and socialize without feeling uncomfortable, without feeling awkward, without having to stress, without feeling absolutely exhausted afterwards, and it’s going to help improve vagal tone.

Eva sums up with this important aspect:

What people need to know is that social connection is good for your vagus nerve only if it’s perceived positively by you internally. So if you’re in a situation where you’re forcing yourself to interact with other people, you’re actually not going to have a positive knock-on effect on your vagus nerve because it’s going to be the opposite. You’re going to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system response because you’re there, as you described, completely uncomfortable and basically stress out. So those social connections need to be positive.

Here are some interviews I look forward to tuning into:

Niki Gratrix, BA, Dip ION: Connecting the Vagus Nerve, Emotions and Gut Function
Ben Lynch, ND: Epigenetics of Chronic Stress
Bridgit Danner, LAc, FDNP: How Mold Toxicity Damages Your Nervous System
Jay Davidson, DC, PScD: Impact of Infections on Mitochondrial and Vagus Function
Kimm Sun, CNM: Impact of Birth Trauma Across Lifetime
Eva Detko, PhD, MSc, BA (Hons): Impact of Perfectionism on Heart Rate Variability
Misa Hopkins: Vagus Nerve Session of the Day – Vagus Nerve Sound Healing

I don’t go into the immune connection in my interview because it was recorded before the coronavirus pandemic started but keep this in mind as you tune in: you cannot have a well-functioning immune system without a healthy nervous system, and vice-versa!

Click here to join me on The Mind, Body & The Vagus Nerve Connection Summit

This event will provide you with all the information you need to:

Understand the vagus nerve’s complexity
Know the importance of high vagal tone
Measure your vagal tone
Recognize symptoms and root causes of vagus nerve dysfunction
Optimize gut-brain communication
Address emotional trauma and chronic stress
Improve your relationships to increase vagal tone
Strengthen vagus function with physical approaches

And when you register today, you’ll gain INSTANT access to the following free gifts, including my summit interview video and transcript!

Symptoms and Root Causes of Vagus Nerve Dysfunction Navaz Habib, DC, AFMCP
Balancing Neurotransmitters to Optimize Vagus Function Trudy Scott, CN
EFT, Polyvagal Theory and the Mind-Body Connection Craig Weiner, DC
Vagus Nerve 101 eGuide from Eva Detko, PhD, MSc, BA (Hons), mIAHT

To your continued learning and healing – and good vagus nerve function!

Click here to join me on The Mind, Body & The Vagus Nerve Connection Summit

Tapping (or EFT) for reducing anxiety, depression, pain and cravings, plus physiological changes in cortisol, heart rate, blood pressure and SigA

February 21, 2020 By Trudy Scott 14 Comments

Awareness about tapping or EFT (emotional freedom technique) is growing and so is the research. I’ve been intrigued by tapping for some time and I’m impressed by some of the very positive feedback I’ve heard about how it reduces anxiety, depression, pain and cravings. I’m now more intrigued after reading a 2019 paper that describes some of the physiological changes (i.e. changes in the body) that improve after tapping.

This paper, Clinical EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Improves Multiple Physiological Markers of Health, describes EFT as “an evidence-based self-help therapeutic method”, reporting that “over 100 studies demonstrate its efficacy.”

It’s further described as “a brief intervention combining elements of exposure, cognitive therapy, and somatic [or physical] stimulation of acupressure points on the face and body.” The full paper here goes into great detail if you’d like to read more.

The objectives of this study were to measure and describe some of the physiological changes that occur after tapping, in order to understand some of the mechanisms. Up until now “information about the physiological effects of EFT is limited.”

As far as physiological changes, these included: heart rate variability and heart coherence, resting heart rate and blood pressure, salivary cortisol (to show changes in the endocrine system), and salivary immunoglobulin A (SigA) (to show impacts on the immune system).

They also measured these psychological symptoms: anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, pain, and cravings. After a 4-day training workshop on tapping, the researchers reported that happiness increased by 31% and the following declines in psychological symptoms in 203 participants were reported:

anxiety (-40%)
depression (-35%)
posttraumatic stress disorder (-32%)
pain (-57%) and
cravings (-74%)

These physiological improvements were found in the subset of 31 participants that were tested:

resting heart rate (-8%)
salivary cortisol (-37%)
systolic blood pressure (-6%) and diastolic blood pressure (-8%)
heart rate variability and heart coherence
salivary immunoglobulin A (SigA) (+113%)

The authors conclude that

gains were maintained on follow-up, indicating EFT results in positive health effects as well as increased mental well-being.

If you’ve been following me for awhile you know I like to look into the research so I’m excited by this study and look forward to further research and gaining a better understanding of this tool.

I also look forward to learning how lasting these psychological and physiological changes are and if you need to keep tapping in order to sustain the changes.

Possible impacts on boosting neurotransmitter levels

Because of the psychological benefits I was also curious about the possible impacts of tapping on boosting neurotransmitter levels such as GABA and serotonin. I found this research on acupuncture which we may be able to partially extrapolate from since EFT does have the acupressure aspect: Effect of Acupuncture on Neurotransmitters/Modulators

In general, acupuncture enhances the activity of the endogenous opioid peptides, serotonin, dopamine, ACh [actelyl-choline], and inhibitory amino acids such as γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glycine, taurine, and lactamine, while it attenuates the activity of noradrenalin and excitatory amino acids including glutamate and aspartic acid.

Compliments the dietary/nutritional/biochemical approach

Based on what I’ve been recently learned, tapping compliments the dietary/nutritional/biochemical approach I use my clients for helping to ease anxiety, overwhelm and stress.

