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pyroluria

Social anxiety caused by pyroluria: oxytocin, the vagus nerve, pectus excavatum and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

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social anxiety pyroluria

Pyroluria is associated with a type of anxiety characterized by social anxiety, avoidance of crowds, a feeling of inner tension, and bouts of depression. If you have pyroluria you may experience varying degrees of anxiety or fear, often starting in childhood, and you usually manage to cover it up and push through. You may build your life around one person, become more of a loner over time, have difficulty handling stress or change, and have heightened anxiety symptoms when under more stress.

It’s not well-recognized in the medical profession and has long been considered a genetic condition. More recently some practitioners have been proposing that it may be triggered by environmental toxins and that it’s not only genetic. Either way, symptoms can start to resolve within a week when low levels of zinc and vitamin B6, together with some other nutrients are addressed. Stress management is key. This can be emotional stress and the stress of toxin exposure, infections like Lyme disease, mold toxicity and even low blood sugar and gluten issues.

We would typically not connect social anxiety/pyroluria with low oxytocin, vagus nerve function or connective tissue disorders but if you read on you’ll see there are some interesting connections.

Oxytocin, social anxiety and zinc

Research has found that oxytocin levels correlate strongly with levels of social anxiety. A paper published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research looked at how variations in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene is associated with an increased risk of anxiety, stress and depression in individuals with a history of exposure to early life stress. Supporting low levels of oxytocin can ease the threats of social interactions.

What is interesting is that zinc, a key nutrient for pyroluria, is needed for binding oxytocin to its receptor. You can read more about all this here: Oxytocin, social anxiety, pyroluria and autism

Sociability improves vagus nerve function and thriving at home alone

Increased sociability helps improve vagus nerve function. It’s all good and well to recommend getting out and hanging out with more people but if you have pyroluria it’s really challenging. It’s also hard work, very stressful and the added stress makes your pyroluria symptoms worse so it becomes a vicious cycle.

You can read all about this here: Increased sociability improves vagus nerve function: the role of social anxiety, pyroluria and low zinc. There is an updated section on social isolation during coronavirus and how some people are thriving being home alone.

Pectus excavatum and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome

Pectus excavatum is an indentation in the chest wall and is related to problems with connective tissue. When it comes to pyroluria and pectus excavatum, this is what we see in common: social anxiety and depression, low zinc and low vitamin B6, dental crowding and sometimes Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS). I write more about this here: Pectus excavatum and pyroluria: is there a connection?.

I’ve written an entire blog on Joint hypermobility / Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and pyroluria. Anxiety, depression, attention deficit (and hyperactivity) disorder, autism spectrum disorders, and obsessive-compulsive personality disorders are all common with EDS. Many folks with EDS report better less social anxiety, improved mood and often improved physical symptoms/reduced pain on the pyroluria protocol of zinc, vitamin B6, evening primrose oil and a good copper-free multi.

Resources for you

Please do share if you have pyroluria or score high on the questionnaire and have seen improvements in your social anxiety and any physical symptoms.

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

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vagus nerve impacts

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!

vagus nerve summit

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!

vagus nerve summit bonuses

  • 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

Essential tremor, dystonia, anxiety and cravings – diet, GABA, tryptophan, zinc and vitamin B6

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Essential tremor, dystonia, anxiety and cravings

Today I’m sharing how diet, GABA, tryptophan, zinc, vitamin B6 and other B vitamins can resolve essential tremor and sugar cravings in 2 months, and also resolve musician’s dystonia and social anxiety within 4 months.

According to Medical News Today essential tremor is a movement disorder that can cause hand tremors and “is among the most common movement disorders.” … “The tremor usually affects both sides of the body, but it may be more noticeable in the dominant hand. It tends to occur when the person is moving as well as when standing still. Genetics may be responsible for around half of the cases of essential tremor.”

