In this episode, we have a special guest, Dr. Navaz Habib, who delves deep into the wonders of the Vagus Nerve and its critical role in promoting better health. Join Dr. Jill Carnahan and Dr. Navaz Habib as they discuss the importance of vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) and how it can be a game-changer in managing various health conditions. From addressing chronic issues like mold-related illness and Lyme disease to tackling autoimmunity and depression, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.
Key Points
- Tips and tricks to support the vagus nerve for better parasympathetic tone, decreased stress levels, improved mental health, and a better immune system system
- Why vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) may be a powerful tool for your to improve your health in MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome), mold related illness, Lyme disease, autoimmunity, and depression, anxiety and insomnia
- How the vagal nerve got to be so popular and its connection to optimal gut health and support in inflammatory bowel disease.
Our Guest – Dr. Navaz Habib
Dr. Navaz Habib, is the bestselling author of ‘Activate Your Vagus Nerve’, and the newly released ‘Upgrade Your Vagus Nerve’ He is also the host of ‘The Health Upgrade Podcast’.
After graduating as class valedictorian from Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in 2010 and went on to practice traditional chiropractic for years, until he utilized the power of functional medicine to transform his own health.
Dr. Habib is the founder of ‘Health Upgraded’ an online functional health consulting clinic, supporting optimal health by elevating the awareness and function of the Vagus nerve.
https://drnavazhabib.kartra.com/page/HUhome
https://www.drnavazhabib.com/UpgradeVNbook
Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD
Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.
As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs.
A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.
Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names.
The Podcast
The Video
The Transcript
211: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Activate Your Vagus Nerve for Better Health w/ Dr. Navaz Habib
Dr. Jill 00:00
Welcome to Residency Radio, your go-to podcast for the most cutting-edge insights in functional and integrative medicine. In each episode—I'm Dr. Jill, your host—I will interview leading experts in biology, chemistry, human physiology, and optimal performance. Join us as we connect with renowned experts in each of these fields, innovators, and leaders at the forefront of medical research and practice. We're here to empower you with knowledge and important information for human transformation.
Dr. Jill 00:29
One of my goals is to aid you on your journey to optimal health. And today, I am so excited to introduce my guest, Dr. Habib. I'm going to read his bio in just a moment, but today the topic is the vagus nerve. Now, you have had your head in the sand if you have not heard the term vagus nerve or heard about vagus nerve. It is all over social media. It's all over so many other places we go. The reason is, its time has come. If you don't even know where that nerve is in your body or what it has to do with your health, we're going to dive in and talk to the expert today. But let me go and introduce him.
Dr. Jill 01:03
Dr. Navaz Habib is a best-selling author of Activate Your Vagus Nerve—which I have right here; we will talk about that later too—and the newly released, Upgrade Your Vagus Nerve. He is also the host of the Health Upgrade Podcast. After graduating as class valedictorian from Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in 2010, he went on to practice traditional chiropractic for years until he utilized the power of functional medicine to transform his own health. And hopefully, we'll hear a little bit about that journey today. Dr. Habib is the founder of Health Upgraded, an online functional health consulting clinic, supporting optimal health by elevating the awareness and function of the vagus nerve.
Welcome, Dr. Habib. I'm glad to have you here.
Dr. Navaz Habib 01:42
It's an absolute pleasure, Dr. Jill. I'm really excited about this.
Dr. Jill 01:46
Me too. We've been running into each other at different conferences, and you gave me a copy of your book a while back. I was so excited because this is an important topic. I am super excited to dive in. But before we do, I always like to start with my guest's story as far as: How did you get into chiropractic medicine? And then, how did you get into an interest in the vagal nerve? And it sounds like you have a story.
Dr. Navaz Habib 02:08
I absolutely do have a story. You alluded to it with the introduction there. But my story is a little bit similar to yours and very similar to a lot of people who are in that functional space. We tend to have our own health struggle, and I'm no different from that. I remember very clearly that I was in my 20s in chiropractic college, and I was significantly overweight. I weighed 250 pounds. I was dealing with high blood pressure. I was borderline diabetic in my 20s. These are things that we don't want people to experience when they're in their 40s, 50s, or 60s, and I was dealing with this in my 20s. It had a lot to do with stress. It had a lot to do with habits that we were fully unaware that I was indulging in and creating. It had a lot to do with a lot of the things that I didn't realize were affecting me.
Dr. Navaz Habib 03:02
I was really interested in gaining the knowledge of what health was, but the implementation piece was very difficult for me. That was the challenge. So when I got to that endpoint, I was 250 pounds and multiple diagnoses were headed in my direction. The doctors were saying: “You know, there are medications, and here's a prescription.” And I said: “I'm not comfortable with this. I need to solve this for myself.” Once I graduated from chiropractic college, I made the decision to figure out what was truly going on—what was happening inside my body.
Dr. Navaz Habib 03:42
I was introduced to the idea of functional medicine a couple of years in by a wonderful colleague and mentor of mine, Sachin Patel, who helped to introduce me to this entire world and [took the time] to teach me what health really meant—not simply the absence of disease but the function and the drive towards optimal health and optimal function. That was the kicker for me. That was the inciting incident where things took a positive turn.
