How to Reset Your Vagus Nerve - This Will Change Your Life! I Dr. William Li

Did you know that you have a nerve that plays a major role in how you feel daytoday? This nerve plays a central role in how you respond to stress, how you digest food, how your heart functions, and even how inflammation is regulated. It's called your vagus nerve, and it starts in your brain, travels down your neck into your chest, and then into your abdomen. About 80% of the signals carried by the vagus nerve are actually going from your body up to your brain, not the other way around. And what happens when your vagus nerve is disrupted? Well, it's going to lead to fatigue. And with the inflammation, it can lead to chronic diseases as well. I'm going to show you some simple science-based ways that you can use to support your vag nerve in your daily life. In this video, I'm going to walk you through five surprising things that you probably didn't know about your Vegas nerve. And then I'm going to show you

some simple science-based ways that you can use to support your vag nerve in your daily life. You ready? Let's go. Fact number one, your vag nerve is texting your organs. Now, this is going to surprise most people because most people think of our brain as sending signals to the body. Okay? Those signals being sent like text messages, SMS. Your brain tells your heart what to do. It tells your gut what to do. But guess what? The text messaging signals also go the other way. Not just from the brain to the rest of your body, but from body back to your brain. And the vagus nerve is the channel by which your body texts your brain. In fact, about 80% of the signals carried by the vagus nerve are actually going from your body up to your brain, not the other way around. 20% from the brain, 80% going up from the body to the brain. And these messages are constantly updating your brain about what's happening inside you. How's your digestion going? Is there any inflammation? How are your heart and lungs functioning? And how's your microbiome doing? How are those signals coming along? So your brain's like a command center receiving all this data, this information in real time. And when the signals are off, your brain has got to be making decisions based on information. Whether it's complete information or inaccurate information, it's going to actually be making decisions. And that's why you want to actually get the correct signals. With those correct signals from your organs up your vagus nerve to your brain, your brain is going to be able to actually course correct, adjust, and fine-tune how the rest of your body actually functions. All right? And guess what? you're not even going to be aware that this is happening. So, the vagus nerve is a communication system, but it's also a control system that your brain uses uh

and receives information from. Fact number two, your vag nerve helps to control inflammation. Now, we know that brief inflammation, just a little bit of inflammation, can be beneficial, like if you get wounds, uh cleans up all the contamination, uh in an area that's been injured, but then the inflammation goes away. chronic inflammation which doesn't go away. Well, that's actually becoming dangerous. And what happens is that your brain can send signals down your vagus nerve to control how much inflammation your body produces. This inflammation control happens to a pathway known as the choneric anti-inflammatory pathway. All right? And when this cononeric anti-inflammatory pathway is activated by your brain down to the rest of your body, your vagus nerve releases a chemical signal called acetylcholine that interacts with your immune system, including your inflammatory cells to turn them down. And by the way, think about that as a volume control switch, right? Your vagus nerve releases acetylcholine. It turns on inflammation just like a volume control switch. Less noise, less inflammation. So instead of allowing inflammation to run in check, your brain can run this instructions down through your vagus nerve in order to be able to turn down and keep inflammation and adjust inflammation in balance just to what your body needs, not more than that. This is super important because you need some inflammation to be able to fight infections or to heal a wound. But you don't want too much inflammation. We normally think about the gut producing uh short- chain fatty acids through the gut microbiome to lower inflammation. But here's how your brain can actually control inflammation through that vagus nerve. So vag nerve so important for regulating how your body responds to inflammation and transferring signals back and forth from your gut and your organs to the rest of your body and vice versa. And so you think about it, if the vagus nerve system isn't working well, then inflammation is going to stay elevated longer than it needs to and those organ signals are not going to be getting to your brain in the right way. Now, what happens when your vag nerve is disrupted? Well, it's going to lead to fatigue and with the inflammation, it can lead to chronic diseases as well. Fact number three, your vag nerve

fine-tunes your heart rate. You might be surprised by that, right? Most of us think about our heart beating like a metronome. Boom, boom, steady, regular, keeping perfect time all the time. But guess what? That's not how a healthy heart actually works. It's not a metronome. In reality, your heart rate can constantly changes its rate from one beat to the next. And that is something you may have heard about called heart rate variability or HRV. Normal heart has variation in its rate that reflects how adaptable and how resilient your body and your heart actually is, right? It's got to be able to change uh switch it up. So, think about a boxer in the ring moving around. It makes it harder for the opponent to kind of strike you. This heart rate variability actually is a measure of your resilience of your health system. And the reason it's resilient is because your body means that it can actually adjust the heart rate whenever it needs to and recover just as quickly. Again, think about that boxer in the ring bouncing up and down, moving to the left, moving to the right, hard to strike, and really being able to adapt to whatever the opponent uh is actually doing. That's exactly what heart rate variability actually helps reflect how our body is able to uh adapt. The higher the heart rate variability, the better able your body is going to be able to respond to stress and then return to a calm balanced state. That's high heart rate variability. But what happens when you have low variability? Low HRV means your system is more rigid, less able to respond and less able to recover quickly back to your baseline. Does that make sense? So HRV really importantly reflects how resilient your body is as a healthy state and the vag nerve plays a major role in how well your heart is able to handle and recover from stress. And don't forget HRV is a biomarker for health. Fact number four, your vag nerve is responsible for your gut brain connection. And you've probably heard about the gut brain connection before.

