If your child has trouble falling asleep, moving from a state of distress to a state of calm, if they have trouble with digestion, they likely have something called low Vagal Tone. The Vagus Nerve is the longest nerve in the body and touches so many aspects of our functioning and is known to be a factor, especially in children with digestive, neurological and inflammatory concerns, and I think that accounts for most of us kids with disabilities.

Dr. Navaz Habib, the author of “Activate Your Vagus Nerve” and host of “The Health Upgrade Podcast” talks to us about things you can do, even if your child is apraxic / dyspraxic. 

Check out this podcast to get 3 things you can implement right away to upgrade your child’s digestion, sleep and mood.

More on Gut Health at www.functionalnutritionforkids.com/guthealth

Audio Transcript:

Vaish:

If your child has trouble falling asleep, trouble moving from a state of distress to a state of calm. If they have trouble with digestion, they likely have something called Low vagal tone. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body and touches so many aspects of our functioning and is known to be a factor, especially in children with digestive, neurological and inflammatory concerns. I think that accounts for most of our kids, most the kids with disabilities, welcome to functional nutrition and learning for kids. You’re one-stop for nutrition and education matters for your child with Down syndrome, autism, or ADHD.

I’m your host Vaish and I am thrilled to interview vagus nerve expert, Dr. Navaz Habib today. Dr. Nawaz Habib is the author of activating the vagus nerve. He’s also the host of the health upgrade podcast. He’s the founder of health upgraded which is an online Functional Medicine and Health optimization clinic. Dr. Habib consults with high-performing professionals, athletes and entrepreneurs to dig deeper and find 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. You can find this book at www.vagusnervebook.com. And it’s also linked on the show notes. And if you love this podcast, and as I’m sure you would, I would love to have your review wherever you’re listening.

Thank you for being here. Dr. Navaz. I’m so excited to finally have a conversation about the vagus nerve. I’ve been dying to have this conversation for a long time.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Honored to be here. Thanks for having me.

Vaish:

Yeah, can you? Can you let us get started with a deep dive? Can you tell us a little bit about the role of the vagus nerve in our bodies? And as parents of children with disabilities? Why should we be concerned?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, it’s a great question. And it’s something that I think honestly has been overlooked for too long, especially in the medical system that we currently are generally kind of living in the conventional system, we tend to overlook the importance of the control of inflammation within the body, we tend to overlook how we can kind of create an optimal function within our body and to allow for the body to function in the way that it’s meant to. And the vagus nerve is heavily involved in that particular role. And so what the vagus nerve is, is it’s the 10th cranial nerve. So we have 12 pairs of cranial nerves, either nerve that generally comes out from the brainstem, which is just below the brain and sends out these nerves primarily to the head and the face area. And so these are the ones that are involved in vision and taste in the face and eye movements and stuff like that. And they’re heavily involved in a lot of our senses, but the vagus nerve has a much greater role. And so it’s the 10th of the 12 nerves.

It’s a pair of nerves as well. So we’ve got one on each side, and they both come out from the brainstem. And instead of just staying within the head cavity, this particular nerve actually comes down, goes through the neck sends a few branches in and around the head and face, which we can talk about a little bit later with regard to treatment, and how to optimize the function of this. But it comes down alongside the carotid artery in the jugular vein. And these are the two blood vessels that bring blood flow to and from the brain.

They’re the most important blood flow vessels when it comes to being able to think and function and actually produce function within our brain. So you can just imagine how important these two structures are the carotid artery and jugular vein and alongside is the vagus nerve. It comes down through the neck and it continues on into the thorax into the chest area where it sends a branch to the heart and sends up branches to the lungs as well. But it doesn’t just stop there. It actually continues on and goes through the diaphragm, which is the muscle underneath the lungs and goes into the abdomen. And then it basically branches off and innervates almost every single organ in our abdomen. So we’re talking about the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, pancreas, spleen, kidneys, liver, you name it, every organ in the abdomen essentially has innervation from the vagus nerve or it’s getting some sort of signaling to and from the vagus nerve. And so it just goes to show how broad the vagus nerves function truly is.

