Episode 56
Navaz Habib:
The Vagus Nerve and It's Role in Inflammation
This week we are talking about the Vagus Nerve. You have likely heard about how important it is. But do you know why? And are you aware of how to improve your vagal tone? My friend Dr. Navaz Habib joins us this week to walk us through it all.
First Aired on: Oct 10, 2022
Episode 56
Navaz Habib:
The Vagus Nerve and It's Role in Inflammation
This week we are talking about the Vagus Nerve. You have likely heard about how important it is. But do you know why? And are you aware of how to improve your vagal tone? My friend Dr. Navaz Habib joins us this week to walk us through it all.
First Aired on: Oct 10, 2022
Table of Contents:
In this episode:
In this episode, Dr. Navaz Habib shares the importance of the Vagus Nerve in connection with autoimmunity and inflammation, and how we can improve our vagal tone to improve our health.
Dr. Habib is the author of Activate Your Vagus Nerve and host of "The Health Upgrade Podcast." He is the founder of Health Upgraded, an online Functional Medicine and health optimization clinic. He teaches how we can optimize productivity, focus and energy levels, and ultimately our health by upgrading the Vagus Nerve.
At the time he graduated from chiropractic school, Dr. Habib was very unhealthy. He was overweight, had high blood sugar and blood pressure, and felt like an imposter teaching others about wellness. He and his (now) wife, wanted something different for their children.
"Being healthy is different than simply being without diagnosable conditions."
What is the Vagus Nerve?
The Vagus Nerve is the 10th cranial nerve. (We have 12.)
It is the only cranial nerve that leaves the head and it connects to every organ system in the body.
It is "The Wandering Nerve"
It travels down either side of the neck in the carotid sheath and reconnects as one in the thoracic region, goes through the diaphragm, and on to connect with all of the other organ systems.
It sends information from the organs to the brain. This is how it directly relates to inflammation. When inflammation is sensed in the body, the Vagus nerve signals the brain.
The Vagus Nerve IS the Gut-Brain axis!
The Vagus Nerve can hit the brakes on inflammation, which is why vagal tone is so important. If you don't have good vagal tone, the gas stays stuck on and the inflammation continues unchecked.
How do you know if you have good Vagal Tone?
If you have a resting heart rate between 50-70, you are likely in the parasympathetic state and it would indicate good vagal tone.
A resting heart rate over 70, indicates that you are likely in a sympathetic state - fright or flight - stress state...gas pedal stuck on.
Wearable trackers are useful in assessing and observing both heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV).
HRV is the time (milliseconds) between heart beats. Ideally, that time is varied, which shows as a higher HRV and indicates resilience.
Tracking with a device such as Oura ring, Whoop strap, or Elite HRV can allow you to observe trends and work on improving health by strengthening vagal tone.
Take Action for Free!
Chant, hum, gag, gargle!
Dr. Habib recommends gargling twice a day, when you brush your teeth.
Aggressive gargling! Gargle until tears come out of your eyes. That is how you know you have activated your brain stem.
Practice and work your way up... you will get there!
The one thing you can start today...
BREATHE
Deep, diaphragmatic, belly breathing.
Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly.
Breathe so that your belly is moving, and not your chest.
Three diaphragmatic breaths will get you into the parasympathetic state...which is essential for healing and optimized health.
Do this several times a day!
Dr. Habib is the author of Activate Your Vagus Nerve and host of "The Health Upgrade Podcast." He is the founder of Health Upgraded, an online Functional Medicine and health optimization clinic. He teaches how we can optimize productivity, focus and energy levels, and ultimately our health by upgrading the Vagus Nerve.
At the time he graduated from chiropractic school, Dr. Habib was very unhealthy. He was overweight, had high blood sugar and blood pressure, and felt like an imposter teaching others about wellness. He and his (now) wife, wanted something different for their children.
"Being healthy is different than simply being without diagnosable conditions."
What is the Vagus Nerve?
The Vagus Nerve is the 10th cranial nerve. (We have 12.)
It is the only cranial nerve that leaves the head and it connects to every organ system in the body.
It is "The Wandering Nerve"
It travels down either side of the neck in the carotid sheath and reconnects as one in the thoracic region, goes through the diaphragm, and on to connect with all of the other organ systems.
It sends information from the organs to the brain. This is how it directly relates to inflammation. When inflammation is sensed in the body, the Vagus nerve signals the brain.
The Vagus Nerve IS the Gut-Brain axis!
The Vagus Nerve can hit the brakes on inflammation, which is why vagal tone is so important. If you don't have good vagal tone, the gas stays stuck on and the inflammation continues unchecked.
How do you know if you have good Vagal Tone?
If you have a resting heart rate between 50-70, you are likely in the parasympathetic state and it would indicate good vagal tone.
A resting heart rate over 70, indicates that you are likely in a sympathetic state - fright or flight - stress state...gas pedal stuck on.
Wearable trackers are useful in assessing and observing both heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV).
HRV is the time (milliseconds) between heart beats. Ideally, that time is varied, which shows as a higher HRV and indicates resilience.
Tracking with a device such as Oura ring, Whoop strap, or Elite HRV can allow you to observe trends and work on improving health by strengthening vagal tone.