Dr. Navaz Habib 04:10
I got some functional lab testing to identify that there were some issues. I had some yeast in my stool testing. I had some pretty significant challenges on some organic acid testing. This testing gave me this understanding—from a cellular perspective and from a microbiome perspective—of what was going wrong. This led me to look into inflammation because this was that inciting challenge that was causing the inflammation within my body. That inflammation created a cascade of not being able to handle the stress effectively, and that led to me putting on weight and having these health struggles that were occurring.
Dr. Navaz Habib 04:55
So I thought about this and I got to this depth of, “What is this inflammation and why is my body having difficulty controlling this inflammation?” The answer came down to me with my history and looking into brain function and nervous system function, particularly while I was going through chiropractic college. It came down to the vagus nerve as being the nerve that controls inflammation. That was the inciting moment when I ended up losing a bunch of that weight and getting rid of a lot of these health challenges that I was dealing with.
Dr. Navaz Habib 05:28
I was finally able to move forward with my health. But understand that there was this one pathway that was truly meant to control inflammation in my body throughout the entirety of my body. It wasn't an organ-specific or system-specific challenge. It was a holistic approach to creating this inflammatory control piece and to adjust and make a massive change in my health.
Dr. Jill 05:50
Wow, what a story! So many things come to mind. One is that I love what we're going to talk about today, which is the vagus nerve and some of the tools that you have given in your book and other things and devices that we're going to talk about. But I also love the fact that it takes a whole-body approach.
Dr. Navaz Habib 06:10
In fact, it took me a while to adopt vagal nerve stimulators. We're going to talk about one of my favorites today, so stay tuned if you're looking at what's the best vagal nerve stimulator. You will find out by the end of this podcast. But I want to say that for a long time I was a little resistant because I thought, “How do we just go externally and stimulate the vagus nerve and not take care of the internal stuff?” So I really love that you have both.
Dr. Jill 06:32
I know in your book, Activate Your Vagus Nerve, you talk a lot about these other things, this foundation. I want to talk about that today. But before we do, I want to delve just a little bit into the psychology of your childhood. You don't have to go super deep if you don't want to, but I just think people out there can relate to: “Gosh, I'm overweight. I don't feel well.” And that feeling, whether it was helplessness or “I'll just be this way” or “maybe my family is this way”—were there any of those messages that you had to overcome in your own life due to your upbringing or your environment? I think there are so many people that can relate to the kid in high school who felt ugly, stupid, or overweight. And we all have those things—you were valedictorian like me—even us, right? So share a little bit about what your journey was with what you're comfortable with.
Dr. Navaz Habib 07:18
I had a very comfortable upbringing. My parents were wonderful, very supportive, very helpful. I grew up in a suburban home just outside of Toronto. I still live just outside of Toronto. It was a very calm, very comfortable environment. I found that a lot of the stress came from myself and having really high expectations of myself. My parents had very little to do with it.
Dr. Navaz Habib 07:49
I think maybe on the fitness side of things, they weren't heavily engaged in physical activity nearly as much. My mom worked as a nuclear medicine technologist in a hospital nearby here forever and had a very physical job, so there wasn't a lot that she wanted to do physically when she got home. There was not a lot of exercise. My dad was a computer guy, so sitting was his hobby. And we just never got into the exercise piece. They did get me into swimming. I was really involved in swimming and lifeguarding. But once I got to a point where I was on my own and able to do things, that's when the issues really kicked off for me. I realize it had a lot to do with the pressure I put on myself.
Dr. Jill 08:32
Got it. I love that because [you had a] wonderful childhood and wonderful parents. I had the same exact situation. Maybe it's just that internal drive that allowed you to transform too. You were clearly a valedictorian. There was, right? There was that piece of achievement, which is nothing wrong. It makes us so successful. But I think that pressure sometimes from the inside out can be a massive stressor. It's a motivator but a stressor.
Dr. Navaz Habib 08:58
So how do we transform that into this optimal health and healing?—which is exactly what you did. You took that same motivation and said: “Okay, how do I transform myself?” What was the first inkling that, “Okay, I don't like how I look” or “how I feel” or “these diagnoses I'm getting”? Do you remember when you first thought, “Maybe I could change this” or “What do I need to do?” What was that moment that shifted for you?
Dr. Navaz Habib 09:20
I met my wife right before I graduated from chiropractic college. It was maybe a few months. It was a year into our marriage. I remember doing this because both of us had our own health struggles, weight-related and whatnot. We were sitting down. It was just after our first anniversary and we said: “This is not the way we want to live. If we want to have kids, we don't want them to deal with the same health struggles that we were dealing with.”
Dr. Navaz Habib 09:49
For me and my wife, we made a commitment to search for answers and to sit down and do this together. Luckily enough, we had one another to rely on. We had accountability. We had this desire to pass on good habits to our children. And now we have two daughters who are growing wonderfully. They're still quite young, but they are, I'm hoping, in much better shape and have a wonderful trajectory towards a healthy life.
Dr. Jill 10:20
What a great legacy! You just hit on something I think is so critical for vagal tone and for overall health, and that is companionship, partnership, and connection with human beings. Let's just dive into that because you had this spouse that was like, “Okay, together we're going to get this goal accomplished.” And then you guys were there for one another. Probably when one was down, the other was up and like, “Okay, you can do it!” That's so powerful with behavioral change because so many people out there are wanting to do this. And if you are alone, this is why health coaches and trainers, physicians, and all kinds of people in our lives are so valuable.