For those who have a bit of a medical background, or they’ve done some anatomy, vagus literally comes from the root word vague or wondering is kind of what kind of means because it’s the only nerve and the Tire body, that’s not just doing one thing, it’s not just going to one area or one region, it’s going to so many different areas. And so it really speaks to the importance of this particular nerve because it really doesn’t act like any specific other nerves within the body.

Now, it’s really important to understand what information the vagus nerve is playing. So we know that it’s going to the lungs to the heart to all of these other organs, what information is being relayed through that. So about 80% of the information on the vagus nerve is actually afferent. That means that it’s actually signaling from those organs up to the brain. And that’s 80% 80% is actually going from all of those organs up to the brain. Many of us at this point, I imagine in your research, things that have gone on with you, with your kids with the conditions that they may be dealing with. We’ve heard of the gut brain connection, the gut brain axis, and we know the importance of the microbiome, the physical connecting point of the gut brain axis is the vagus nerve. And so that is why it’s so so important, especially when it comes to the types of conditions that we’re talking about when it comes to functional nutrition and kids. And being able to understand that the information that comes through the microbiome is going to be signaled to our brain via the vagus nerve.

Primarily, there are other routes, hormonal routes and other biochemical roots. But this is a particular physical connecting point. It also is involved in the control of inflammation and producing the parasympathetic nervous system. So this vagus nerve has so many different roles. And 80% of that information is coming up to the brain that’s kind of that thermostat, gut brain axis telling us what’s going on within the body, what inflammation is occurring, what organs are working, which ones are not, all of that is coming up in that 80%, we have 15% of the information on the vagus nerve that’s going from the brain and the brain stem down to those organs. And that’s the parasympathetic nervous system. That is what we generally talk about as the rest and digest system. It’s also I want to add one more word there, it’s the Rest Digest and recover the system.

It allows for recovery to occur, it allows for us to be able to take on the stressors that we’ve experienced on a daily basis, and recover from those, okay. And in doing so, as a part of that system as a part of that 15% of the information that’s going from the brain down, it’s also controlling the inflammation within the body.

So inflammation, if we think about it, in the most basic sense, think of it like a car, we’ve got the gas pedal, and we’ve got the brakes, we’ve got the accelerator and the brakes, I have an electric car, so I don’t have a gas pedal anymore. So on the accelerator, we have essentially this Go Go Go idea that fight or flight, which is a sympathetic response. And then we’ve got the brakes, and the brakes are controlled through the vagus nerve. And that’s to control the inflammation. So we need inflammation in an acute state and we get bumped we get in a car accident, something physical, or traumatic happens, we need an inflammatory response to help to say, hate, we need all of these cells to come here and fix the issue.

The problem with inflammation occurs when it’s uncontrolled when we can’t push the brakes, in the same way, that if we push the accelerator on a car, and we don’t slow it down, we don’t have the brakes, that car can go and create a whole lot of damage. Okay, in the same way, inflammation can do the same thing when it’s uncontrolled. And so the function of the vagus nerve is to control that inflammation through a whole system known as the cholinergic, anti-inflammatory system. So essentially, we’ve got these three major systems that are run through the vagus nerve, they’ve got the gut brain axis, and the thermostat of inflammation within the entire body going up in that 80% of information on the nerve. And then in that 15%, that’s going down, we’ve got the parasympathetic nervous system, which is essentially telling our digestive system to turn on to go into a resting state to be able to recover from the challenges that we’re experiencing, and to put on the brakes to inflammation through the cholinergic anti-inflammatory system. Now, if I missed about 5%, and I’ve done so on purpose because that’s where we can really affect positive change within the vagus nerve.

Vaish:

Are you going to get to the 5%?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Absolutely. Yeah,

Vaish:

We can. Okay.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

For sure.

Vaish:

Yeah. Well, my you can tell me this ties into my next question is that when there is an issue with the functioning of the vagus nerve, and I don’t know if that is the same as saying vagal tone, or do those mean the same thing? Okay. So what kind of symptoms would you be seeing in Kids?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, that’s a great question. So vagal tone essentially tells us how strong the vagus nerve is or how much function there is within the vagus nerve. The higher the vagal tone, the more the better the vagus nerve is functioning, and the lower the vagal tone, essentially, the ceiling is a bit lower for how well we’re able to get into those parasympathetic states, how much inflammation control and the gut brain axis, how much information can be passed via that nerve?