Take Action for Free!
Chant, hum, gag, gargle!
Dr. Habib recommends gargling twice a day, when you brush your teeth.
Aggressive gargling! Gargle until tears come out of your eyes. That is how you know you have activated your brain stem.
Practice and work your way up... you will get there!
The one thing you can start today...
BREATHE
Deep, diaphragmatic, belly breathing.
Place one hand on your chest and one on your belly.
Breathe so that your belly is moving, and not your chest.
Three diaphragmatic breaths will get you into the parasympathetic state...which is essential for healing and optimized health.
Do this several times a day!
Other Resources:
Connect with Navaz Habib
Episode Transcript
[Page//00:00:00] Julie Michelson: Welcome back to the inspired living with autoimmunity podcast. I'm your host, Julie Michelson. And today we are joined by Dr. Navaz Habib author of activate your vagus nerve and the host of the health upgrade podcast. In this episode, we are talking about you guessed it, the important role of the vagus nerve and controlling inflammation and how exercising it can improve your.
[Page//00:00:58] Dr. Habib con connects the [Page//00:01:00] dots for us between autoimmunity and the vagus nerve. And he gives us amazing tips and exercises. We can start implementing today to improve our vagal tone.
[Page//00:01:10] Dr Habib, welcome to the podcast.
[Page//00:01:14] Dr. Navaz Habib: It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
[Page//00:01:16] Julie Michelson: I am super excited to start this conversation. I, it's gonna be such a value for listeners but I love to find out how it is. You came to be specializing in what you're doing. Because I know most. That's not what we dreamt of when we were kids. So would you be willing to share some of your story with.
[Page//00:01:39] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah, absolutely. So my story just like so many other kind of functional and wellness based practitioners starts with my own health issue actually. So I was in chiropractic college. I'm a chiropractor by profession now, but. When I was in chiropractic college, I weighed 250 pounds. I had high blood pressure.
[Page//00:01:58] I was borderline diabetic in my [Page//00:02:00] twentie. And it was really, it was a bit of an oxymoron. I was in a health based school, learning how to teach my patients how to be healthy and live healthier lives. And yet I wasn't kinda living it myself. And I was honored to be selected as valedictorian of my class, which was wonderful.
[Page//00:02:19] I still remember being on stage and just having. Overcome feeling of imposter syndrome that I'm, I'm speaking to 1500 people including classmates and family members from this stage about our journey through our health college. And yet I'm the one who probably needs that support the most. And wasn't able to implement a lot of that myself.
[Page//00:02:43] And I think what happened over the next little bit was I started to get into this mindset of how do I. Use this for myself, how do I shift it so that my health journey can actually become a positive? Because at the time I had just met my wife we were [Page//00:03:00] talking about future kids, kind of all of those positive things.
[Page//00:03:03] And we didn't want to have our kids deal with the same health challenges that me and my wife were dealing with. And so we started to go on this journey of. Figuring out how do I get the weight under control? How do I address the, the blood sugar issues? How do I address these challenges? And it was a bit of a, a discovery process.
[Page//00:03:25] It took a little time to go through the calorie counting and the changing my diet to this and that. And then I realized that it just wasn't working the way that I was hoping for. And it was because the focus wasn't on what I needed to be focusing. fast forward a little bit. And I was in a chiropractic office working as an associate.
[Page//00:03:44] I was in a spot that I'm rarely in at a time that I'm rarely at that clinic. And a gentleman walks into the office and says my, that his wife was in a car accident that she needed chiropractic care that he himself was a chiropractor, but didn't practice chiropractic. [Page//00:04:00] and I said, well, what else does a chiropractor do?
[Page//00:04:03] I'm a chiropractor. Like, what else could I possibly do? And he said, I practice functional medicine and my mind was. What, what is this? Tell me about this. I started having a conversation with him. I met this gentleman multiple times in the morning. He would meet me. We would sit down at a coffee shop and just chat for an hour, hour and a half.
[Page//00:04:24] He was very generous with his time and he introduced me to this thought process that rather than trying to get away from the diagnosis and the disease, I needed to start looking at health in a holistic sense. And. Being healthy was different than not just having those diagnoses and those diseases. The gentleman's name is Dr.
[Page//00:04:43] Satin Patel
[Page//00:04:44] Julie Michelson: Ah
[Page//00:04:45] Dr. Navaz Habib: and it was just the, the most opportune moment because he actually lived in the building that I was working in. And so it was one of those amazing experiences. I've goosebumps just telling the.
[Page//00:04:57] Julie Michelson: I, I have goosebumps just [Page//00:05:00] listening to it.
[Page//00:05:01] Dr. Navaz Habib: And satin was really the, the catalyst to help me figure out what I needed to do. And once that shift happened, I ended up losing 75 pounds, got rid of all of my health struggles. I changed my diet, my lifestyle, my health became my absolute focus. And I haven't looked back since I knew that there was a connecting point here and that I needed to share this with as many people as I possibly could.
[Page//00:05:26] And that's what led me into the realm of functional medicine, because I just needed to get more people to understand what health truly is.