Dr. Jill 10:54
I'll tell you a perfect example from my life. I was going to write a book years and years ago, and I had this writer who came to say, “Could I help you with this?” I said: “Well, I don't want a copywriter; I want to write my own book.” But as he kept pestering me and pestering me and pestering me, I was like: “Oh, I think this might be really good because I need someone to bother me for deadlines and accountability.” I hired him. He was the writing coach, so I said: “I want to write the book. I need your help.” I hired accountability in this case, and it helped me finish the book. For me, that was so powerful in that change of, like: “Okay, I want to get this thing done. I need someone to help me on the way.”
Dr. Jill 11:28
If you're out there listening and want to change your health, your life, or your finances, accountability is a beautiful thing. Maybe get someone—a friend, family, partner, or spouse—to help you in that journey. Because that's related to vagal tone, how do connection and companionship affect the vagal nerve?
Dr. Navaz Habib 11:44
I'm glad we started here because this is rarely where I start. This is a really wonderful conversation so far. Loneliness is huge. It is a major driver for stress internally and self-derived psychological stress. This is that loneliness. Having standards that are so high for ourselves that we wouldn't have standards nearly as high for our friends or our loved ones causes a lot of dysfunction internally. It comes down to this idea of the polyvagal theory.
Dr. Navaz Habib 12:20
I'm going to dig into Stephen Porges' topic here. For those who don't know what this is, Stephen Porges years ago developed this theory called the polyvagal theory. It comes down to the fact that our vagus nerves—in a psychology standpoint—will start to work only when we experience safety. Safety comes from feeling not alone, feeling like we are comforted, feeling like we are supported, and feeling like we are with people around us.
Dr. Navaz Habib 12:51
Interestingly, if we look into the blue zones, the blue zones all have a very strong sense of community involved. That community involvement, that accountability, that communal comfort that occurs there creates a sense of safety. Safety, then, is the major driver—from a psychology standpoint—to turn on the vagus nerve. This is so important to understand because if we don't feel safe, our bodies go into a sympathetic state more readily. We'll get into what this means, but the vagus nerve controls one-half of the autonomic nervous system. It's the rest, digest, and recover system that's pushed through the vagus nerve. On the opposite side of this, we have the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight, as we constantly know about it.
Dr. Navaz Habib 13:44
The fight or flight system is a necessary tool. It's the accelerator in your car. You have to push the accelerator to be able to make the car move. You have to go places. But constantly having that accelerator pushed all the time without the ability to push the brakes and slow that down creates a danger to society. It creates a danger to those around us and ourselves. So we have to have this balance between the accelerator and the brakes.
Dr. Navaz Habib 14:11
The brakes are the vagus nerve and that parasympathetic branch to this autonomic nervous system. This controls all of the internal functions within our body that we aren't consciously thinking about. I'm not consciously thinking about my liver detoxing at the moment or my intestines creating peristaltic motion for my lunch. All of these things are automatically happening. This control of that autonomic system has to occur through these two branches: The parasympathetic and the sympathetic.
Dr. Navaz Habib 14:42
Safety drives the parasympathetic system to turn on to be able to go into that state for the brakes to be pushed effectively. When we feel unsafe, when we feel alone, when we feel challenged, when we feel stressed, we push far more easily into that sympathetic state. So the accelerator gets pushed more than we want it to, and that drives inflammation. And that drives an uncontrolled level of inflammation, which can then down the road turn to disease. So we have to look at it from a psychology standpoint but also from other stressors that can come up and we can get into those as we go.
Dr. Jill 15:17
What a beautiful, beautiful explanation and just practical. Brake and accelerator—I love that—with the autonomic system and the vagal nerve. It makes it so easy to understand.
Dr. Jill 15:27
One thing that comes to mind with regards to sympathetic is that you may be out there listening and wanting to get well from—a lot of my listeners—Lyme disease, mast cell activation, mold, gut issues, tons of Crohn's and colitis and IBS and then cognitive issues or long COVID. And I could go on and on and on. These are just some of the most common things that I see. But one of the things I've seen over my 20 years in functional medicine—and I want your comment on this—is that I know the practical ways to change with nutrition and supplements, diet, lifestyle, and all these things.
Dr. Jill 15:59
I always talk about clean air, clean water, and clean food. But what I've learned more than ever in the last 5 years, maybe 10 years, is if someone does not feel safe in their own body, if they feel like their body is betraying them because they got a disease, if they feel like they're a victim, if they feel unsafe—like they don't have the tools or resources to get well or they don't have the knowledge or whatever it is—there's no amount of great protocol that I can have or great testing and all these things we have that will allow them to get well. And they'll get stuck.
Dr. Jill 16:29
What I started to see in clinical practice is these patients who are doing all the right things, they're trying so hard, and they're type A like you and me. They're just like: “What do you want me to do? I'll do it.” But they're in that state of: “What do you want me to do? I want to get well. I want to get well. I want to get well. I want to get well quicker.”
Dr. Jill 16:43
Just yesterday I had this guy who [says] every time, “How quickly can I get well?” Every time I'm talking to him, I'm like: “Calm down. Be in your body. Let your body heal. We will get there, but if you put that pressure on yourself…” So let's talk a little bit about that because you alluded to it. But I want to talk specifically about: Why is it that the body cannot heal without this sense of safety inside?
