Why a plastic pebble will be 2018’s stress biggest buster
Looking back, 2017 was the year of gut health; 2018, however, is set to be the year that we’re all talking about the vagus nerve — the latest scientific weapon in the battle against stress.
no, i had no idea where or what it was either, until i ended up on a therapist’s couch, hooked up to a pebble-shaped vibrating device.
Despite the gynaecological overtones, the vagus is not where you might think, but winds around the body like a vagabond — hence its name.
it starts in the brain stem and meanders close to the left ear, before passing through the back of the throat, via the heart, lungs and diaphragm and then branching out like tree roots in the gut.
As part of our autonomic nervous system (controlling the things that the body does automatically), it monitors information from our senses to gauge threat levels — increasing heart rate and blood pressure when we’re under stress, and relaxing them when it thinks the threat has passed.
This long-overlooked nerve is our stress response superhighway, and unsurprisingly, for most of us of us, it’s all snarled up.
As a 49-year-old full-time working mother and the family breadwinner, i’m a walking cliche — or more accurately a running one.
Leaving the office late, i arrive panting and red-faced at the Upper Wimpole Street clinic of Stefan Chmelik, an integrated healthcare physician and doctor of Chinese medicine, who has treated the likes of gwyneth Paltrow and Elle Macpherson.
He is the man who is going to set my vagus nerve back on track.
He measures my heart rate and establishes, rather unnecessarily perhaps, that i have arrived in fight or mode — rapid breathing, muscles firing, shoulders around my ears and my gut in a knot.
i am instructed to lie on the couch and place the pebble, about the size of a digestive biscuit, on my breastbone.
Here, the vagus nerve is close to the surface and easily stimulated by the low-frequency sound waves which the device, called the Sensate, emits. i can tuck the Sensate down my top or place it over my clothes.
STEFAn hands me a pair of headphones, and for the next ten minutes i lie with my eyes closed as relaxing music plays and the pebble pulses and thrums like a bass speaker.
instantly, i feel the low-level sound waves spreading out through my chest and belly — as if i’d swallowed an electric toothbrush. it’s a strong but pleasant sensation and i can adjust the intensity and volume via my smartphone.
The pulsations combined with the music make it impossible to become too bound up in my racing thoughts and they soon quieten.
Stefan tells me that the Sensate has replaced his 45year meditation practice. ‘i’m as prone to short-cuts as anyone,’ he admits.
Within minutes, i’m yawning, a sign that my relaxation response is kicking in. After ten minutes, i feel as rejuvenated as after a long hot bath. What i’ve just experienced is ‘vagal toning,’ a term that you’ll be hearing more and more.
‘When the vagus nerve is activated, it puts the brakes on the stress response, which is soothing,’ explains Dr Magdalena Bak Maier, a neuroscientist and coach specialising in the mindbody connection.
i can certainly vouch for that in my experience with the Sensate.
‘High vagal tone means a fast, robust response to stress,’ she explains. it’s a bit like having toned muscles. When we have low vagal tone, on the other hand, our vagus is low on stress-busting power, so we stay in a state of fear or anxiety.
The constant nature of modern stress (emails, deadlines, alerts) means that, for most of us, the poor vagus never gets a chance to tell our organs to ‘slow down, everything is fine’.
We try to tell ourselves it’s only email, but the vagus nerve isn’t looped in to our conscious mind.
it is a highly primitive part of the nervous system, our ‘reptile brain’, and its response is automatic — the body releases stress hormones, whether we like it or not.
The only option is direct action on the vagus nerve itself. ‘You need to put the body at ease — forget about the mind,’ explains Dr Bak Maier.
‘For stressed people wanting to feel better, vagus nerve stimulation techniques (see above) work by putting the body at ease, decreasing the heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate and increasing digestion.’
Vagal toning acts like a paceflight
maker, dialling down our overtaxed stress response and giving our under-used ‘rest and digest’ mode the chance to kick in. So the sound waves I felt from the Sensate sent calming signals directly to my vagus nerve, which then passed the message on to the other major organs that all was well.
Just ten minutes a day could make a dramatic difference to my stress levels, claims Stefan.
Stefan’s company, BioSelf Technology, will bring this new clip-on wearable to market early next year, priced at £149.
It will feature different programmes depending on whether you need to feel more focused ahead of a meeting (stress stops us thinking clearly) or to help you nod off at night. Early trials are promising, although clinical ones have not yet been completed.
More than 100 volunteers who tried the device for ten minutes a day over six weeks showed an 86 per cent increase in stress resiliency (measured by their heart rate variability — the heart beats faster when we’re stressed.) ‘Many of them used it for longer because they really liked the way it made them feel,’ he says.
Stefan has been using vagal toning in his clinic for five years, alongside other therapies such as psychotherapy, nutrition therapy and physiotherapy, to treat all manner of conditions with a mind-body connection — migraines, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and even obesity.
It’s widely used in Scandinavia, where it’s called vibroacoustic therapy. ‘The results have been so good, we’re now using it on all our patients,’ says Stefan.
‘It has enabled us to speed up the recovery process in people with chronic complex issues such as stress and anxiety, some of whom previously hadn’t responded to treatment.
‘What’s promising about the vagus nerve,’ he adds, ‘is that it provides a genuine explanation for some conditions, such as migraine, IBS and anxiety, that are often dismissed as all in the mind.’
ThE U.S. military used vagal toning with returning Iraqi soldiers suffering from PTSD — and reported a 97 per cent reduction in anxiety rates, he says.
It could well make chronically stressed people like me less prone to modern life’s major diseases. ‘The stress response creates inflammation in the body,’ says Stefan.
‘Most of the modern chronic preventable illnesses, such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes, at their root have poor stress hormone regulation, leading to inflammation.’
Stress hormones also cause premature ageing, he cautions. ‘It’s burning the candle at both ends.’
What I like about the Sensate as a relaxation tool is that it’s non-verbal. Not everyone finds meditation apps that tell you to count your breath or watch your thoughts passing like clouds helpful. In fact, they can even make you feel more anxious.
With the Sensate, there’s no running commentary, but also because of the physical sensations, no real room to ruminate.
So, while I wait for the device to go on sale, is there anything else I can do to tend to my vagus, especially as Christmas, one of the most stressful times of the year, approaches?
Yes, says Stefan. ‘Anything that conveys low-frequency sound waves into the throat or chest will increase vagal tone and relax you.’ The practices he mentions (see box) such as ‘omming’, gargling, humming, singing and deep breathing might have been dismissed as rather fringe, were science not validating the effects of vagal stimulation.
After my session on the Sensate, I try to slot in some vagal toning every day. It’s definitely making me more relaxed and aware of just how much stress is in my body.
I have been full-belly omming after my morning yoga practice — even getting my children to join in — and singing to myself when I’m in the car.
Which song do I find myself singing the most? My twist on the Elvis Presley classic, Viva The Vagus, of course.