I reached out on Facebook and here is some of the feedback I received:

Maria shares how she uses both EFT and tryptophan: I started using EFT and it has helped – wasn’t expecting it to, but it really does work. However, having had a particular problem for many years, I realize that it’s going to take time to really be at the level I want to be. I also got a teenager to try it, and to their amazement, it did settle their anxiousness – from what they initially said was a 10 -11 – down to 7 in just a few minutes. Last night, I tried the Lidtke Tryptophan and couldn’t believe how deeply and undisturbed I slept – thank you Trudy – I learnt about that product from you during the anxiety summit. By the way, I will be joining the Tapping Summit – can’t wait for that one!

Terri Hirning is a practitioner and shares that her and her biz partner bring it to their clients in conjunction with lifestyle changes for maximum effect. She shares: I find that anxiety is a big issue for my clients. So while they are implementing dietary or supplement changes, tapping can help reduce those emotions while their biochemistry comes into alignment.

She also says: I taught it to my children and they have The Tapping Solution app and will proactively use it when they need to shift things. I am so thankful for this work.

Meeta Darji is a health coach and says this: YES! EFT is profound in helping with anxiety and stress. I have been doing it for the last two years and use it on my kids too. I’m training at the moment and learning how it can help with cravings and addictions. Absolutely incredible and I can’t wait to add it to my health coaching practice.

She does use amino acids like GABA, tryptophan, DPA, glutamine for anxiety and cravings/addictions and agrees that EFT is definitely a good compliment. EFT is great for using with limiting beliefs, traumas, addictions, fears and so much more, so together with amino acids, it’s very powerful.

Benita Scott shares this: EFT is so great! I use it as part of my professional practice as a psychologist and in conjunction with Nutritional therapies it’s a game changer for so many vulnerable clients. It’s been shown to increase GABA levels, decrease cortisol and alter brain cells in relation to food cravings too. There has been a paradigm shift in psychology recently and I think EFT, Matrix and nutritional supplements are changing how we work and heal.

Dede shares how EFT changed her life: I was on permanent disability for 20 years due to panic attacks. EFT changed all that so I became a practitioner. This was 11 years ago.

She shares how she went through “the literal hell of getting off psych meds. I wouldn’t have survived without EFT and food changes.”

It does seem to be very individualized and works very well for some folks and not very well or not at all for others:

One person said EFT is soothing in the moment but she didn’t find any significant or lasting benefits.
Someone else shared: I have tried it, my daughter and her son went to a practitioner, and it did nothing for me or them. I have studied how to do it on-line from well known sites, and still nothing. I’m wondering if a lot of healings are the placebo effect.
It doesn’t seem to work for me either (more on that below)

My tapping experience is very limited

I will admit that, at this point, my tapping experience is very limited. I have such great success with amino acids like GABA, tryptophan and glutamine to provide quick anxiety-relief, end the overwhelm and stop the carb cravings for my clients, I haven’t felt the need to look into tapping.

In case you’re new to me and my work, here is a sampling of a few tools I use with my anxious clients:

My main approach is using targeted amino acids such as tryptophan or 5-HTP for the low serotonin worry-in-your-head anxiety where folks may also experience fears, panic attacks, ruminations, phobias, insomnia, PMS, anger, irritability and cravings; and GABA for the low GABA physical-anxiety that also includes muscle tension, overwhelm, insomnia and the need to self-medicate with alcohol to calm down
Another amino acid is DPA (d-phenylalanine) and I’m mentioning this one because it boosts endorphins (in a similar way to acupuncture) and helps my clients who are experiencing weepiness, pain and are big comfort/reward eaters. I blog about this here: DPA for weepiness, pain and comfort and reward eating)
Since the EFT study mentions cortisol, I’ll share one of my key nutrients for lowering cortisol – Seriphos (I blog about this here: Seriphos Original Formula is back: the best product for anxiety and insomnia caused by high cortisol)
And of course everything else: diet, no sugar, no caffeine, gut health, improving sleep, toxin removal and addressing all nutritional deficiencies etc (covered in great detail in my book “The Antianxiety Food Solution” and elsewhere on this blog.)

I’m getting newly acquainted with EFT

I have been hearing about tapping/EFT for years – first from Dr. Mercola and then had a group session at a conference with Brad Yates and didn’t notice any benefits. I’ve tried it again a few times and have yet to experience any profound benefits. I’d expect to be a good candidate given my history with anxiety/insomnia.

I really do like to be able to share resources and products I have experienced personally but in this instance I’m still a newbie.

As of now I don’t know why tapping/EFT doesn’t help me and some other folks. Perhaps there is a bioindividual aspect? Just like some folks do well with herbs and some with vitamins/amino acids; some folks thrive on spinach and some have oxalate issues; some folks do well with meditation and others struggle with it; some find nature to be an elixir and others find dancing to be their magic?

However, based on what I’ve recently learned about the physiological changes and the feedback I’ve heard, I’m getting newly acquainted with EFT and it’s an additional resource I want to offer you – my community of anxious women.

Right now I’m seeing it as another tool in the toolbox (for some folks), together with dietary changes, addressing biochemical imbalances, gut health, getting out in nature etc.

Resources for additional learning

If you’re new to tapping and would like to learn more, the 13th Annual Tapping World Summit airs online Feb 24 – March 7. Here is the main summit registration page.

This is a great introductory video from summit host Nick Ortner (register to watch it and get access to the summit)

I’d love to hear back from you in the comments below

Do you use tapping/EFT in conjunction with dietary/nutritional/biochemical changes to help ease your anxiety, stress, overwhelm? (if you’re a practitioner, do you use both with clients/patients?)
Do you find one approach to be better than the other?
Have you tried tapping without success?
If you’re new to tapping/EFT are you interested in learning how to incorporate it into your life?

Please share so I can learn from you and we can all learn from each other (and thanks to everyone who has contributed to the discussion already).