[Page//00:05:35] Julie Michelson: And this is why we're doing the podcast right. Is so that we can reach those people. And I, I do think, you know, that's, I, I love working with my one on one clients and working at the clinic and but. My biggest goal in life is for nobody to be stuck at that place. I was where you were before we knew, right.
[Page//00:05:59] And [Page//00:06:00] everybody should know what's available. And, and I love this reinforcement of, you know, there's health. Isn't just the absence of disease. And, and so many just don't know what true wellness can feel like. So I love, I love that. What an amazing story. I'm so glad I asked and, and it's the pay it forward, right?
[Page//00:06:26] Like that's. So we're gonna talk about Vegas nerve today and how it connects with auto immunity. And like I said, when we jumped on I'm, I'm so excited, it it's a topic that's come up before on the podcast. But I, I, a people can't hear about it enough and B I am excited to, to deep. And, and have you really connect the dots for us on, you know, we hear it's important.
[Page//00:06:53] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yes.
[Page//00:06:54] Julie Michelson: But then I have 20 questions of . Why, how so let's just start [Page//00:07:00] at the, at the beginning, you know, what, why are we talking about Vegas nerve on an auto immunity, wellness podcast?
[Page//00:07:07] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah, absolutely. And, and the vagus nerve is something that I think has come up more recently in, in people's.
[Page//00:07:15] Julie Michelson: Radar.
[Page//00:07:16] Dr. Navaz Habib: and, and what they're looking at. And it's exciting because I'm actually able to help people understand this is that connecting point. This is how each one of these different dots is connected.
[Page//00:07:27] So the vagus nerve is our 10th cranial nerve. We have 12 pairs of cranial nerves. These are primarily the nerves that actually support function of the head and all of our senses in and around our cranial cavity or head Cav. The vagus nerve is the only nerve out of these 12 pairs that actually leaves the head cavity.
[Page//00:07:50] But what's crazy about it is it doesn't just leave it then goes and connects to essentially every other organ within the entire body. And it's crazy what, what we can talk about. [Page//00:08:00] And so that's literally why it's called the vagus nerve. It's root word is vague or wandering, meaning it goes everywhere.
[Page//00:08:07] And so. With this particular nerve, it comes out of the brain stem and goes down through the neck. It sends a branch to the ear. Something we can talk about a little bit down the road. It sends a couple of branches to the muscles of the airways in the neck. So the pharyngeal and laryngeal branches of the vagus nerve go to the muscles of the airways at the back of the throat.
[Page//00:08:28] And then it goes. Alongside the carotid artery and jugular vein. So it's literally within the carotid sheath and we have one on each side. We have two vagus nerves, just a fun little side note for everybody. We don't have just one. We have. And these two connect together in the thorax, they go down into the chest area and then they kind of blend and mesh together to work together and they connect to the esophagus, the heart, the lungs continue on down through the diaphragm.
[Page//00:08:58] They don't connect to the diaphragm, but they go [Page//00:09:00] through it and that's gonna be an important one as well. And then almost every single organ in the abdomen has a connection to the vagus nerve. It innovates directly to the stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, small intestine, large intestine, kidneys, spleen, you name it.
[Page//00:09:16] Every organ is somehow connected to the vagus nerve. And so it's really important to understand. A how important it is. It's, it's, cosing alongside your carotid artery and your jugular vein. So it's probably an important structure, cuz those are the two blood vessels that take the blood to your brain. And it's also then connected to so many different things.
[Page//00:09:37] So is it controlling all of those organs or is it sensing what's going on and what's going on there? And so we can dig a little bit deeper into the function of the vagus nerve for.
[Page//00:09:48] Julie Michelson: Amazing. And I, I love the, I always love learning . This is why I love having these conversations. I love that. Just the visual that you just gave us of, you [Page//00:10:00] know, exactly where it is going and, and we'll get into more of what it is doing. I had the aha moment. I don't know if you saw me kind of giggle.
[Page//00:10:09] I'm like, oh, that's why all the, you know, Garling humming singing, you know, makes so much sense now that I can visualize, even though I knew it was right there, I just so, and we'll get to some of that. I'm sure later. As well, so, okay. It it's touches every organ. Right. And it, and let's let's how, how does that control inflammation?
[Page//00:10:36] You know, when, when I talk to people about auto immunity or I'll have people come and say, you know, well, I don't have autoimmunity, but I have X, Y, or Z, you know, can you help me? I'm like, well, yeah, cuz it's all inflammation. It's all EV there is not a chronic illness. You can name, that's not driven by inflammation.
[Page//00:10:55] And so connect, connect those dots for us, if you will, between [Page//00:11:00] the Vegas nerve and or nerves and, and inflammation. How, how does it.
[Page//00:11:07] Dr. Navaz Habib: Perfect. Yeah. The, so a couple important things as we lead into that area, about 80% of the information that is on the vagus nerve is coming from the organs up to the brain, brain stem. That means that 80% of the information is ENT. It is sensing what's happening internally within the body. It is sensing stretch within the stomach, the small intestine, the large intestine, and allowing for our migrating motor complex and peristalsis to occur in those organs.