Vaish:

So basically, the information highways kind of maybe either be congested or just not functioning well. Okay.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

That’s exactly right. So think of it exactly, you gave a great analogy there is a highway that has a whole lot of traffic, you’re not only able to go really quickly on it, it’s it’s clogged up with too many cars, too much information, and it just can’t handle it because it’s not wide enough or strong enough. Right. So what we would like is a fast-running highway, a highway or freeway that has a good flow of cars, everybody’s able to move along to go where they need to go, and there isn’t a clog, or an accident, or some sort of traffic condition that’s going on within that nerve.

Vaish:

When that doesn’t happen. What do you what, what what do you see?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, so the challenges that we tend to notice in those situations are uncontrolled inflammation, and really poor digestion, those are the two most common things that we find is attributed to low vagal tone and are associated with low vagal tone. So let’s talk about digestion. We know how important gut brain access is, the signals from the vagus nerve that goes to the gut are actually going to stimulate the actual peristalsis, the actual breakdown of the nutrients and the movement of the food along the intestinal tract and along all of the digestive organs. This is where a lot of challenges can occur. So if we’re dealing with like chronic constipation, or a very, very fast gut, it means that we’re not getting that ideal timeline by which the digestive system is able to do its job. So poor digestion, somebody going to the bathroom more than three times a day, or not going to the bathroom every day, I think the ideal number is anywhere between the kind of one to three per day would be an optimal number of times to have bowel movements within the day.

Vaish:

I knew that for constipation vagal tone was an issue, I did not know that you know, more than three times a day could also be a vagal tone issue.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s, there’s some really great, there’s a really great test that I’ll actually recommend to be able to figure out if this is an issue, it’s called the bowel transit time test. So what I recommend is to go and get just a very small amount, you don’t need a lot of it, but just white sesame seeds are one of the easier ones to go and pick up from any bulk food store, just a little bit of them, make sure they are white, you won’t see them if they’re not, what you’re looking for is to take that take those sesame seeds, put them in a glass of water and have yourself your kid whoever is doing the test. actually drink the seeds don’t chew the seeds, it’s important. So our audio can’t. Exactly everybody can break down the seeds. So if you swallow them, and then you mark down the time that you’ve had, the seeds come in. And then what you’re going to do is every time you or whoever you’re testing goes to the bathroom, you’re going to check to see if there are white seeds that are showing up in their stools.

Okay, I see. And you’re going to mark down the time that you first see them, you’re also going to mark down the time that you last see them. And the ideal can be seen multiple times this is a very important piece of the puzzle. Because if you’re finding that it’s happening over three or four different bowel movements, then you know that there’s some sluggishness or you know that there might be pockets at which food is not being ideally moved along. And it’s actually backed up that some of those traffic jams are happening on the gut side rather than on the vagus nerve side. Okay, I see, the ideal amount of time is anywhere between the kind of 16 to 20 hours, that would be optimal. Anything faster than that means that you’re moving along too quickly.

Anything more than 24 hours, we know we’re moving along a little too slowly. Okay, so that optimal number is 16 to 2020 to 24. Not so bad. 12 to 16 May, not bad, but not phenomenal. More, more than 24 less than 12. We know that we’re having an issue there for sure.

Vaish:

I see. So, so both so. So you made the point that both constipation and I don’t want to say diarrhea because it may not be diarrhea, but can be a signal can be a symptom of low vagal tone, correct? Absolutely. Yes. And you also said that the two areas that are most commonly affected are inflammation and digestion and we know that Most kids, maybe more than 80% of kids who are autistic have, you know, digestive issues of different sorts? And I don’t know what the percent is, but many have both gut and neuroinflammation. Yeah. So is that an obvious segue into the fact that you need to work on vagal tone, that’s exactly right.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Essentially, if there’s a breakdown in the gut if the gut is not functioning well enough, because it’s not able to absorb nutrients correctly, or whatnot, whenever there’s a breakdown at the gut lining, it’s going to eventually become a neurological breakdown as well. Our brain and our gut both developed from the same soulmates when we’re a fetus. So we have very particular soulmates that produce neurological tissue. And if we really think about it, the brain obviously is neurological tissue, but so is the gut. Because the gut has more nerve endings in it than our actual central nervous system brain does.

