Our nervous system is listening intently – to us and the world around us. We are constantly picking up signals through the senses and our viscera – triggering gut instinct and sparking an intuitive sense. We need to start listening.
Often our minds over-rule these gut instincts or visceral messages – our nervous system is continually tuning into our inner and outer environment picking up signs of safety and danger. Sometimes we cannot put our finger on why we feel uneasy… sometimes we overrule a bodily message or sensation in the body that might indicate an illness or a perceived danger on a dark street.
Our Vagus Nerve picks up information from the body and our senses. The vagus nreve is 90% afferent – meaning that it picks up information from the body and viscera and takes it to the brain. Through the vagus nerve, we can learn to feel our way through life. Now, we know how much the mind tends to overrule these bodily sensations – so it is time to re-train ourselves to listen on a different level.
Vagus Nerve Recap
Known as the Wandering Nerve or Cranial Nerve 10 – the Vagus Nerve starts in the brain stem and then travels down the front of the spine connecting to organs (heart/lungs/ stomach) the viscera and all the way down to the pelvic floor – on it’s journey it connects to the nerves of the face and throat.
On Connection
The Vagus Nerve helps us remember our interconnectedness. Within us the vagus nerve is part of an interplay of nerves that helps us tune into our surroundings – beyond that, there is an interplay between our nervous system and the nervous systems of others.
Our interpretation of body language is the work of the vagus nerve – and beyond that, our body language will often mirror others. When we feel safe and present – we will feel connected.
When we look into the eyes of another – we might pick up on a sadness – that creates a feeling of empathy, we might tilt our head, soften our eyes – mirroring the other person. If we encounter a genuine smiling face, we will feel safe and receptive. But if we see something beyond a smile, something that is insincere – our nervous system will pick up on this too.
When we mirror someone – we are re-inforcing that cue – and we can create a sense of connection and empathy. So Stephen Porges, the pioneer of Vagus Nerve awareness and Poly-Vagal Theory, calls the vagus nerve ‘the caretaker nerve’ – it can tune us into a deeper sense of compassion and interconnectedness.
As part of this nerve matrix – the vagus nerve connects to Cranial nerve 7 (which connects to the stapedius in the ear) and we start to distinguish better between voices and background noise. And, again we can mirror with the voice – if we hear a soothing, melodic voice it will not only signal safety, but will often induce a similar tone in us, creating calm, empathy or connection. The opposite is obviously true – if someone speaks in an aggressive way, we will often hear that in our own voices too. This is co-regulation. The vagus nerve helps us to co-regulate and self-regulate.
You can check out our blog onInteroception – Mindfulness in the Body– but we can also look at neuroception which is our bodies internal surveillance system – and although this is beyond our conscious control, we can train ourselves to tune into subtleties with attention training. Tuning into subtlety helps us down-regulate our habitual stress responses and go beyond our default mode.
Next week in part 2 of our blog series on the Vagus Nerve, Neuroception and Yoga – we will look at our body’s safety surveillance system in more detail and then in week 3, we’ll look at the yogic limbs of pratyahara and dharana to help us retrain, re-focus and create clarity and presence.