[Page//00:11:38] In the digestive tract. It is sensing inflammation in all of those areas. It is it the inflammatory cytokine. That are that become present in every single one of these organs when inflammation is present are sending signals to the endings of the vagus nerve. And that information is being relayed up to the brain stating, Hey, we have [Page//00:12:00] inflammation here.
[Page//00:12:00] We have something going on here. We need to look into this a little bit. So all of these inflammatory kind of triggers that are occurring within every organ, primarily within the gut, this is an important one are transferred up through the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the gut brain access, the physical connection of the gut brain access.
[Page//00:12:20] This is how information gets relayed from what's happening internally up to the brain. There are some other roots, but the vagus nerve kind of that primary physical route by which in information is passed up. When it gets up there, we process, we say, okay, we've got some inflammation here. We've got nothing going on there.
[Page//00:12:38] So let's spend a bit of time and effort trying to shut down inflammation in X particular organ. And that inflammation is again, relayed through the vagus nerve on the efferent pathways, meaning from the brain down to the organs and those efferent pathways send out something called acetylcholine.
[Page//00:12:58] Acetylcholine is the [Page//00:13:00] primary neurotransmitter. And in fact, the only neurotransmitter used by the vagus nerve and acetylcholine sends out the signal to the inflammatory cells, the immune system cells within all of these organs, including macrophages within the the gut, the cup for cells and the liver to Particular macrophages within the pancreas, the microglial cells within the brain.
[Page//00:13:24] So it also connects upwards into the central nervous system to osteoclast in the bone. And it sends a signal saying we don't need you to be so inflammatory. We need you to shut it down. Essentially it tells it to put the brakes on. If we think of it in a very simple way, inflammation is like an accelerator.
[Page//00:13:41] We need it. At certain times, you push the accelerator and we need to go in those acute scenarios. Wonderful. Let's go for it. But what happens if you're pushing the accelerator and your brakes are not working, can the accelerator and the movement of the car become dangerous? To those around you. If you can't slow it down, [Page//00:14:00] that's what happens when inflammation becomes chronic and uncontrolled.
[Page//00:14:04] And so the job of the vagus nerve is to control and slow. The inflammation, the vagus nerve is the breaks to the inflammatory pathway. That happens in every single organ. And so it sends out this signal physically through the vagus nerve to all of these organs, but also through the the splenic nerve, it connects through a different branch to the spleen where that signal is then amplified throughout the entire body through spleen, essentially creating the signal, saying we.
[Page//00:14:33] Acetylcholine to go to all of these different organs and to shut down inflammation, we don't need the inflammation to be so high. So you can imagine when the vagus nerve is not working well, it's almost like that brake line is cut or your brake pads or break wearing down. You're not able to control the inflammation.
[Page//00:14:50] And so the inflammation level goes up. This is common in rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn's or colitis. This is common in psoriasis and [Page//00:15:00] eczema as well. We see that uncontrolled inflammation then leads to these autoimmunity based issues Hashimotos and whatnot. And what we need to do is to lower that inflammatory threshold to lower the inflammation overall, and to allow for our inflammation levels to become controlled and put on the brakes, to allow us to function at a really high level.
[Page//00:15:23] Julie Michelson: So. So important as you're saying all of this, I'm thinking. Okay. So in theory, would it make sense then to say once somebody experiences chronic inflammation, to the point that they've received an autoimmune diagnosis, you can just assume I hate that word. That the vagus nerve isn't working top the, you know, top of its.
[Page//00:15:52] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah, I just like every other functional practitioner, the word assume is terrible
[Page//00:15:56] Julie Michelson: I know it's horrible. Pre we'll say, pre [Page//00:16:00] can you pre
[Page//00:16:01] Dr. Navaz Habib: we can presume that there is something that is not working in that control section that the vagus nerve is just not able to send out the signaling that it needs to, that vagal tone may be reduced that the nerve is just not working as well as we want it to be working.
[Page//00:16:18] Julie Michelson: Ah, and you just planted such a seed for us, cuz I have a feeling we're gonna talk at some point about Vaal tone and how to improve Vaal tone. So other than. If somebody's experiencing, you know, symptoms that they know are, are related to chronic inflammation, is there a way to tell, you know, somebody's listening and they're maybe they're listening cuz they have a loved one with auto immunity and they're like, well ha I wonder how I get nervous.
[Page//00:16:47] And Lily wants to make her, her voice heard as well.
[Page//00:16:53] Dr. Navaz Habib: So the best way to really kind of dig into this, to understand vagal tone and vagus nerve function. Lucky enough, we're [Page//00:17:00] in a position now where our technology has kind of caught up and it's able to help us see things that we weren't able to see before. So the very basic, very easiest way to see if there might be something wrong with the vagus nerve, not necessarily directly is your heart rate.
[Page//00:17:18] Okay. So your heart rate is actually lowered by vagus nerve innovation. The vagus nerve helps to lower your heart rate into a proper resting zone. If we see a heart rate resting heart rate in particular over 70 beats per minute. It's a pretty clear sign that your body's working really hard and you're in a sympathetic state.
[Page//00:17:41] Okay. We haven't talked a lot about this, but the autonomic nervous system, essentially the control of the natural automatic processes within our body. Is done by two systems, one or the autonomic nervous system is the overarching control. And this system has two sides. It has the sympathetic fight or flight [Page//00:18:00] side and the parasympathetic rest digest recover side.