Essential tremor – diet, GABA, tryptophan and B vitamins

This Croatian paper, Treatment of Essential Tremor with Multi-Modal Nutritional Therapy in a Teenage Patient, reports the “case of a 13-year-old boy with [essential tremor] causing severe functional impairment” over the previous 2 years.

“A multi-modal nutritional therapy approach” was used to target three possible areas that could be contributing to the tremors: a poor diet that was high in sugar, low GABA levels and low serotonin. These changes were implemented:

(i) diet (specifically adopting a Mediterranean diet)

(ii) GABA (through oral supplementation) and

(iii) L-tryptophan/vitamin B pathways (Triptobel oral supplement).

The papers states: “After two months of therapy, his tremor decreased significantly and he regained normal function.”

Once the essential tremor resolved, this teen was able to resume his plans to pursue a musical career as a guitar player (which had been put on hold due to the tremor and his inability to play). What wonderful results!

I’m thrilled to see tryptophan and GABA being used for this condition and am really pleased to read this case report.  Here is my commentary on the supplements and doses he used for anyone wishing to try and replicate this nutritional approach (keeping in mind there is no one-size-fits-all).

  • He used 150 mg of the Triptobel supplement three times daily at 8 am, 1 pm, and 6 pm. One capsule of  the Triptobel contains 150mg L-tryptophan and a B vitamin complex of thiamine (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (vitamin B3), pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), vitamin B6, folic acid (vitamin B9), and cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12).  The total tryptophan dose was 450mg per day. A typical starting dose for someone with anxiety is 500mg 2 x day so his dose was on the low-end.  The Triptobel was also used at mealtimes and according to the label “on a full stomach after a light meal, preferably without protein.” I like to use tryptophan between meals (away from protein) and a B complex with meals so I’m intrigued by this application (but wonder when protein was consumed).
  • He also used 750mg GABA twice daily at 10 am and 4 pm. This is considered a high starting dose for the majority of my clients with anxiety and I start low and build up to this amount.

Anxiety and low mood was not mentioned so I don’t know if they were factors.

It appears sugar and carb cravings were very likely a factor given that his normal daily diet contained “large amounts of refined sugars (chocolate, cake, biscuits, ice cream, etc).” The amino acids would have helped him with those cravings.

With regards to his diet, given how common movement disorders are with gluten issues, I would also consider I gluten-free diet which has been shown to have an adverse impact on neurotransmitter levels and B vitamins. Could gluten have triggered these nutritional deficiencies and the tremors?

And now to share a very similar case in an adult male … with a different and yet related approach.

Dystonia and hand tremors – and the pyroluria connection

This same Medical News Today article also describes dystonic tremor/dystonia as a movement disorder that can also cause hand tremors, stating that “the brain sends incorrect messages, resulting in overactive muscles, abnormal postures, and sustained undesired movements. Young adults and those in middle age are most likely to develop dystonic tremors, which can occur in any muscle.”

If you’ve been reading my recent articles on pyroluria (the pyroluria-vagus nerve connection and the introversion-pyroluria-loneliness connection) I’m sure you’ll be be interested to learn that there appears to be a strong link between pyroluria and focal musician’s dystonia (or musician’s cramp) in some individuals.

As you read in the blog above, Jay, also a guitar player, had to put his professional music career on hold due to musician’s dystonia. He also happened to have social anxiety and he started to notice improvements in his anxiety and tremors within the first 2 weeks. At the end of 4 months of being on the pyroluria protocol, he shared this:

I think it is, at this point, safe to say that the pyroluria treatment [120mg vitamin B6 and  60mg zinc) is, at least in my case, the cure for pyroluria and dystonia. 90%+ of my symptoms have disappeared, I am working extensively on repertoire and I am thinking about getting back into performing.

He says his experience was “akin to rebirth as a musician and also as a person.” How wonderful is that to read. Jay’s musician’s dystonia resolved and so did his social anxiety.