The gut is actually the quote-unquote, second brain, the enteric nervous system is all of these nerve endings on the gut site. And that’s where all of our nutrients are absorbed in from, and they’re meant to go out and the nutrients that go to the cells to allow them to do their job. But within the lining of the gut, we have lymphoid tissue, this gut associated lymphoid tissue Galt, and that makes up our entire body between 70 and 80% of the immune system cells. So by volume 70, to 80% of our immune system is located in the lining of our gut. So if there’s an issue in the gut, it’s going to trigger inflammation. And because we are developed from the same sites, both in our gut and our brain, and anything that breaks down the gut is eventually are pretty quickly, in some cases, going to break down the blood-brain barrier and actually get in and create an inflammatory trigger and inflammatory symptoms within the brain. And that is because it’s triggering what’s called the microglial cells within the brain.

They’re activated because the inflammatory cytokines, these signaling molecules that say, Hey, there’s a ton of inflammation, there’s something wrong, are getting across into the brain. And those microglial cells are saying, Oh, no, we got to turn on, we got to knock down this inflammation, but it’s getting confused because the inflammation is so high, it just triggers more and more, it’s creating an actual breakdown of the brain function.

That can lead to in some basic cases, things like brain fogginess, and memory issues. And in more extreme cases, it leads to adding ADHD, autism, etc. So this is where that connection point comes from. And the vagus nerve is so heavily involved in that system, that it is, in my opinion, the crux of this whole thing, if we can manage to improve the gut brain axis and the vagus nerve function, we’re going to be able to bring that inflammation under control, and actually reduce the symptoms of what people are experiencing both in an acute scenario and chronically.

Vaish:

So you would think of the vagus vagal tone as a root cause as opposed to it. I was going to ask you this question later, but I think it fits in right now. It’s gonna ask you, is it? Is it a root cause of the symptoms?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

it’s on the pathway of the vagus nerve itself requires certain inputs that are going to take whether it is functioning well or not, and dunzo over a chronic period of time, that’s where vagal tone can decrease. So you’re never going to be diagnosed with low vagal tone. That’s not a diagnosis by any means. But it is triggered by certain challenges. When you have a really heavily inflammatory diet, it’s going to trigger a breakdown of the vagus nerve, because the

Vaish:

An inflamed inflammatory diet causes vagal tone issues which can cause inflammation.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Exactly which exacerbates the inflammation. So now we already have an inflammatory diet, we’re allowing for more of the breakdown to occur within the gut, we’re allowing the inflammation level to come up, and the brakes can only control so much. If the accelerator is constantly being pushed, then you’re trying to slow that down, but you’re pushing both pedals at the same time, and the brakes are going to wear out. I love that analogy. breaks down, and that’s where vagal tone decreases.

Vaish:

Wow. Okay, so it’s kind of midstream. But, so when you are addressing vagal tone it’s kind of pointless to be on an inflammatory diet and address it.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, it’s really good. Yeah. Right.

Vaish:

So it all starts I like this because I like the fact that it comes back to the diet because a lot of times we’re looking for hacks that we can do. While not I mean, changing diet is hard work, especially if your child is a picky eater or if your child I mean, it’s just harder with the child. Right. So yeah, unless you start very young. So a lot of times people want other things, but it’s good to know that. It’s not very useful.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, exactly. And really, it does come down to if you can provide good nutrition to your kids. The gut is going to be in a resolved state. It’s Tough I get it. I have a five year old and a one year old. I understand how tough it can be and pickiness does come out. It’s a whole different scenario with kids. But if we train them and teach them what’s healthy and what we want to avoid or minimize, and they learn that from an early age, it’s something that I’ve been able to at least, for the most part, let’s say we follow kind of the 8020 rule of being really good versus allowing ourselves a little bit of leniency.