[Page//00:18:04] Yes. I've added the word recover because. The parasympathetic nervous system is innovated or it's controlled through the vagus nerve. So that inflammatory control is a part of that parasympathetic nervous system where sympathetic nervous system is that accelerator. It's that go, go, go. Something is happening.
[Page//00:18:23] There's stress we're in this fight or flight state, and we need to be going hard and the accelerator needs to be pushed and in an acute circumstance, that's great. You're exercising, you're biking, you're lifting weights. You're. Handling some sort of stressor at work phenomenal. But if that stress is constant, it's gonna slowly wear down the brakes.
[Page//00:18:41] It's like pushing the accelerator and the brakes at the same time, the brakes are gonna wear away before the accelerator shuts off. And so we don't want that to happen. We want there to be balanced between these two systems. And so this is an important distinction. So now if we get into this parasympathetic state where we're able to lower the heart rate, Where we're [Page//00:19:00] able to bring it down into that zone of 50 to 70 kind of being a good, basic heart rate.
[Page//00:19:07] That's what we wanna look for as kind of a basic overarching, not directly located within the vagus nerve vagal tone zone, but it does give us an indication of maybe something not being right. Okay. The next step to that to look into actual vagus nerve function is heart rate variability.
[Page//00:19:27] Julie Michelson: Ah,
[Page//00:19:29] Dr. Navaz Habib: R V. All right.
[Page//00:19:30] So this is exciting. This is where we get to understand is the vagus nerve working well or not? HR V is not a measure of your heart rate or heart beats per minute. It's a measure of the number of milliseconds between beats of the heart averaged over a period of time. Okay. So a, we need time to be able.
[Page//00:19:52] Experience what your HR V really is. The measurement is not in beats per minute, but rather in milliseconds, [Page//00:20:00] what this is essentially measuring in the most basic sense is it's measuring. Is your heart more of a meno or is it able to be resilient and handle changes that are occurring? The key is we don't want the Metron.
[Page//00:20:17] We want to have resilience. We want to have movement the higher your heart rate variability. The more healthy your vagus nerve is the more Metro known your heart is the slower. The lower your heart rate variability is the more sympathetic activation is going on. So that's a direct sign of vagus nerve function by a long shot.
[Page//00:20:39] There's no question. HRV is the best measure of Vaal.
[Page//00:20:43] Julie Michelson: I love that. And do you have favorite devices that you recommend people use
[Page//00:20:48] Dr. Navaz Habib: many favorite devices.
[Page//00:20:50] Julie Michelson: yeah, me too.
[Page//00:20:52] Dr. Navaz Habib: I'm wearing one right now. I've got
[Page//00:20:53] Julie Michelson: me too.
[Page//00:20:54] Dr. Navaz Habib: I love it. Ordering is my absolute go-to favorite. No question. If you don't love rings [Page//00:21:00] and there's other options, whoop bend is quite good as
[Page//00:21:02] Julie Michelson: Yep. I have one of
[Page//00:21:03] Dr. Navaz Habib: Measures on the wrist. I find finger measurements to be a little bit more accurate.
[Page//00:21:08] Any kind of sense of HR V is pretty good for the most part. And there's good research studies showing that these wearable devices, whether it's a the apple watch, whoop bend, there's a finger sensor called the elite HR V, which is a great tool. And, or a ring they're all quite good. In the 90% accuracy rate for any, any one of these devices or a ring is my personal favorite.
[Page//00:21:33] Julie Michelson: Mine as well. I, this is I've had all three generations, so I'm a, I'm an early adopter. A and I always say to people, so I'm curious how, how you, and, and that's the thing, right? I, I totally agree. The first two outta my mouth would be aura and whoop. E especially if we're talking about HR V but. I love that you brought in, you know, you could use your apple watch, you can use it.
[Page//00:21:56] Doesn't have to be perfect. You're looking [Page//00:22:00] at trends, you're looking at averages. And then in the work I'm doing, we're looking at changes, right? We're looking at, did you reintroduce a food? And all of a sudden your HRV tanked and your heart rate is higher, you know, than we know you may not feel inflamed, but something's going on.
[Page//00:22:17] And, and so these tools are, are amazing.
[Page//00:22:21] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah. If for nothing else, I, I love these tools just simply for their like feedback mechanism, just for giving you information as to what's happening, trend wise, you said that right word. And it's about the trend. It's not about the number. It's not saying, Hey, my HIV is 84. Yesterday was 82. I'm I'm doing much better.
[Page//00:22:41] That's not exactly what we're looking for. We're looking for, if you were in
[Page//00:22:44] Julie Michelson: either one of those numbers I would take That's the other thing, you know, people say when they, when they first gain out, well, well, you know, what do I want? What's my target. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's just see where you are. And then [Page//00:23:00] we just, we wanna be, you know, increasing. So.
[Page//00:23:03] Dr. Navaz Habib: absolutely correct. And you'll, you'll notice and, and you've got years of data just like I do on my ordering app. I know I, I can tell you within a few points now, when I wake up within a couple of points, what my HR V what my readiness score, what my sleep score are. I can tell you.