The outcome for the teen and Jay were similar and yet the approaches used were seemingly very different. This isn’t actually the case since zinc and vitamin B6 are co-factors that are needed to make GABA and serotonin.

Do you experience tremors, or have you been diagnosed with essential tremor or dystonia (or know someone who has)? And have you considered a nutritional approach?

Do share if you’ve seen success with either of the above approaches, and also experienced reduced anxiety or felt more social?

Why social anxiety, introversion and loneliness can be lethal and a simple nutritional solution

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trudy scott mindshare

It was an honor to be selected as one of fifteen participants for The Future of Health presentations at Mindshare in August 2019. I presented this to my peers in the integrative health and nutrition space but it’s applicable to everyone and I’d like to share it with you today.

Here is my video presentation: Why social anxiety, introversion and loneliness can be lethal and a simple nutritional solution  (click below to watch the video)

Here are some additional reading resources on much of what I cover in my 5 minute presentation:

This is the the amazing and inspiring group of speakers who I shared the stage with:

  • Amie Apigan – Why Attachment is the New Field of Medicine
  • Lauryn Lax – Eating Healthy is Killing You
  • Jess Sherman – Raising Resilient Kids in a Complex World: Will we Rise to the Challenge
  • Terry Wahls – Creating an Epidemic of Health – My Radical Path
  • Susanne Bennett – The Kimchi Revolution: How an Ancient Food Can Transform the Future of Health
  • Razi Berry – Love is Medicine
  • Kaylea Boutwell – I’ve Got Your Back: Novel Pain Therapies Transforming Spinal Care Outcomes
  • Dana Cohen – Hydration: 8 Glasses a Day is not the Way!
  • Elisa Song – Breathing Life into Your Kids
  • Joel Sprechman – Creating 1M Super Poopers & Evolving Crohn’s Colitis
  • Katy Kimball – My Plan to Empty Your Waiting Rooms (the Real Root Cause of Poor Health)
  • Heather Paulson – Why Choose? Using the Best of Both Worlds to Experience Health with Cancer
  • James Maskell – Group Visits: How Functional Medicine Reaches the Vulnerable
  • Mehgan Walker – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Chronic Disease: Why Chasing Happiness is Making us Sick

(do let me know if you’d like me to share any of these presentations in the follow-up blog)

mindshare speakers
Mindshare 2019 green room
Here are some of us in the backstage “green room” and getting ready to go on stage!

We each had a maximum of 5 minutes to present and were not allowed slides or notes. The last time I had memorized my talks and had them timed was 15 years ago when I was in Toastmasters. Before that it was when I was in school. I wasn’t even sure if I could do it when I entered my proposal to speak. When practicing the day before I was still unsure I could manage. Because of my Lyme disease, my memory and word recall isn’t as great as it used to be.

If you pay close attention and you’ll notice the spot where I almost freeze – everything just went out of my head! I simply breathed in calmly, made an attempt to look like I had paused and was fortunate that most of the ending came back to me! Whew!

trudy scott mindshare 2019

 

I’d love to hear what you think of my message and if it resonates with you or a loved one. Feel free to share your pyroluria score and how you score on the introvert questionnaire.

Please also share if you’ve seen the benefits of no social anxiety, introversion and/or loneliness (or much less) when on the pyroluria protocol.

Increased sociability improves vagus nerve function: the role of social anxiety, pyroluria and low zinc

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increased sociability and vagus nerve

With the objective of taking a deeper dive into some of the favorite topics of the recent Anxiety Summit: Gut-Brain Axis, today’s blog is about the vagus nerve since Dr. Navaz Habib’s interview, Vagus Nerve Activation to Reduce Anxiety, was voted one of the favorites. I’m focusing on one tool that improves vagus nerve function that we didn’t have time to get into in great detail – and that is how increased sociability helps.  It’s all good and well to recommend getting out and hanging out with more people but if you have the social anxiety condition called pyroluria it’s really challenging, hard work and very stressful. Added stress makes pyroluria worse so it becomes a vicious cycle.