Vaish:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And same here with my kids, my daughter is 11. I do at 20. But she’s neurotypical and I’m not seeing any symptoms, I can afford to do that. But with my son, I can’t if I do at 20, all is lost within two weeks. So yes, so we’re, we’re 100. But the way it goes is that with time, he doesn’t even want to eat things like gluten and dairy anymore, or he’ll push away things that are sweet, which I think it’s a learned cultivated response.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

And that’s, like, attributed to your hard work. I totally understand that. Like, it’s been a tough road. But clearly, the fact that he happened to make that decision on his own and realizes what makes them not feel good. It’s a trained response. And that’s wonderful that you were able to do that. Yeah. And

Vaish:

it’s definitely miserable in the beginning for the first few months. But honestly, actually, it’s easier now than, than if we were to eat a regular diet. But coming back to a vagal tone, how can we not everybody’s obviously thinking about this? What do we need to do? How do we work on Rainbow tone?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, it’s a great question. One of the more common things that I find with kids, and this is even true with my younger ones, is that breathing is heavily involved in this entire process. And the fact that most of us don’t breathe correctly, we tend to, let’s think about it very basically. And you can do this with your kids. And it’ll actually turn some light bulbs on, watch your kid and say, take a deep breath in. And you’ll see what they do when they’re paying attention is they’ll go into this full chest breathing, shoulders shrugged, go into that position, even the vast majority of us as adults do this, as well, when in reality, we shouldn’t really be moving any of these muscles, it should be purely diaphragmed.

So the diaphragm is that muscle that’s kind of at the bottom right below the lungs. And the idea here is that we want to create space within our lungs and the diaphragm is the muscle that’s going to do that most effectively, it’s going to create that deepest vacuum and allow for air to come deeper and deeper. And so a really quick thing to check if you’re breathing correctly is to put one hand on your chest, put one hand on your belly, and take a deep breath. And notice which hand is moving, if the hand that’s on your belly is the one that’s moving, congratulations, you’re doing well. If the hand that’s on your chest as the one that’s moving forward and backward, you have to do about three or four breaths to really get a good sense of this. You’re actually breathing with more of your accessory breathing muscles, your intercostals the traps.

This is why so many people really tight trap muscles and upper back muscles. Not only is it the pure, terrible posture that we have sitting on our laptops all day. But in addition to that, we’re not breathing correctly, we’re using the accessory breathing muscles, not the primary breathing muscles. So this is an important piece of the puzzle. If we want to turn on the vagus nerve, we have to signal to our brain that we’re in a calm state. And that requires deep, slow diaphragmatic breaths, deep breaths.

Vaish:

Can I pause you there? Dr. As you said, if you want to signal to your Wait, wait if you want to signal to your vagus nerve that you’re in a calm state, is that what you said, and then also that the vagus nerve itself signals.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Back to the rest of the body? Okay, so this is where our conscious control can actually tell our body where we are. So let’s think of it in a very basic sense. There’s a dog running after you chasing barking, all of a sudden, you’re gonna go into what’s called the fight or flight response, your breathing is going to become short and shallow, right? Your pupils are going to dilate and blood flow is going to go towards your arms and your legs. So you can either fight or run away from the dog or the threat or whatever it is even it happens when your boss taps you on the shoulder and says, Hey, I need to see you in my office right now. All right, so we have this stressful scenario that triggers a stress response.

Our control of that can be simply based on how we breathe. And so we can actually dictate, are we going into the fight or flight side of things with a short shallow breath, which most of us are breathing incorrectly and we’re going into that state because we’re breathing incorrectly, or we can slow that down. Go into that deep diaphragmatic breath, calm everything down, and send the blood flow towards the center towards the core. or the chest and the abdomen and allow for, our function to actually go into this parasympathetic, rest, digest and recover state. And so how we breathe, our breath control is actually going to tell the vagus nerve whether to turn on or off.

Vaish:

So if I were too Sorry, continue.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

If we do this chronically, if we’re breathing through our chest chronically at 90% of the time, and we’re breathing incorrectly, then we’re likely pushing ourselves toward that sympathetic fight or flight response too much. And we’re not allowing the brakes to do their job. We’re not allowing the vagus nerve to turn on, effectively. So when we’re not stressed, we need to be breathing correctly. Watch your kid do this. If you watch a baby breathe, that’s kind of the best signal of how we should be breathing, because they’ve just learned and they haven’t been trained to breathe with their chest. But you’ll notice the belly is rising and falling when they’re laying on their back. That’s what we should be doing.