Dr. Navaz Habib 17:11
It's a great question. It really comes down to: Are we pushing the accelerator? Are we pushing the brakes? And where are those signals going? We'll come to the vagus nerve because it is heavily linked here, and I think it's a great connecting point. It's called the vagus nerve. It is the 10th cranial nerve. And I'm saying that “it is,” as if it's one. There are actually two of them. They come out of the brainstem. It's the 10th cranial nerve. We have 12 pairs of cranial nerves that come out of our brainstem, going primarily to our head and face area. They do the sensation and the autonomic nervous system control of the head and face area.
Dr. Navaz Habib 17:50
The 10th cranial nerve, the vagus nerve, only has a couple of connections in the head and face. It actually comes out. It's the only nerve of those cranial nerves that comes out of the cranial cavity of the head area and comes down through the neck. It's located beside the carotid artery and the jugular vein in your neck. When you go and you find your pulse in your neck, you're within a few millimeters of your vagus nerve. It's very, very close, very accessible.
Dr. Navaz Habib 18:17
Those three tissues—those three fibers—are held together in an area called the carotid sheath. They're protected together. The blood vessel that takes blood to your brain, your carotid artery, the jugular vein, which brings the blood down from your brain to your body, and the vagus nerve on both sides of your body are held together in this safety zone of your neck. That then continues down.
Dr. Navaz Habib 18:45
The vagus nerve on the right and the left come together. They intertwine and connect to essentially every organ within the body. They have connections to the heart (which is very important; we'll talk a little bit about heart rate variability) and the lungs (very important), they go down the esophagus, the stomach, the gallbladder, and the kidneys. There's an indirect connection to the spleen. The intestines [also], primarily the small but a portion of the large intestine as well. We have essentially every organ getting a direct connection via the vagus nerve.
Dr. Navaz Habib 19:20
We really have to go and say, “Why is it this way?” They called it the vagus nerve because it was wandering. It was a very vague path that it was taking throughout the body. Anatomists went to it and said, “This is really vague. Let's call it the vagus nerve.” The aptly named vagus nerve, we tried to figure out what it does. Well, 80% of the information on the vagus nerve is coming from those organs and going up to the brain—80%! The vast majority of what we think when it comes to nerves is that they go from head to body—the brain-to-body connection. But what's happening within the body needs to be relayed to the brain, and that's where the connection of the vagus nerve is really intense.
Dr. Navaz Habib 20:05
The signals that are coming up come from the microbiome. They come from the stomach. They come from the heart. They come from the blood vessels in certain areas, particularly the carotid artery. They come from the lungs. And we're sending these signals up to the brain. What they're sending are status updates telling us what's happening. It's not all of the cells in those organs sending those signals up. It's the immune system cells—the immune cells that are located in each of those organs. The immune system is everywhere.
Dr. Navaz Habib 20:34
We often think of a system as a specific set of organs or a specific functional organ type. But immune cells are located in every single organ of the body. They are the conductor and choreographer of all of the optimal functions of each of those organs. Those immune cells are sending signals up to the brain and then the relay is to go back down to those immune cells to tell those immune cells [in essence], “Are we under stress or not?” what to do about it, and how to coordinate that control. The 15% of information that comes from the brain to those organs will then send signals to the immune cells to say: Yes, we are not stressed. We are safe. Let's drive optimal function during this time.
Dr. Navaz Habib 21:21
When that signal decreases, it's because we're under some sort of inflammatory stress that's so chronic that it burns out that 15% of information that is being sent down there. It's signaling to the immune system, and the immune system is the key function here. The vagus nerve is the connecting point between the brain, nervous system, and immune system, which is located in every organ of the body.
Dr. Navaz Habib 21:46
This is the best way to think about this. The signals that are being sent is that relay between the immune system and brain. So understanding immune function and understanding how the immune system is going to turn on and turn off comes down to that safety signal. Are we turning on safety or are we turning off safety? And when we turn off safety, we go into a sympathetic state and the vagus nerve stops working effectively.
Dr. Jill 22:13
Wow. Brilliant.
I want to make this really practical and then we're going to dive into: What can we do about the vagus nerve? But my thought is I have so many listeners and more and more prevalence of mast cell activation. You guys know what that is. Basically, our primordial cells [that are] part of the immune system are overacting and throwing out histamine, prostaglandins, and things. People are having tachycardia, heart rate increases, skin issues, brain issues, and gut permeability issues. And I could name 101 other symptoms because it affects all systems.
Dr. Jill 22:43
But this is connected. Mast cells feel like there's a threat, whether it's a virus or an environmental threat like mold or any number of things that are toxins or infections affecting the immune system, saying: This is not safe; this is a dangerous situation. Or even loneliness. And then patients are getting these mast cell activations at unprecedented rates. So what you're saying is that if we could tone our vagal nerve and allow our body to feel safe by doing what we're going to talk about—exercises for the vagus nerve—we might be able to decrease mast cell activation or other immune dysfunction, right?
Dr. Navaz Habib 23:16
Absolutely 100%. The signal that's being sent via the vagus nerve is sent through a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Acetylcholine has receptor sites on all of these immune cells—on macrophages, which are kind of the big eater cells of the immune system, on the T cells on the B cells, and on all of the mast cells. The mast cells are the histamine releasers and the prostaglandin releasers. These are the eosinophils, the basophils, and the neutrophils. These guys send out these signals to create a reaction internally. That reaction that's created is in response to not getting enough acetylcholine to block that reaction because, understandably, our body feels like it's under threat. It's under threat from pet dander, gluten, or some sort of toxin that's not allowing for safety from a biochemical standpoint. And that's what triggers that reaction.