Let’s start with the research that supports the connection between the vagus nerve and increased anxiety and mood problems.  In the interview with Dr Navaz, we discussed this paper: Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain–Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders which states that “vagus nerve stimulation is a promising add-on treatment for treatment-refractory depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and inflammatory bowel disease” and how stimulation of vagal fibers that go from the gut to the brain (afferent fibers) influences neurotransmitter production and “play crucial roles in major psychiatric conditions, such as mood and anxiety disorders.”  The gut bacteria play a major role too, “partly by affecting the activity of the vagus nerve.”

In our interview we end with very practical ways to activate your vagus nerve

  • Deep breathing exercises (mentioned in the above paper, together with yoga and meditation) and cold showers (which makes you breathe harder)
  • Gargling and using the gag reflex
  • Humming, chanting and singing (I used these approaches for my vagus nerve issue – more here on that)
  • Auricular acupuncture (which is also very effective for addictions)
  • And finally, social interaction or increased sociability, which I want to cover today

The research on the vagus nerve and being more social

Let’s look at the research on the vagus nerve or vagal tone and being more social.  This paper, Upward spirals of the heart: autonomic flexibility, as indexed by vagal tone, reciprocally and prospectively predicts positive emotions and social connectedness, reports that that vagal tone and connectedness or being more social is a two-way street i.e. it’s reciprocal

  • “…increases in connectedness and positive emotions predicted increases in vagal tone” and
  • “Adults who possessed higher initial levels of vagal tone increased in connectedness and positive emotions more rapidly than others”

In summary, the more social and happy you are, the healthier your vagus nerve is and a healthier vagus nerve leads to feeling more connected and happy.

This study was done with adults in a community-dwelling setting over 9 weeks: “adults were asked to monitor and report their positive emotions and the degree to which they felt socially connected each day.”

Address pyroluria in those who have social anxiety

Pyroluria, the social anxiety condition, was not part of the study because it’s under-recognized as a factor in anxiety.  I’d like to propose that we address pyroluria in those who have social anxiety in order to further improve social connectedness and their vagus nerve function.

Many folks with pyroluria put on a brave face in social settings and even “extrovert” which is extremely stressful. The added stress makes pyroluria worse (zinc and vitamin B6 are dumped in much higher amounts) so it becomes a vicious cycle.

Others, who are not willing to even show up because of their severe social anxiety, are not getting that social interaction and connectedness that is so crucial for improved vagus nerve function and better overall health.

Here is the pyroluria questionnaire and the pyroluria/introvert connection.

Connecting the dots further we have

By addressing the social anxiety called pyroluria with a foundation of zinc and vitamin B6, we can increase sociability and thereby improve vagus nerve function.

UPDATE 5/7/2020:

Social isolation during the coronavirus pandemic – other vagus nerve exercises

This blog is very applicable now during the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve made an update because I feel we need to start thinking about the longer-term adverse impacts of social isolation and work on other ways to improve vagus nerve function during isolation or quarantine.

This can include any or all of the ways mentioned above: deep breathing exercises, yoga, meditation, cold showers, gargling/gag reflex, humming/chanting/singing and/or auricular acupuncture.

Do you find you have better vagus nerve function when you are more sociable? What of these vagus nerve exercises have you been doing and found helpful during isolation? Do you have any other favorite approaches like using essential oils or anything else? You’ll find some great resources on improving vagus nerve function in the upcoming Mind, Body & The Vagus Nerve Connection Summit, airing online June 15 – 21, 2020.

Vagus nerve stimulation to treat respiratory symptoms associated with COVID-19

This paper reports benefits in 2 patients with coronavirus – Use of non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation to treat respiratory symptoms associated with COVID-19: A theoretical hypothesis and early clinical experience

  • Both patients reported clinically meaningful benefits from nVNS therapy [non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation].
  • In Case 1, the patient used nVNS to expedite symptomatic recovery at home after hospital discharge and was able to discontinue use of opioid and cough suppressant medications.
  • In Case 2, the patient experienced immediate and consistent relief from symptoms of chest tightness and shortness of breath, as well as an improved ability to clear his lungs.