[Page//00:23:18] Pretty accurately. I'm I'm about 80%, 85% accuracy in terms of being within a few numbers. And what's really cool is when, when you get sick, obviously you never want to, but what's really cool is your ring will tell you really quickly and say, Hey, your readiness is at like, 47 right now. It's cuz your HIV is at 16.
[Page//00:23:36] You want to do something about this? You're on a trend downwards, get sleep, get rest. Don't push yourself. You need to put, try to put yourself into that Paris empathetic state so you can fight whatever is going on.
[Page//00:23:49] Julie Michelson: Yeah. And, and, you know, we're talking about this for overall wellness and, and related to inflammation and improving health, elite athletes are using it to [Page//00:24:00] know, you know, today's the day to really hit my workout. And today, even though it's on the calendar, today's the day not to out so hard. So really, really useful tools.
[Page//00:24:10] So, okay. We're educated. We understand the importance of the vagus nerve. You mentioned vagal tone and, and, and so now we're tracking and we, you know, we get our aura and we're like, Ooh. Instead of 82, my HRV is, you know, six. Although I hope no one's is ever that low. What do we do? How can we, and, and I actually think everybody everywhere
[Page//00:24:36] Even if you have a great HRV like it, that, you know, there's no downside to improving D Vaal tone. Right. And, and given some love to, to the vagus nerve, what are some things that we can do?
[Page//00:24:51] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah. This is a great question. And this is really where we can take action. The best news here is about 99% of what you can do is entirely [Page//00:25:00] free.
[Page//00:25:00] Julie Michelson: Yes. It's this is like one of the only areas of wellness too. That's true. That is actually true.
[Page//00:25:07] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah, and I love it because once you realize why you're doing it and what the kind of intent behind these exercises and these tools are. And specifically which branches of the nerve you're then affecting, then you know, that you're creating change within there. And you can actually semi measure this out and see how quickly you can get into these states.
[Page//00:25:27] And so let's talk about particular branches that we can address. And you, you mentioned a couple already which are the, Garling the gag re. The humming, the singing activating the laryngeal and pharyngeal branches of the vagus nerves. So these are motor nerves, essentially. These are the motor branches of the vagus nerve that go to muscles to actually control what's going on within those muscles.
[Page//00:25:51] Now. The pharyngeal branch goes to ensure that our airway at the back of our throat remains open and strong and patent. That's what we really [Page//00:26:00] need to do. A lot of people suffer from things like sleep apnea or some sort of loss of pharyngeal muscle tension during the night more often than the night, but it can happen during the day as well.
[Page//00:26:11] And so that compression or that weakness in that vagus nerve branch can lead to the collapse of the airway leading to sleep apnea. Okay. So this is an important factor. If somebody is diagnosed with sleep apnea or something along along those lines, even if it's like.
[Page//00:26:35] So with regards to that fair and gel branch, what we want to do to stimulate to get that airway patent and open is we want to start humming chanting Garling, which is really awesome. Especially if you have digestive issues, Garling is kind of one of those better options as well. Especially if you do it aggressively.
[Page//00:26:53] So let's, let's go with With regards to the pharyngeal and larygeal branches a top three exercises. [Page//00:27:00] Garling humming chant. Okay. With regards to Garling. What you want to do is I, I have my patients keep a, a glass by their sink. I have them put a little water in when they're brushing their teeth in the morning in the evening, make this a, a simple habit.
[Page//00:27:14] That's tied to brushing your teeth. Ideally, you're doing that a couple times a day already. So now we can just add a couple minutes on top of that. What you want to do is just take some water in. You can, if you would like add a little bit of salt to that, it does help to break up some of the mucus at the back of your throat, help to release some of the tension back there.
[Page//00:27:32] And what you do is you take a sip and you hold that sip in the back of your throat and you Goggle as hard as you physically possibly can. So essentially what's happening is you're activating your pharyngeal branches to ensure that the water stays there. You're activating your laryngeal branches, cuz you're making sounds.
[Page//00:27:49] Through the laryngeal branch, then you're hoping not to aspirate that water into your lungs
[Page//00:27:54] Julie Michelson: Yes you are.
[Page//00:27:56] Dr. Navaz Habib: So essentially you're using a bunch of different nerves to help activate [Page//00:28:00] that particular or those particular branches of the vagus nerve. If you do this continuously over time you should see some pretty positive changes, both in your inflammatory challenges and in your breathing.
[Page//00:28:13] And we'll talk a little bit about breath in a second. But those pharyngeal branches and larygeal branches are one of those best ways to hack this nerve and ensure that it is functioning at a really high level. OK. if you can hold that.
[Page//00:28:26] Julie Michelson: It's quick. It's easy. And it's free, right? I mean, I know.
[Page//00:28:31] Dr. Navaz Habib: Exactly. And to know that it's working well. What you're looking for is to see if you're tearing from your eyes.
[Page//00:28:36] So if you're, Garling hard enough that you're starting to tear from your eyes, that means that you've got enough stimulation in the brain stem that all of the nuclei of the vagus nerve are being turned on and that there's actual electrical activity happening within those areas. So, you know, that you've turned on enough of the brain stem to get you really able to, to increase your Vaal.