Vaish:

That’s why. Yeah, and that’s why when you learn pranayama, they say that breath is the bridge between the body and the mind. And that’s the biochemical reason for that.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

That’s the right 100% Wow, That’s that.

Vaish:

That is a fantastic, you know, just a biochemical picture that you gave us. Thank you. Thank you for that. That’s, really cool. And I was checking. I know that now. I mean, I do the second one where my belly goes back and forth. But when before I started learning to read, which is unfortunate that you have to learn but I remember the first time I was asked to read this way.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

That’s exactly right. It’s a trained response. And even like, I’ll find it in my five year old when she gets into one of her like, mood-based just turns on and she gets really upset and she’s crying and she gets into one of these tantrum types of scenarios. A lotus, that breathing is all short and shallow. So my goal always is to a hold hugger, and then say, Okay, let’s take some deep belly breaths.

A really easy way to do this though. Kids, this works really well for my, kid, is they love balloons. So let’s teach them to blow up the balloon that’s in their tummy. Okay, not the balloon, hear the balloon that’s in their tummy. So when they breathe in, we’re blowing up the balloon in your tummy. And as you breathe out, you’re letting that balloon deflate or shrinking that balloon. So the balloon is located within their belly. It’s just a simple visualization that works. So well, literally within three breaths, she’s generally much calmer. I realize I’ve neurotypical kids may be a little bit more difficult when you’re dealing with challenges and autism and ADHD and whatnot. But that breath really is that controlling piece that can be very, very beneficial in helping to bring back that calm state. And the visualization helps them focus on something that isn’t the thing that triggered them in the first place. So deep belly breaths focus on blowing up the balloon in your belly, okay. And I like to put my hand on her belly so that she feels this is where it needs to be working not up, not up top, not within the chest.

Vaish:

And any other techniques for working on vagal tone. Yeah.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

So this is where that last 5% that I kind of has blown over really comes into play. So there are two other functions of the vagus nerve 4% of the information in the vagus nerve goes to the pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles, these are the muscles around the vocal cords and at the back of the mouth and back of the throat. Okay, these are important because these muscles receive motor input from the vagus nerve, meaning that they have a muscular tone when they are turned on. So that means that they can keep our airways open.

The only reason I have any pitch or tone within my voice, the reason I can go really, really low or really, really high is that I have good vagal tone in vagal, signals to the laryngeal muscles that are tightening on the vocal cord. Okay, so that’s an important piece. If you find somebody who’s very monotone with their voice, you’ll notice, you’ll probably notice this more now that I’ve told you. But if you find that somebody’s more monotonous with their voice, they’re not able to really raise or lower their pitch.

It’s very commonly due to some sort of vagus nerve tone issue. I see. And so the muscles there are not triggered well enough by the vagus nerve. So the way to do this is humming humming is one of my favorite tools. This is also great with kids, especially right before a meal. Oftentimes, we’re running around, we’re dealing with all this stress, we’re cooking, they’re running and going crazy. And then we want to sit at the table and nobody can calm down. Yeah, and if we’re all in this fight or flight state when we go and we sit down, we’re not going to get that nutrition that we have worked so hard to get on the plate in front of them, right. So it doesn’t matter how healthy your food is.

If you’re not in a rest and digest state, you’re not going to get that nutrition and so I do a bit of humming with my kids for 36 comes to a minute before the meal, and we all sit down. And then I start saying let’s buzz like A B and we go z are we going to is that the same tone as your own would be when you’re doing like an own practice and meditation.

It’s the idea there with OMA is actually to help center and get the vagus nerve turned on. It’s really interesting that that exact frequency is really well known to turn on your vagus nerve. But there are actual HRV measurements, and we can get into a whole science of that later. But that tone is really helpful. So we want to buzz like a V or we want to hum like a beat we go. And you’ll notice it also slows your breath that slows the exhale down. In doing so it controls you into this deep diaphragmatic breath. We take a deep breath in.

