21/08/2020
The beautiful vagus nerve
THE VAGUS NERVE
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A seemingly never-ending branching nerve that connects most of our major organs to our brain 🧠.
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It’s the longest cranial nerve in our body, one for the right side and one for the left. And is largely responsible for the connection for its role as a mediator between thinking and feeling, you know our “gut feeling.”
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The vagus nerve is the “queen” of the parasympathetic nervous system. The “rest and digest” or the nerve. So the more we do things to activate the nerve (like deep ), the most we combat the effects of its opposer, the sympathetic nervous system - the “fight or flight”, rushing around, have to do something, releasing one.
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A few other functions of the vagus nerve, just to name a few:
▪️slows your heart rate and respiration.
▪️lowers blood pressure.
▪️helps with calmness and relaxation.
▪️controls involuntary muscles in the digestive system, therefore, aiding digestion.
▪️taste sensation.
▪️movement function for the muscles in the neck responsible for swallowing and speech.
▪️gut-brain communication.
▪️reduces inflammation.
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