Episode 55 - VAGUS Not VEGAS! How To Maintain Your Nervous System With Jessica Maguire Part 1 (Full Transcript)
This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast, Episode 55 - VAGUS Not VEGAS! How To Maintain Your Nervous System With Jessica Maguire Part 1.
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Amy: 0:06
Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.
Katie: 0:18
And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation
Amy: 0:28
Welcome to this week's episode Nirvana sisters family. This week we're speaking with Jessica McGuire who focuses on your vagus nerve. Now, I had never heard this term before we spoke with her so don't worry if you don't know what it is. We will cover it all in this episode. But Jessica McGuire's passion for health led her to a degree in Health Science. Jessica McGuire has studied neurophysiology throughout Europe, America, the UK and Australia. She has learned from pain researchers, professors and neuroplasticity neuroscientists and physiologists on how the brain and nervous system change from stress, trauma and chronic pain. Her postgraduate study has led her to further qualifications and clinical mindfulness, trauma sensitive biofeedback, polyvagal theory and the use of Transcutaneous, Vagus Nerve Stimulation. Say that twice. So this episode is really to just open up your aperture on what this means and how to train your vagus nerve, which seems to be something that regulates the whole body. And this nervous system really dictates a lot of how you're feeling, which I didn't really think about too much. So this is really eye opening. For me again, Jessica really is an expert in this space in this vagus nerve and your nervous system. So Jessica believes that knowledge is power and that we are all empowered when we have the autonomy and reshaping our mind body systems. So her specialty now is really teaching patients about the vagus nerve, their nervous system and how stress related illness such as anxiety, depression, gut disorders, autoimmune issues, chronic pain can arise from dysregulation after chronic or traumatic stress. So she uses her vagus nerve masterclass, as well as her vagus nerve program to help people get to the cause of their problems rather than just relying on others to treat their systems. So we try to really break it down in layman's terms during this episode to understand what we can do on an everyday basis to help manage our vagus nerve and our nervous system. Enjoy the show.
Katie: 2:34
Well, Hi, Jessica, thank you so much for being here. It is great to have you all the way from the other side of the world. Jessica is dialing in from Australia. So we're so excited to have you and you are in our future that is tomorrow for us with you. That's right. Yes,
Jessica: 2:53
I am. Hello, thanks so much for having me.
Katie: 2:56
We're so excited to have you here. This is such an interesting topic. So before we get started, we'll start with our nirvana of the week. Amy, do you want to kick us off with that?
Amy: 3:08
I can. So I would say my nirvana of the week was this weekend, I had a really good friend's wedding. One of my husband's best friends from growing up. Definitely got married later in life. So we haven't had a wedding in a long time. And we haven't seen a lot of our friends. Obviously, with the pandemic over the last few years. We haven't all been together in one place. So it was just so fun to all be together. The wedding was in New York City and it was just an amazing weekend and spending time with friends and basically friends who are like family and just being all together under one roof. Celebrating a good occasion was just really beautiful. So yeah, that was my nirvana of the week. What about you, Katie?
Katie: 3:44
That's really nice. Mine what we had ours yesterday, we have a pool for the first time ever moving into a new house this past fall. And we used it as a family with our first pool day. And it was just so nice with the kids seeing them jump in and out of the pool. And it was just really relaxing. Like it was a little glimpse into what you know, many days are gonna look like ahead. So it was it was lovely. What about you? Jessica, do you have a nirvana of the week?
Jessica: 4:12
Yes. My husband and I picked out a new puppy. So we we are getting a Golden Retriever puppy in mid July. I talked to the breeder and she's been sending me lots of puppy spam every day of this really cute little puppy, but we're really excited to pick it up in region wide. And yeah, I keep looking at these photos sort of melting every time I look at them, and it's already Bringing lots of joy before it's even arrived.
Amy: 4:44
Oh, that's amazing. I feel you on that. I just got a puppy. Well, she's eight months now but you know, she's still definitely very much a puppy. She's a she's a Labradoodle. She's actually an Australian Labradoodle. So the brief comes from Australia. She's amazing. Are you getting Boyer or girl do not know yet.
Jessica: 5:02
Surprise, it'll be nice. She can match them with us, I thought it would be better.
Amy: 5:10
Exactly. That's the best because then they match with your temperament what you're looking for. So that's exciting. Well, that's awesome. Well, again, welcome to the show. We wanted to start off with a way to introduce you to our audience and have them get to know you a little bit more. So we're just going to do a fun little quick, this or that. So it's going to be super quick and just answer with your first instinct. Okay, so massage or facial message, beach retreat, or mountain retreat, beach or trading, coffee or tea, coffee, Salty or sweet. So I know that's a hard one. I'm like, wait, both. Great. So Thanks for Thanks for playing our quick game. And we will get into it. I think, today's a really interesting episode, as Katie was mentioning, I know she's been super passionate about this topic for a long time, I really don't know much about it. And I don't think our listeners do either. And I know you're all about the vagus nerve and explaining and helping people with symptoms. So can you help us to kind of give us a one on one, what is the vagus nerve tell us about the work that you do and why it's important and what people should know about this topic?