Vaish:

And then we go even during it is coming, right, yeah.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Exactly. Hearing it feeling it, the vibration there, it’s stimulating the muscles around the vocal cords. So it’s actually turning the vagus nerve on a really awesome quick trick to help especially with kids to help calm them down and get them into that rest and digest state and turn their vagus nerve on.

Vaish:

So pretty easy, easy things to do with kids is like focus on their belly breathing. Remind them to do that, especially when in states of you know, either hyperactivity or agitation. And, and hum. Which is probably something that everybody would love to do. Me, may I throw you? What is known in us as a curveball and what is known in India and the Indian subcontinent is a googly?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Absolutely, I understand the cricket pieces to that totally Yes.

Vaish:

Okay. Yeah. That here, so my son and other non-speaking kids. So this is whenever I’ve studied vagal tone in the past because I keep trying to see what can I help my son, he is non-speaking, and he cannot hum on command. Sometimes he can, maybe you can hold it for a second. There are many who may not be using the right terms here. But there are many things that you would think are, I don’t know if the word is autonomic, or would that the body should do automatically but he doesn’t seem to have control. For example, when when we sleep, we close our eyes and then drift to sleep. But when he sleeps, he has to fall asleep for his eyes to close, which is why sleep is a nightmare. But coming back, he cannot breathe out, or in on command, he cannot love. So every one of the vagal tone exercises that I hear is all inaccessible to a subset of kids who simply I guess the word for it is apraxia is they just do not have the motor control. To do any of these. What I have ended up doing with my son is, with his permission, do a cold shower, because the only thing I can think of so what can you help us with there?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, when you get to the age that they can handle a cold shower, I love it. I think it’s one of the best things you can do a cold plunge and a cold shower is wonderful. Because what it does is it teaches you to handle stress and control your breath under that stressful circumstance. The key here is control of the breath. And so the cold shower will do that. I’m sure you notice when you do turn on that cold water, he gets very young. And you get into the sympathetic breathing. I don’t know when I do it for myself, all of us do. It’s meant to be there, right? We’re meant to respond that way. The key is over the next 30 seconds to five minutes. Depending on how long you want to do this, are you able to shift your breath from the chest back to the belly and focus on the belly breath?

That’s the key why being in the cold shower, continuing to be within the cold shower. So while the stressor continues to hit you can you bring yourself from sympathetic fight or flight into parasympathetic, rest, and digest. So think of it in a very basic way. We want to train our muscles to get stronger, we have to train them under stress. Let’s say, for example, we’re doing squats, we can do body squats, and air squats with no weight on them. Phenomenal, great. But now if we add weight onto the bar, we put a bar on their back and we put 50 6080 100 pounds on it retraining at a deeper level, we’re going to a much stronger level we’re under greater stress able to perform a better function, the cold is considered the stress and control of the breath are optimizing the function optimizing the muscles so to better training for the longer term to help increase the strength of that so the key is, can you bring the breath back to that chest.

Vaish:

So while that is hard to save when you’re doing it for another person and I think the key is also that you want to make sure that this is that you have the buy in of the person who might yeah my son will say because after the day after the culture he will say that I can feel parts of my body that I haven’t felt for this. And my guess is Something to do with vagal tone blood flow all of that right?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

That sounds about right, it sounds very much like a blood flow type of thing that’s likely secondary to the vagus nerve getting turned on cold exposure is wonderful. It’s one of the best ways to turn on the vagus nerve.

Vaish:

Yeah, what else can you do for a child that has difficulty with humming and breathing?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

In a situation like that the things that I would recommend are, and you kind of mentioned this earlier, when you’re humming, you can even hear it just hearing the frequency of that hum is going to help to calm you down. So and we know as parents that our kids take on the energy that we give to them, right. So if it’s bedtime, and we’re up and running around and the lights are on, and we’re talking and we’re loud, they’re not going to be able to fall asleep.