[Page//00:28:59] Julie Michelson: [Page//00:29:00] I nobody's ever told me that before. So I so excited. So we're done. I I'm like I'm good. No, I'm kidding. I, I love that. Because we need the feedback. Right? How do we know if we're doing it right? How do we know? You know, like you said, don't aspirate the water, we, we all, and don't overthink it. Either.
[Page//00:29:20] People like don't go in, we all can. Garal like, it's not. So I, I wouldn't be particularly concerned, but I have never heard that, that amazing tip of you wanna, you wanna make sure you're tearing. So, and I like a target, right? Who doesn't, who doesn't want the target love
[Page//00:29:40] Dr. Navaz Habib: and I've, I've heard people, it, it, I've heard for some people, it takes weeks to months to really get that, to that point where the tiering occurs and that's a sign that it wasn't working really well, that your brain stem didn't have that electrical activity and the tone was down. So this is something that if you practice regularly and you're able to work your way up to, it's a really positive development that you're in the right [Page//00:30:00] direction.
[Page//00:30:01] Julie Michelson: Amazing. Amazing. So you already mentioned you wanna talk about breath so that let's,
[Page//00:30:07] Dr. Navaz Habib: let's dig into
[Page//00:30:08] Julie Michelson: keep moving.
[Page//00:30:10] Dr. Navaz Habib: Perfect. So the vagus nerve, like I said, sends branches to the. And in particular, it's, it's measuring stretch within the lungs. Okay. It's also supporting Al or macrophages inflammation. That's an important piece to the puzzle here, but the stretch reflex within the lungs tells us what state we're in the breath is the best way to control whether we're in sympathetic or parasympathetic.
[Page//00:30:35] So think of it this way. If your boss comes by and taps you on your shoulder and says, I need to see you in my office, right. What happens. We go into a state of stress, a fight or flight we're gonna shift. Our pupils are gonna dilate. We're gonna look for all of the threats. We're gonna become aware what's going on.
[Page//00:30:52] It's the same reaction that our bodies had to when a saber two tiger was chasing us. Same idea. Okay. So now. [Page//00:31:00] We've got this stress, the eyes open up, our heart rate goes up. That's sympathetic as well. And what happens to our breath? It becomes short and shallow. I need oxygen as quickly as I possibly can. I need it now.
[Page//00:31:12] Let's get it going. So you go into this chest breathing short, shallow breaths using accessory, breathing muscles. These are the muscles in the upper chest and the traps. How many people have tight traps and upper back muscles? Because a, we have terrible posture being on our laptops and cell phones for 10 hours a day.
[Page//00:31:30] But in addition to that, we're then breathing, using the wrong muscles. So this is what the sympathetic reaction is going to. In order to control that, to shift that to parasympathetic, what we want to do is create more stretch within the lungs. Best way to do that is to turn our breath from chest breathing to diaphragmatic, belly breathing, deep belly breathing is the most effective tool that literally within three breaths, you can shift your situation from [Page//00:32:00] sympathetic to parasympathetic, really, really effect.
[Page//00:32:04] So what I have my patients and my daughter do as well, cuz she's already doing it at age five, breathing through her chest. I have them put one hand on their chest, one hand on their belly and take three deep breaths. Ideally in through the nose, out through the mouth. This is your breathing tube. This is your eating tube, different tubes, different functions. And so we breathe in through the nose and we expand the balloon in our belly. This is what I tell my five year old. You wanna expand the balloon in your belly, not the one in your chest. So I'll put my hand on her belly and I'll say, I need my, I need to feel my hand moving up and down. And so what you want to do is not feel movement in the hand, that's on your chest.
[Page//00:32:41] You wanna feel the movement elevation and and reduction kind of going up and down in the belly. Do that for three breath. That's all I ask and you'll, you'll all of a sudden feel a very simple shift to calm, to relaxed, to parasympathetic. If you can do this [Page//00:33:00] regularly, it becomes something that is almost second nature.
[Page//00:33:04] If you start to be able to do this under stress. Then you're able to control yourself from going too far off the deep end on the sympathetic side, and be able to shift yourself back to parasympathetic. This is where breathing calmly. During exercise comes into play. This is where Breathing calmly when you get into an ice bath comes into play, or when you turn your shower to as cold as you possibly can.
[Page//00:33:26] So the same way that we would exercise our muscles, let's say, for example, we're doing squats. We put a, a rack of weight on our back. We're doing some air squats initially. And then we move up to putting a little bit of weight on our back. And then we add more weight to that. We want to build up. We want to increase our ability to, to be able to function under stress.
[Page//00:33:46] We want to allow for our muscles to get stronger in the same way. We want our diaphragm to get stronger and our willpower to allow us to get really strong. So regular deep breathing exercises in the morning and the evening in the [Page//00:34:00] middle of the day, multiple times when you're under stress or you just need to calm down phenomenal.
[Page//00:34:05] Now, if you elevate the stress level, like you get into a, a cold plunger, an ice bath, or you turn the shower to as cold as possible. That's like putting weight on your back. And now in that stressful circumstance, then you focus on controlling your deep di pragmatic breath. Exactly.