Dr. Navaz Habib 24:14
So we get a reaction like asthma, right? An asthmatic reaction in the lungs is a histamine reaction. It's an asthmatic mast cell activation. That's the same idea as what happens in the intestinal walls. It's the same idea as what happens in every organ that has some sort of mast cell activation. Acetylcholine from the vagus nerve and from other sources that are signaled via the vagus nerve will help to reduce that inflammatory burden and reduce the amount of mast cell activation that is occurring so we can lower histamine release.
Dr. Jill 24:48
Oh, wow! It's so fascinating.
I want to talk about practical ways to address the vagal nerve. We're going to talk about vagal nerve stimulators, which are an external way to stimulate that nerve right along here. But first of all, there are a lot of ways in our lives that we can access and start to stimulate the vagal nerve. You've got so many of them in your book here, so if you want the full guide, go to VagusNerveBook.com. Is that right?
Dr. Navaz Habib 25:14
That's right. VagusNerveBook.com.
Dr. Jill 25:15
VagusNerveBook.com and get your copy. But let's just talk through maybe the top 10 or so ways that you can access this nerve and change its function.
Dr. Navaz Habib 25:24
The number one, without a doubt, best way to do this is by controlling your breath. The breath is a tool that we have conscious control over but will automatically occur when we're not consciously thinking about it. I'm not consciously thinking about beating my heart, but that's going to happen. But when I'm not thinking about my breath, I'm still breathing. So there is an autonomic component to it. But we do have conscious control, which is very exciting because this is how we can think and create the change inside our body by adjusting how we are breathing.
Dr. Navaz Habib 25:58
There are three very important factors to whether you're breathing in a parasympathetic state or a sympathetic state and whether the vagus nerve is being turned off or on. The three big factors. Number one is, are you breathing through your nose or are you breathing through your mouth? We should be breathing through our noses. Our nose has nose hairs, which are an inborn filter for particulate matter. We're not getting in particulate matter when we have good nose hair and it's blocking and filtering the air that's coming in. It's also allowing for the humidification of the air through the sinuses and the warming of the air as it gets down into the lungs. We're not getting the shock of cold, unfiltered, dry air coming through our mouths. We're creating the right idea when we breathe through our noses. So nasal breathing, number one, is very, very important.
Dr. Navaz Habib 26:52
Number two, we want it to be diaphragmatic. We want to breathe into our diaphragm. We can test it very quickly. Put a hand on your chest, put a hand on your belly, and take three breaths. Check to see which hand is moving while you're taking these breaths. Is it the hand that's on your chest or is it the hand that's on your belly? As you inhale, you should feel that your belly is expanding and contracting, not your chest. A lot less on the chest. Both will, but we should feel the primary driver is the belly. That's telling us that our diaphragm is doing the job of creating that inhale. Diaphragmatic. So nasal number one; diaphragmatic breath, [number two].
Dr. Navaz Habib 27:35
When we breathe with just our chest muscles and we have just our chest doing all the work, we're not getting a full inhale. We're not getting the prime driver of the breath working, which is the diaphragm. We're using accessory breathing muscles. That's why a lot of people have very tight traps and tight upper back muscles. It's not just because of our terrible posture of being on our phones and our laptops all the time; it has a lot to do with how we're breathing. So consider that one, look into that, and assess: Are you breathing diaphragmatically or are you breathing with your chest?
Dr. Navaz Habib 28:06
And number three is exhale. How long is your exhale? What's really interesting is we create a pattern in our breathing. When we inhale, it creates a pattern in our heart called respiratory sinus arrhythmia. When we inhale, our heart rate increases—slightly, but it does. Our heartbeats get closer together. And as we exhale, our heartbeats spread apart ever so slightly. What happens over time is that as we do this, we create variability between the number of milliseconds between beats of our heart. This is then measured as heart rate variability, HRV.
Dr. Navaz Habib 28:46
For anybody who has wearable devices out there… I've got my Oura ring; I've had it for years. WHOOP band is great. Polar is a great tool. All of these great wearable tech devices—even the Apple Watch now is quite good—are great at giving you an indication of your heart rate variability, which is the best way to measure vagus nerve function. When we breathe in, we bring these heartbeats closer together. When we breathe out and exhale, we bring the beats further apart. As we exhale, bringing the beats further apart creates more variability, and that is when we're turning on our vagus nerve. Exhale is the time to turn on our vagus nerve.
Dr. Navaz Habib 29:23
So nasal [and] diaphragmatic [breathing] and longer exhales [are] the three top things to do with your breath. If we can focus on creating a breath pattern that is through our nose, into our diaphragm, and [with] longer exhales, it'll create a whole shift in our breathing pattern that turns on the vagus nerve more readily, pushes our HRV up and increases our vagal tone. This is what we're trying to do when we breathe effectively.
Dr. Jill 29:52
Oh, fantastic. And it's so practical. It's interesting you mentioned accessory muscles in our neck. I just heard an aesthetician talking at a conference and she was saying one of the ways you can look at women and their age—because they're doing the facial stuff—is by looking to see if they have really tight accessory muscles. And another good reason to anti-age is to breathe right because then you're not going to have all these really tight accessory muscles in our [inaudible]. I was like, “That's a good anti-aging tip: Breathe right.” [inaudible].