The authors also share that “vagus nerve stimulation has been demonstrated to block production of cytokines in sepsis and other medical conditions.”

With this virus being novel and with everyone learning we are still appreciative of small case reports like this and hope to see bigger studies done. Until then there is other evidence of the overall importance of the vagus nerve in helping to regulate lung infection and immunity.

The nVNS therapy mentioned in the COVID-19 paper is an external device that delivers “a proprietary signal through the skin to either the right or the left branches of the vagus nerve in the neck.” It’s not something I’ve used personally or had clients use so please share if you’ve had success with this device or a similar device.

Loving social isolation and thriving during coronavirus

On the flip side we also need to consider that there are some individuals who are loving social isolation and thriving emotionally. I share some feedback from folks in my community:

  • Elissa: “As an introvert, my mental health has never been better ☺️. Loving isolation life.”
  • Drew: “Loving it in many ways. Dreading the hedonism starting up again…”
  • Tiffany: “My anxiety levels have decreased and I have decreased my anxiety meds! I think it’s because the demand to produce has decreased. I can actually move at my own speed in this world. I’m fortunate, though. My heart goes out to those people in medical fields. I really miss some things, like time with my dad, but we have made some adjustments, like driveway picnics.”
  • Katie: “I was praying for relief from the busyness. Definitely didn’t have this in mind and my heart hurts for those who are impacted. It has been a beautiful time of rest and restoration for my body and soul.”
  • Wendy: “My life is usually slow paced and introverted. Now it’s more so and I’m finding the less I do in a day, the better I sleep. I’m actually dreading getting back to “normal” with all the pressures put on us by extroverts. Yes I have sympathy for people suffering mentally by isolation, but for the first time I feel like my type of lifestyle is socially acceptable. I’m tired of life expectations being dictated by the extrovert half of the population.”

I appreciate these folks for sharing their valuable perspectives about thriving in these times. It reinforces how unique we all are.

If you’re struggling with social isolation…

  • How are you feeling and what are you most looking forward to doing once social isolation recommendations are relaxed?
  • I’m guessing you don’t have pyroluria but please share if you do?

If you are thriving in social isolation…

  • Would you consider yourself an introvert /a contented introvert?
  • Have you got pyroluria and has addressing it nutritionally in the past allowed you to be more sociable or at least less anxious when you are in crowds?
  • How are you feeling during social isolation and what do you love the most right now?
  • What are you not looking forward to once social isolation recommendations are relaxed?
  • And how do you plan to go back to the old “normal” or don’t you?

Please comment below and let us know where you are with social isolation during this pandemic – struggling or thriving? And what vagus nerve exercises are you using right now? Have you used an external device with success?

Buddy Bench for introverted adults with social anxiety, shyness and feelings of overwhelm?

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buddy-bench

Buddy Benches or Friendship Benches are being used in many countries around the world in schools to help children who feel lonely or are shy or anxious. I propose we do something similar for introverted adults with social anxiety, shyness and feelings of overwhelm or intimidation when they attend conferences.

This BBC article, How ‘Buddy Benches’ are making playtime less lonely shares this about how they are helping children fit in more:

The school playground can be a lonely place for a child if they haven’t got anyone to play with. But a special type of bench is helping pupils make friends.

The idea is simple – if a child feels lonely, they can go to the bench as a signal that they need someone to play with. Another child will see them, go and talk to them and include them in their games.

Also from the BBC article, we learn that Buddy Bench Ireland is taking it a step further and trying to do something different with them, using the bench to engender empathy and as

a reminder for children of things like communication, mutual support and opening up about feelings

Other objectives of these Buddy Benches in schools is:

  • reducing social isolation
  • improving mental wellbeing
  • end bullying

I propose we take these Buddy Benches – that work so well with children – to another level and set them up at conferences for adults too. I believe they could work very well for introverts (who make up around 50% of the population) with social anxiety and/or anyone feeling overwhelmed and/or intimidated and/or shy.