[Page//00:34:21] Julie Michelson: I love that. And I love that you're reminding you're reminding listeners, you know, you need to be doing it multiple times a day. I always say, because this is something I do with all my clients as well. And. I once in a while, I'll get the occasional client, that'll say, you know, oh, well, I'll do it when I'm stressed.
[Page//00:34:40] And I'm like, well, it it's, but you don't have the tool in your toolbox. if you're not exercising the muscle. And my favorite part is if it's, if the stressor is a confrontational interaction, nobody knows you're doing.
[Page//00:34:55] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah.
[Page//00:34:56] Julie Michelson: I mean, no one can see. No one can tell. And it [Page//00:35:00] really talk about life changing aside from helping break inflammation and, and, you know, get you into a healing state.
[Page//00:35:08] It, that it gives you the pause, right? So that you're, you're not reactive. And, and so it, it's such a, it's such a gift. I love that your daughter. Is is doing that. I mean, you just think of, you mentioned earlier, you know, you and your wife wanted this next generation, right. To have a different experience, to have the tools to avoid ending up in that place where you were.
[Page//00:35:36] And so how beautiful cuz your daughter's not gonna end up in that place.
[Page//00:35:40] Dr. Navaz Habib: That's the goal. Right? And, and so being able to teach her those, those tools early on in her life gives her the ability to handle those stressors when they come up, when she's a bit older. And when she endures the stressors of life,
[Page//00:35:54] Julie Michelson: amazing. Amazing. So you've given us so many things [Page//00:36:00] already that we can do. And so it's almost not fair and, and. You are more than welcome to just reiterate one of the things you've already given. But what is one thing, you know, listeners can start today and, and again, you've already given us a list of them, but if you got to pick and you're, you're asking listeners, just do this, start this one thing right now to improve your health, what would it be?
[Page//00:36:22] Dr. Navaz Habib: The biggest game changer is the breadth. There's no question about it in my mind. I could, I could name off. 80 other things that you could do that would be beneficial, but nothing is as strong as learning to manage and control your breath, especially under stress. And so that would be my absolute go to if you can achieve that just as, as a little fun.
[Page//00:36:42] Tidbit on top. You mentioned that you give yourself that pause when you get into that deep diaphragmatic breathing. In fact, what happens when we're in a sympathetic state, our blood flow and our brain shifts to the Hein brain and actually goes to our survival areas. And it actually shuts off brain flow or [Page//00:37:00] blood flow to the frontal areas of our brain.
[Page//00:37:02] The prefrontal cortex.
[Page//00:37:03] Julie Michelson: or thinking parts
[Page//00:37:05] Dr. Navaz Habib: are exactly our thinking parts. Our, our intelligence, our executive function actually decreases when we're under stress. So if we can shift it to parasympathetic, we're actually able to turn on blood flow to our thinking areas. And that's why after a few deep breaths, you can think much more clearly because physically you have created a shift of blood flow to the right areas to be able to think more.
[Page//00:37:27] Julie Michelson: Thank you again for that visual. And, and that may be the motivator for people. And this is why. Again, we were talking HRV and I mentioned the elite athletes. This is why you and I both work with groups of people who are high achievers, whether it's in business in life, you know, athletic, it doesn't matter.
[Page//00:37:47] These are the same up levels. I always say, this is it's the spectrum. Right. You know what we're doing to heal on one end, we're doing to just continue to up level our performance on the other at which just up [Page//00:38:00] levels life in general. So amazing, amazing tips for people that listen, you know, while they're walking or driving or like, like I do while they're, while they're busy where's the best place for listeners to find.
[Page//00:38:16] Dr. Navaz Habib: Yeah, go onto I'm on social media, primarily on Instagram. Just look up Dr. Navaz Habib. And if you're interested in more tips, cause I've done a ton of research on what helps to increase the vagus nerve tone. Check out the book it's called activate your vagus nerve. Been out for a few years, but a lot of the research is very accurate up to date and there's new tidbits coming along all the time.
[Page//00:38:37] So you can follow on Instagram to learn more.
[Page//00:38:40] Julie Michelson: Amazing. Thank you so much for everything you've shared with us today.
[Page//00:38:45] Dr. Navaz Habib: It's my absolute pleasure.
[Page//00:38:47] Julie Michelson: For everyone listening. Remember you can get the show notes and transcripts by visiting inspired living.show. You get all those links, links to the books, links to Instagram websites. I hope [Page//00:39:00] you had a great time and enjoyed this episode as much as I did.
[Page//00:39:03] I will see you next week.
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Navaz Habib
Dr. Navaz Habib, is the author of “Activate Your Vagus Nerve” and host of “The Health Upgrade Podcast”. He is the founder of “Health Upgraded” an online functional medicine and health optimization clinic and works as a consultant to the members of ‘Longevity House’ in Toronto, Canada.
Dr. Habib consults with high performing professionals, athletes, and entrepreneurs to dig deeper and find the root causes holding them back from optimal health. By upgrading the Vagus nerve, he teaches how we can optimize our productivity, focus and energy levels, allowing us to experience the effects of upgraded health.
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