Dr. Navaz Habib 30:20
It is, 100%. Some people have this concept—it's something I learned from Sachin a long time ago—that we have a certain number of breaths that we're going to take throughout our lives, and if we can extend that longer, then we're likely to be able to extend our lifespan very interestingly. Breathing less is better for you and will extend your life.
Dr. Jill 30:42
Wow. All these anti-aging tips as well—I love it. I love it. I hate the word “anti-aging” because that means we're not trying to age. “Aging well” or “optimal performance.
Dr. Navaz Habib 30:50
Aging well and optimally. I like that.
Dr. Jill 30:52
That's better because I'm all about aging well. I don't have any problem with my age, growing old, or any of that.
What are a few other practical ways? You mentioned connections. So obviously getting with people, connecting with people. I'm sure hugs [too and] all these kinds of things. But do you want to give out just a few practical tips in day-to-day life that might be helpful for the vagal nerve?
Dr. Navaz Habib 31:09
For sure. Connection is huge and that creates a sense of safety. We want to be around people that make us happy. When we're happy, we tend to laugh. Laughter is one of those wonderful tools that we can use to create this optimal sense of well-being and safety. We don't laugh when we're feeling scared. We laugh when we're feeling comforted, when we're feeling safe, and when we're feeling happy. I went to a comedy show with my wife this weekend, which was wonderful. We hadn't been able to do one for a while. So we went; we laughed. It was great. And that's one of those things that you can do. So go out, find people that you can connect with, and laugh with them.
Dr. Navaz Habib 31:45
If you're not really into the whole exercise and fitness piece, laughter yoga is one of those really interesting ways to start to incorporate this laughing piece into your day-to-day life. It's a very easy thing to do. You do it with a few people. One person just starts laughing and everybody ultimately ends up laughing for about 20 or 30 minutes.
Dr. Jill 32:06
I've never liked yoga, but I think I would love laughter yoga. [laughter] That is great. I love it.
Dr. Navaz Habib 32:11
Yes, that's a great one.
If we want to piggyback off of the breathing pattern and the breathing tools, there's a bunch of tools that we can do on top of that. There's humming. Humming is a really wonderful tool where we create a vocalization pattern within the laryngeal and pharyngeal muscles. For the math people out there, you might have noticed that I talked about the vagus nerve. When 80% of information comes up, 15% is that parasympathetic controlling info going down; there's 5% left. The motor signals to the muscles of the laryngeal and the pharyngeal branches that go down into the throat are vagus nerve motor branches. So 4% of that leftover comes down to the muscles around the throat. Humming, chanting, gargling, speaking—these are all ways to activate those 4% branches of the vagus nerve.
Dr. Navaz Habib 33:03
These are great. And we do all of those while we are exhaling, right? So we're going to exhale. We're going to chant in an exhale pattern. We're going to hum in an exhale pattern. One of the reasons why we have this interesting om pattern that's been out since ancient times—that om humming pattern that occurs from your throat—[is] that's a vagus nerve activating tool. Isn't that so cool? It's kind of what it's been there for. When we extend the exhale, we create the vocalization all at the same time.
Dr. Navaz Habib 33:35
Gargling [is] wonderful, particularly if you have digestive issues. Gargling vigorously in the morning and the evening and throwing a little bit of salt into your water [is a] great way to get that going. What it does is force you not to inhale the water. It forces you to activate the pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles really effectively. And it cleans up what's at the back of your throat while you're exhaling vigorously. That creates a sense of calm and safety, and it's a really great way to activate the vagus nerve. I've found it to be particularly impressive in people who have digestive challenges, parastolic issues, constipation, and stuff like that.
Dr. Jill 34:12
Wow, it's so practical.
I want to get to vagal nerve stimulators, which [inaudible]. But I want to talk about a really quick story that just reminded me, as you were talking: One of the first stories of my book is about this climb that I did. My writing coach—[as] we mentioned already—is also a professional climber. One day we were doing a coffee shop session and he was like, “Hey, do you want to go for a climb?” I'm up for adventures so I'm like, “Sure, that sounds like fun,” not knowing what I'm getting into and having zero climbing experience. I went out and got shoes. We made it to the mountain, we climbed up, and then I was on the mountain. I climbed the Third Flatiron, which for those of you who don't know Boulder, is like a thousand-foot rampart. It's crazy that my first climb was the Flatiron.
Dr. Jill 34:51
But it comes back to the vagal nerve because I remember being on that rock [on] my very first climb. Dr. Habib, I was terrified. I have never in my life been so scared. But I also was like: “I want to do this. I want to achieve this. I know I can do it.” So I was in that mix of I didn't want to look back and be scared by how far down it was; I didn't want to look up and be like, “There's no way I'll make it.” But you know what I did on that rock so many times during those three and a half hours? I sang hymns to myself, old stuff from my childhood. I didn't even care. There were people climbing on either side of me, maybe 100 feet away. I sang to myself. And I never knew it until recently talking about the vagus nerve.
Dr. Jill 35:30
And talking even about in utero, in our mother's womb, that humming and that sound is almost like how we might have heard our mother humming if she was singing. And I just thought as you were talking, “I bet you—I didn't know this—I was self-soothing with vagal nerve stimulation on that mountain,” right?