Your gut's constantly sending signals up to your brain and that's going through the vagus nerve. And that information from your gut can influence your mood, your stress response, and your overall mental health state. Happiness, depression, exhilaration, excitement, calm. How does it do this? Well, inside your gut, there's 39 trillion healthy bacteria. This is the gut microbiome. And the gut microbiome are responsible for many of these signals that go up and influence your brain. Now when these microbes, the microbiome, healthy bacteria digest the food that you eat, especially prebiotics like polyphenols uh or fiber from uh plant-based foods. The healthy bacteria digesting these polyphenols and dietary fiber, they are producing compounds called shortchain fatty acids, SCFA. Sometimes we call them scaffas. And there are three main ones, acetate, propionate, and butyrate. And these short fatty acids that get released from the bacteria, guess what? They are detected by specialized cells lining the gut. So, this all makes sense, right? You're feeding the gut bacteria, making short- chain fatty acids that are floating around. And there's cells in the lining of your gut that detect when those free short- chain fatty acids are around. And when they're round, okay, and they activate the cells lining of the gut, those sensory fibers in the gut send a signal up the vagus nerve which goes right up to your brain. The signals go right to the brain stem, which is really the stem, if you think about like a rose, the stem uh the rose is the brain. The stem is the brain stem. All right? And that's basically a receiving station that relays the information to the brain areas. What are the brain areas that the vagus nerve communicates with? Well, the hypothalamus is one area. The amygdala is another area and the prefrontal cortex is another area. What are all these complicated, hard to remember and hard to pronounce parts of the brain? Well, they regulate stress in emotion. So, the vagus nervous send signals up into your brain to those areas that help to control stress, how you respond to stress and emotion. So that's when you say gut brain uh you got a gut feeling that's really what we're talking about. It triggers uh your brain can affect your mood. Now remember I told you earlier that 80% of the signals that traffic along the vagus nerve actually going from your gut to your brain. Only 20% start from the brain and go down to your gut. And that means whatever is happening in your gut directly influences how you feel. Your mood, your stress level, your overall sense of mental balance. That's so important. We're beginning to realize your gut microbiome is in that gut brain axis. And by the way, what about the other 20% of signals that go from the brain down to the gut through the vagus nerves? Well, guess what? Those 20% signals from the brain to the gut, they're helping to regulate digestion, your gut motility, squeezing of their gut, okay? Keeping food moving down the tube and also just in general how well your GI, your gastrointestinal system functions. So the Vegas nerve is coordinating this two-way conversation, a lot of it from the gut up to the brain affecting your mood and on the other way down from the brain down to your gut controlling how

well your gastrointestinal system actually functions. What this means is your gut does a lot more than just digest food. It's texting messages to your brain that can affect how you feel. Fact number five, your vag nerve is linked to your social well-being. We normally think about social well-being as something that's more emotional or psychological, but there's also a biological basis to it. And your vag nerve actually connects this because it helps your body, your vag nerve helps your body respond to a hormone called oxytocin. Oxytocin is called the social hormone. This is the hormone that's released in the brain during positive social interactions. Like when you meet a friend at the airport or when you're engaged in a great conversation and you feel really good or you're sharing an intimate moment with somebody you trust. Oxytocin is that hormone that's processed in the brain regions that regulate both your emotions and your autonomic parasympathetic function. All right. Now, what does that mean? Is that your brain sends a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine down the vagus nerve which then triggers changes in the rest of your body. All right. When you actually have oxytocin uh and you get this chain reaction going, your vagus nerve, your heart rate slows, your muscle tone relaxes, and your anxiety decreases. Just like when you actually feel happy and you see somebody you know or you're having good positive social interactions, your body or mind enter a more chilled and receptive state and that basically supports social engagement. So when you are enjoying a social interaction, your body is actively responding to it through your vag nerve. Now most people don't realize how much control the nervous system has over things like stress, inflammation, and digestion. But if you want to understand how to actually use that to your advantage, subscribe to my channel