I get kickback when I talk about introverts feeling socially anxious but it’s common as you can see by these comments from introverted individuals

  • It isn’t always a comfortable place to be when I must be in a crowd.
  • The hardest aspect of living life as in introvert is we all live in an extroverted world. School pushes kids to do group projects, that are just awkward and when you don’t do well in it you’re doing something wrong or something is wrong with you. The moment I step out of the door I am no longer me, I am a character that has to put on a show in order to succeed in the work place.
  • Sometimes I can communicate with friends well and sometimes I fake it really badly. I always wonder if people can see past my half smile and fake laugh. It’s painful to be honest. But there are times when I don’t mind so much.

One big question is this: would adults use one or would they feel more self-conscious than children? Would they worry more about what others will think if they sit down at an empty bench waiting for someone to join them, essentially saying “I’m shy” or “I’m anxious” or “I’m an introvert” or “I feel intimidated”?

In the BBC article they address this stigma and worry aspect:

But do children actually use the bench? And are they worried about how it makes them look?

“They don’t see it as stigmatised,” says Sinead McGilloway, director of the Centre for Mental Health and Community Research at Maynooth University, who led a study of 117 pupils at three schools which have benches.

Forty per cent of the children she questioned said they had used the bench, and 90% said if they saw someone else sitting on it they would talk to them.

I have these questions for you about using a Buddy Bench at a business or health conference:

1) How likely are you to use a Buddy Bench as an adult diagnosed with social anxiety and/or know you have the social anxiety condition called pyroluria and you’re working to address your symptoms with nutrients but are not quite there yet.

2) How likely are you to use a Buddy Bench as an adult who identifies with being an introvert and are easily overwhelmed at the networking and mingling aspects that comes when you attend a conference?

3) How likely are you to use a Buddy Bench as an adult who feels shy and/or easily overwhelmed and/or intimidated in new settings with large groups of people you don’t know?

4) How likely are you to be the “Big Buddy” (I just made this term up because it makes me think of Big Brother or Big Sister) and go up to someone sitting on a designated Buddy Bench in order to offer moral support, conversation, connection, encouragement and kindness?

Of course, I love the idea of these Buddy Benches and would have used one for support and connection in the past. I have pyroluria and used to have dreadful social anxiety (and considered myself an introvert). But now that I’m on the pyroluria protocol I feel like a social butterfly and I am very relaxed at big group events. I would definitely go and buddy-up with someone looking for support.

And let’s not forget that Buddy Benches are just one part of the solution – for both children and adults – and we don’t want to forget food, nutrients and functional medicine:

  • While you’re figuring out the role of diet, gut health, adrenal/thyroid health, toxin exposure etc, a good place to start is to assess for and address low GABA and low serotonin with the amino acids GABA and tryptophan. This  provides quick nutritional support for worry, fear, anxiety, tension, overwhelm, lack of confidence and feelings of intimidation.
  • My next step would be to assess for and address pyroluria with zinc and B6 (and other key nutrients) to help ease and often eliminate the social anxiety completely.  Believe it or not, there is a strong connection between pyroluria and introversion and many of my clients and folks in my community no longer feel introverted when they address their pyroluria. I write about this in another blog: Am I an anxious introvert because of low zinc and vitamin B6? 

Feel free to comment and let us know what you think about Buddy Benches for adults. Do you have other ideas as to where these adult Buddy Benches could be used?

Let us know if you’ve seen these Buddy Benches work successfully with children and what ideas we could take away to get similar results for adults using them.

And do share if a nutritional approach or if addressing pyroluria has eased your social anxiety, and maybe got you wondering if you are an introvert after all.

Feel free to post your questions too.