Dr. Navaz Habib 35:51
You absolutely were. That's absolutely 100% correct. You went back to a state that allowed for you to create safety, so that humming sound. Bringing it back to the polyvagal theory, Stephen Porjes states very clearly that the mother's tone of voice is a major driver of this feeling of safety, even while we're in utero. So humming calmly. When we speak calmly with our children, our children tend to respond in a much more calm state. When we're a little bit more activated and a little bit more aggressive, they tend to mirror that same reaction. What you were doing was self-soothing in the same way that your mother would have done while you were in utero. Very interesting.
Dr. Jill 36:36
It's so amazing because I had no idea until recently and I was like, “Oh, that's why!” because I knew it got me through that. It was one of the tricks. And it was just this instinctual thing; I had no plan. It just happened. I know it got me through.
Dr. Jill 36:49
Gosh, so many thoughts. I just had a thought as you were talking: I wonder if we pick partners based on voice sometimes. I had never thought about that. There are probably studies. I don't know what they are. But I bet there's a subconscious thing. You know how there are people [of whom] we love their voice or [whose] voice is really irritating? I wonder if there's a similarity to a mother's voice in how we choose our partners. Who knows?
Dr. Navaz Habib 37:09
It would not surprise me at all. It would not surprise me. I have not seen any studies. I'm not so heavy into psychology, but I completely agree.
Dr. Jill 37:17
I always have these crazy, curious thoughts.
My other thought as you were talking earlier was that nicotine is an acetylcholine receptor agonist. There are a lot of studies that are coming out now about ulcerative colitis—those are actually old studies—and how nicotine can be helpful. And then long COVID. And I'm like, “Oh, this is probably a vagal nerve stimulation through the acetylcholine receptor.” Now, nicotine is highly addictive. I don't typically prescribe or recommend it, so I'm not recommending that. But there are studies. And it probably makes sense because it's stimulating the acetylcholine.
Dr. Navaz Habib 37:46
Yes, it's the alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor that is particularly the receptor that the acetylcholine attaches to, creating the anti-inflammatory cascade. What's crazy is those are not only located on the cell surface, but we've now found that those same alpha-7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors are found on the surface of mitochondria, which is crazy if you talk about mitochondrial health and anti-aging. We can do a whole other conversation on that later.
Dr. Jill 38:12
I'm blown away because we've always known nicotine is addictive and very soothing for people. And it's so interesting because I'm like, “Ah, this makes sense if they are subconsciously creating safety.” And again, I am not promoting smoking, nicotine, or vaping. But it makes sense why it's so addictive.
Dr. Navaz Habib 38:29
Yes, absolutely.
Dr. Jill 38:30
Okay, so let's talk about vagal nerve stimulators. I bought one from Europe a while back—they no longer sell it in the US—and it burned my ear. It was not a good device. I didn't like it. I won't say the name. But I ran into you guys at the conference. And this is called Truevaga. We've talked about this because I am so in love with this device. We both have our devices.
Dr. Navaz Habib 38:46
I've got mine here.
Dr. Jill 38:47
Yes. And I want to tell you how you can get one if you want to try this yourself because I am in love with this. I feel like it's so practical. And like I said, I've tried a lot of other devices. Maybe you can share a little bit about gammaCore, the company. They designed devices for the military. So they are, I think, the best research. Do you want to tell us a little background on this? And now this is direct to consumers so you can get it yourself.
Dr. Navaz Habib 39:08
Absolutely. The wonderful news with regard to Truevaga and gammaCore and how it all came about is that it all started from the idea… And this links back to what you were talking about earlier. Dr. Peter Staats, who's the CMO for the company, and JP Errico, my podcast co-host on my podcast—called the Health Upgrade Podcast, for anybody who's interested—collaborated on creating vagus nerve stimulation as a tool to help with peanut allergy for Dr. Staats's son. That's where it all came from—the idea, the concept for it.
Dr. Navaz Habib 39:44
It was piggybacking off of Kevin Tracey's research, where he determined that we have this pathway called the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway and that the vagus nerve is the linchpin to creating this inflammatory control within the body. So they went down this road to figure out what's the best way to do this. There had been tools that were implanted and coiled around the vagus nerve—an implanted vagus nerve device. These were used for epilepsy, and now they've been used for depression as well, which is quite helpful.
Dr. Navaz Habib 40:16
And the studies that came from this said, “What's the best way to get this stimulation to occur in everyday people?” And they came down to vagus nerve stimulation. There are two forms. You mentioned the ear earlier, auricular vagus nerve stimulation. That covers very few fibers of the vagus nerve. Only about 1% of the information on the vagus nerve, even less, goes through the vagus nerve auricular branch. We can stimulate there. That's a tool that auricular acupuncture has been used for. But it takes a while for that stimulation to kick in and take place. So these gentlemen figured: “This is pretty accessible in the neck. Why don't we do something noninvasive, electrical on the neck?” So they created this tool where they have these two electrodes that go directly onto the neck, right in front of the SCM muscle and on top of the carotid artery. “And let's see what it does.”
Dr. Navaz Habib 41:12
They went heavy on the research; I promise you. This is the company that's done all the research to figure out what this tool does. Vagus nerve stimulation has been shown to help with anything leading from depression, anxiety, gastroparesis, inflammatory bowel disease, migraine, and cluster headache. It's phenomenal for sleep. It's absolutely one of the best tools that I've been able to utilize.