because this is exactly the kind of thing that I focus on here. All right. Now that you understand how the vagus nerve works and how it connects your brain, your gut, and your immune system and your heart together, the next question is, what can you do to actually support the vagus nerve? The good news is that there are simple science-based ways to engage the Vegas nerve using signals that your body already understands. And the ones that I'm going to talk about, cold exposure, breathing, and the food that you eat. But in real life, a lot of people find it hard to do these things consistently, especially when there's ongoing stress. And that's where a more targeted approach can be helpful. One way is using non-invasive veagal nerve stimulation. And this involves applying a gentle signal to the vagus nerve externally, typically along the neck to activate that vagus nerve pathway that we've been talking about, the ones that help to regulate stress, lower inflammation, and help recovery. Devices like Pulto are designed to do exactly this kind of stimulation. and it's a really convenient way to give your body the signal it needs along that vag nerve. It's not a replacement for things like good sleep, good nutrition, and physical activity and movement. But if you're looking for a more consistent way to engage your vag nerve, this is something worth considering. And it can be especially useful if you're dealing with ongoing stress, difficulty winding down, or just want a more reliable way to support your nervous system. You can learn more about Pulsetto in the link in

the description of this video. Now, let's go back to other ways you can engage your vag nerve. The first action I want to talk about that can engage your vag nerve is splashing your face with cold water. When cold water hits your face, especially around your eyes, your forehead, and your cheeks, think about in the morning going to a sink, turning on the cold water, and splashing. All right, that stimulates branches of a nerve called the trigeminal nerve on your face and that immediately sends signals to your brain stem and that activates your vagus nerve. Actually triggers something called the diving reflex. What's a diving reflex? It's a primitive survival reflex that actually was developed to protect your brain and your heart if you ever fell into cold water like in a like a super cold river or lake. Right? Like these near drowning effects. You get the diving reflex turned automatically on. What does it do? It immediately slows your heart rate down through your vagus nerve and then your body shifts into a calmer, more relaxed state. So, let me tell you how you actually do this in real life to be able to use cold water splash to turn on your stimulate your vag nerve. So go to a sink, turn on the cold water, like not super ice cold, but cold. And then splash your face so that the water reaches your eyes, your cheeks, and your forehead. You want your forehead covered. Just do it two or three times. All right? Each splash should last about a second or so, right? So this like this enough for your skin to feel cold and that's enough to activate the trigeminal nerve and trigger the diving reflex. Now, practically, what do you what does this actually do? Well, it helps you feel calmer, slows your heart rate down, allows you to be more focused, and it helps you be more steady. And this can be especially useful at the start of the day before you have something really important to do, like if you got a work presentation or a marriage proposal. Calm yourself down with the diving reflex by splashing cold water on your face. Action number two, slow breathing exercises before you sleep. So, I'm going to tell you how this works. You can actually use your vag nerve in order

to get better sleep when you slow your breathing, specifically when you make your exhalation, your blowout, longer than your inhale. So exhale out slowly, And what's happening when you're doing this is you're activating sensors in your lung that detect stretch when you're breathing in. And those sensors send signal through the vagus nerve to your brain. And then during a slow steady exhale, the vagus nerve sends the signals back to the heart, slowing it down and helping your body relax. So the longer you keep doing this slow exhale, the calmer you're going to feel, right? So as a result, your heart rate slows, your body relaxes, your nervous system shifts into a state that actually helps support sleep. So this is a great way to actually get a good night's sleep. Here's how you do it. Lay down in your bed. Turn off the lights. Close your eyes. All right. Breathe in slowly through your nose about 4 seconds. Stretch receptors going up. Go sending a message to your brain. All right. Then breathe out for about 6 to 8 seconds. And as you do this, your brain's sending signals down to the vagus nerve, down to your heart, slowing the heart rate down and chilling you out. You do this for a few minutes. It's going to help you fall asleep more easily. I guarantee you. And it's going to improve the quality of your sleep. And while you're sleeping, all these repair processes happening at

the cellular level, with the immune level, and at the brain level. Action number three, eat foods that feed your gut microbiome because you can activate your vagus nerve by what you eat. Here's how you do it. When you eat plant-based foods that are rich in polyphenols, and dietary fibers, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, healthy oils like extravirgin olive oil, your gut microbes break these down into compounds called shortchain fatty acids or scaffas. The fatty acids are acetate, propriionate, and butyrate. And guess what? They activate sensors in your gut that then go and activate the vagus nerve and start signal sending signals right up to your brain. as I told you before. And then those signals in your brain activate your brain to regulate your stress response and your mood. And the same signals also tell the vagus nerve to work on digestion as well. So when you feed your gut microbiome well and it signals up to your brain, your brain will actually start to regulate your stress responses. And over time, eating plant-based foods supports a calmer, more resilient state of mind. So, if you ever talked to somebody who's really changed their diet from ultrarocessed foods, you know, heavy meat, red meat, protein to a plant-based uh diet, doesn't have to be completely plant-based, but largely plant-based. They'll tell you, "Man, I actually feel a lot better after a couple of weeks. " This is partly why activating your vag nerve. So, your vag nerve is a super powerful system that can be influenced through your diet as well as your breathing as well as cold water. and it can help improve your quality of life, your calmness, and your overall health. If you want to understand how to use your Vegas nerve and other tools to improve your health, subscribe to my channel because this is where I bring you new ways that you can actually do in your own home every day to optimize your health and healing. See you in the next video. Hey, if you like that video, then you're going to love this one. Check it out.