In the same way, when we come down, when we get our bodies into a state where we can stimulate the vagus nerve or get them to sleep, then they’ll fall asleep more easily. In the same way, if we go into that parasympathetic state around them, and even if you just like, I imagine even holding his hand or holding his back while you’re doing this, he’ll feel that vibration in a slightly different way. And that frequency will help to slow his breathing down. It’s almost like you’re being like the surrogate provider of the vagus nerve activation by simply being in the vicinity of him and calming down and allowing your vagus nerve to turn on. So if we shift our energy, and if we’re physically touching them, I imagine it would be making a big difference so I think

Vaish:

so too, because I think, as everybody would attest that when your other senses kind of dull, a little bit you do have our kids are very intuitive. And there’s a lot of perception of the environment around them. So I think, I think yeah, and I think every parent listening to this podcast would agree with that. Well, maybe thank you so much for all of this information. Maybe the last question, can you’ve already told us the answer to this, but maybe to summarize, can you give a parent or a child that say, very dysregulated, or having hyperactivity, three steps that they can take right away. And I know you’ve already said this so that we can even summarize it if that’s, we can break that down really easily.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

The number one is to get them to be breathing calmly when it requires them to be in a calm, rest and digest state. Teach them to breathe with their belly, teach them to expand that balloon within their belly, that deep diaphragmatic breath will change everything.

Vaish:

And if that is not accessible, then you sit and Breathe calmly, Breathe with them exactly.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

In a situation where it’s time to eat, humming is a phenomenal, simple tool to add with your kids, not only for your kids, it’ll actually help you a lot as well, a lot of people have vagus nerve dysfunction, and they really realize that it’s happening. So humming is a great option. And I just want to add one more, this is a really interesting one, not everybody will be able to do this, but it might work really well is that the last 1% of the information on the nerve that I’ve left out, excuse me, is actually information on the skin of the Oracle the skin of the ear, and it’s not the entire ear, it’s just that inside part, right around where the canal is. I talk a lot more about it in the book. But that area can be stimulating to the vagus nerve really effectively, it’s the auricular branch of the vagus nerve, and it sends sensory signals, meaning that if we just simply touch that area, it can be very calming, very stimulating to the vagus nerve, we can use things like a feather, we can use things that are very gentle.

We could if you wanted to, to the level of like sharp and dull, but acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine use that area I’ve seen particularly for vagus nerve activation, there are particular areas and that whole area within that small part of the Oracle the skin of that area actually outlines the entire parasympathetic nervous system within it. So in all of the organs that the vagus nerve innervates are laid out in that particular area, they kind of figured it out without having the anatomy behind it and going beyond kind of the vagus nerve information being laid out on an irregular map. So that’s something that we could use as an access tool to help to stimulate from an external source so that would be you as a parent or going to see a practitioner that does that in particular.

Vaish:

I love that thank you. And I have not heard of that. And now I can recollect whenever I’ve had acupuncture I remember that point. Thank you so much doctor and allow us to end with How can parents access you do work one on one.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

Yeah, I absolutely do. All of the work that I do with people is one on one through zoom. I’ve been doing this for years and years and if you want more information and there are a lot more tools with In the book, I outline about 25 different ways.

Vaish:

And tell us the name of the book for those that are listening, how to activate your vagus nerve.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

And really simple read, I get into a little bit of the science a little bit of what causes the breakdowns to occur and a bit of the exercise and tools that we can use things like sleeping on your side versus on your back or front. Things like what type of music to listen to, to help trigger HRV by the way, the answer is Mozart and classical music 100 Mozart Effect is real.

Vaish:

So any Indian, classical, whatever works well as a common state.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

What’s been tested so far in the research, the more of the classical piano type I got, yeah, yeah. And there’s a bunch more within there. I get into like daily, weekly and monthly practices, and what to dig into. And I’d be happy to consult if anybody does need deeper support than what they can find in the book.

Vaish:

I’ll link to your book and to your website. Can you just read out your link one so people know?

Dr. Navaz Habib:

it’s www.healthupgraded.com.

Vaish:

That’s easy. I will put the link to the book and the website. Thank you so much, Dr. Navaz.

Dr. Navaz Habib:

It’s my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Vaish:

So the three steps to upgrading your child’s vagal tone right away are one, Breathe calmly through your tummy to humming before eating or chanting home and three light pressure on the inside of the ear ridge to innervate the vagus nerve. You can get more information on your child’s gut health at functionalnutritionforkids.com that help. You can also find Dr. Nivas at health upbraided.com or vagus nerve book.com. And both links are in your show notes. Thank you for listening, and I’ll see you next week.