Dr. Navaz Habib 41:36
And it gets the job done in as little as two minutes of stimulation, which is just phenomenal to understand. Two minutes—who can't give two minutes in the middle of their day, or at the end of a book, in the morning and the evening of their day, or just when they sit down at their desk?—which is what I do because I have it sitting here all the time. I just go and do it when I'm starting my workday or finishing my workday, and those two minutes help me get my focus going again.
Dr. Navaz Habib 42:05
I can't tell you the number of case studies with my clients that have had phenomenal changes. All of the exercises and tools that we talked about in this episode are wonderful foundational tools. They're all great. But often when people are in that struggling session—when they're having challenges getting into a state where healing and recovery can truly occur, when the immune system is turned to a parasympathetic and recovery state—that signal that's being sent when we electrically stimulate is hyperactivated. It is turned to level 10, and we're able to put our bodies into a recovery state far more readily.
Dr. Navaz Habib 42:50
I've had people have phenomenal changes with Parkinson's disease, diabetes, massive sleep disturbances, gut issues, and mast cell activation. It's been one of these wonderful tools because we can take all the supplements and do all of the exercises, but if our bodies are not in a healing state—in that parasympathetic activated healing state—we're not going to be able to do the job of pushing into that healed and healthy area. So that's what this tool really does. Two minutes in the morning; two minutes in the evening. If you need to double it up, that's eight minutes total in a day. I think that's a pretty low investment of time for a phenomenal potential outcome.
Dr. Jill 43:35
Gosh, we've come full circle too, because it's like this simple device that heals. And like we said, we can't heal—[as] we already established—if we don't feel safe in our system. And this is a way to… The word “hack” is kind of like anti-aging, right? I don't love that word because it's kind of violent for what we're really doing. We're soothing our system. I love that. But yes, you guys can get this.
Dr. Jill 43:54
We have a special code for listeners: DRJILLPLUS. It's at Truevaga.com. If you guys want to get your own, that's a $30 off coupon—DRJILLPLUS—and you are welcome to use that if you're listening or share it with your friends. And I just want to show you. There's this app on my phone. You have an app that's connected to the device. You just go there—make sure it's connected with Bluetooth—and then hit ‘Go' and then you can turn up the stimulation there. You put a spray—a little bit of this gel—on your neck, and then you do two minutes and you're done. And like I said, I've been traveling with it. I really, really love this. It's so practical. It's so easy.
Dr. Navaz Habib 44:31
My favorite thing about it is that it's small. I can toss it in my pocket. When I'm walking around the conference, I have it in my jacket pocket and it's easy to go around with. It doesn't take up any room in my backpack. It's wonderful for just being around all the time. One of my cool uses for this is that if I'm traveling across time zones, this is a great way to get my circadian rhythm back on track and to get myself to sleep at a reasonable time versus what usually happens when I'm traveling to the West Coast or East Coast.
Dr. Jill 45:01
Oh, I love that because I'm all about hacking the time zone stuff. That's one of my goals always: “I want to totally, in 24 hours, be on the new time zone.”
Dr. Navaz Habib 45:09
Yes.
Dr. Jill 45:10
Great, great. Practical. Oh my gosh, I could talk to you forever, Dr. Habib. This has been so great with information for people. So practical. I want to let people know where they can find you. Where's your website? Where can your book be found? Just repeat everything. And we'll include this in the notes. If you're driving, don't worry about writing things down.
Dr. Navaz Habib 45:28
Absolutely. Go to HealthUpgraded.com to learn more about me and my online practice and the process of creating a course on the vagus nerve. I look forward to catching that. You can just sign up for emails at this point and we'll get you sent out all of the info when that comes up. And then for the book, go to VagusNerveBook.com. There's a bunch of info on there. Activate Your Vagus Nerve was my first book. That actually came out almost five years ago now. And I've got my second one now, which is Upgrade Your Vagus Nerve. So, there are two of them on the vagus nerve.
Dr. Jill 45:57
Oh, I need to get a copy.
Dr. Navaz Habib 48:57
I'm going to get you a copy of this for sure. But both of them are there. I thought you had this one, so I'm going to make sure that you get it next time.
Dr. Jill 46:03
And I'm laughing because… We were at a functional medicine conference in Las Vegas. We've known each other, and you've talked about your book before, so we wanted to do a podcast. But we connected somehow and you pulled it out of your pocket and showed me. I was like: “Oh, I want to know more. I want one of those.”
Dr. Jill 46:17
I had just had my experience—we won't name any names—but it was a tragus ear stimulator and it was like 60 minutes. After like, I don't know, seven or eight sessions, my ears started getting burned. And I never noticed a difference. So just honestly, practically, I only talk about stuff I believe in. This is a game-changer. So Truevaga.com. DRJILLPLUS—you can get a discount.
Dr. Jill 46:37
Most of all, thank you for your time today. It was an absolute pleasure. And thank you guys for joining into another episode of Resiliency Radio. I hope you enjoyed it. I always learn so much, and I hope you did as well. Stay tuned for more empowering episodes. We release a new episode every Wednesday. You can find all of the transcripts and historical episodes at JillCarnahan.com.
Thanks again for joining me today. Dr. Habib.
Dr. Navaz Habib 47:01
Thank you for having me. It was a wonderful conversation.
* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The product mentioned in this article are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The information in this article is not intended to replace any recommendations or relationship with your physician. Please review references sited at end of article for scientific support of any claims made.
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