Jessica: 6:19
Sure, I'd love to. So I guess one of his one of what we call the cranial nerves, it's starts out in the brainstem. So if you ran your hand on the back of your head, you'd feel a little bony ridge. And then if you went inwards from there, that would be the brainstem in that base of the skull region. And it joins the spinal cord. So it starts out there, and it goes down both sides of the body with branches coming into the face, the heart and the lungs. And then it's got a lot of branches about 40,000 that go down into the gut. So it's, it's not sort of one nerve as what we've seen a little bit in like, you know, we can just influence this one nerve, because there's a series of connections that communicate between the brain and the body. But then it's got communication that runs back up from the body to the brain, as well. So it's a bit like this ongoing feedback loop that you can't sort of separate. And we'll see from how its anatomy, what its role is. So the branches that come down into the heart will slow our heart back down. After say we've had something stressful, slow our breaths back down, because it comes into the lungs. And the branches that go down into the gut touching nearly every organ will affect how those organs function, but also things like our immune system and inflammation as well. But because of its role with our nervous system, our autonomic nervous system, we say, which is how we detect if things are dangerous or not. It's really involved with our emotional health as well. So it has a rolling both at the same time. But it's such an important topic because particularly with chronic conditions like chronic anxiety, chronic gut disorders, which are just so prevalent now. And chronic pain, were really saying that the vagus not working well can be what lies at the heart of that. And so what I saw when I was working in clinic, was a lot of patients presenting, where they'd say, Well, nothing's showing up on a test, but I have this gut problems, I have this pain, or I have this anxiety that's ongoing. And, you know, I don't know why it's sort of functioning this way. And that's where it can really be a missing key for a lot of people.
Katie: 8:54
That's literally the story of my life. It's wild. So the vagus nerve is is that the, the central nervous system? Is that what, like the center of the central nervous system? Am I understanding that correctly? or No?
Jessica: 9:10
Sort of what what that divided? It's a little bit tricky because we the biomedical model has divided the body up into separate systems, you know, it's sort of like tried to say the body's like a machine with separate parts. So technically, what was labeled as the central nervous system is the brain and the spinal cord. And then I'd say the autonomic nervous system is the vagus nerve, and another part, which is called the sympathetic nervous system, but in reality, you can't separate them. I mean, the vagus is running up into the brain, and then it's got projections going up that influence our thinking. It's just this one continuous loop. But the old sort of paradigms that people looked at were like, Okay, let's separate brain and body you know, like This is a mental health issue. This is a physical health issue. But we can't really do that anymore. It's not sort of in line with science. So technically, it is part of that autonomic nervous system. But it is in a continuous feedback loop with the central nervous system.
Amy: 10:18
And it all sounds like it all works. Yeah, it all works together. So and what is what is the vagus nerve responsible for like, is it your regulator of stress? Or like, what is it do in your body? I guess it sounds like Yes, sure.
Jessica: 10:35
So we can look at, for example, if we are in like a calm regulated state, we will feel that we have part of the vagus nerve working that runs from the brainstem. And it goes down to the pacemaker of the heart. So it's actually like riding a bicycle downhill. And you just keep a little bit of the brake on with your fingers, just so you don't go too fast. It's actually doing that to us all of the time. So we, if we didn't have it there, our heart rest would be about 90 beats per minute. And with it on at rest of probably beats around 70 depends, you know, there's variation. So that evolved for this branch of the vagus nerve evolved so that humans could work together, they could communicate without being in this fight or flight state. So when it's working, well, it keeps us I'll say, in that regulated state, so I might feel excitement, or I might feel waves of nervousness. But overall, I'm feel flexible, adaptable, my thoughts would be coherent, and my energy would be relatively stable. But let's say we're doing this podcast. And I'm really excited. And I would feel this mobilizing energy in my system, which might be heat, like warm through here might be that I'm up a little bit in my energy. So that means that that brake has just come off a tiny little bit to let in some of what we call the sympathetic nervous system energy. And that brings us up. And this is good, because we want to focus, we want to, it's things we feel passionate about. So that energy brings us vitality, and makes us robust. And then after say this was over my vagal brake would come back in and slow me back down. And I would feel that change or shift in my energy. If I face something really stressful, like say, the internet cut out while we were doing this, and I couldn't get back on the break with my fingertips would come off. And then I would move towards a fight or flight state. So I might feel my heart race, anxiety, my thoughts would be going quick, you've got to get back in there. And, you know, a few other effects. So if my vagus nerve is working well, what that means is, I will come back into that regulated state quicker. For some people whose vagus nerve isn't working so great when they feel that passion or excitement, or that, where they take the break off a little bit. It's almost like it's not there properly. And so they go into fight or flight when they're just feeling say, excited, nervous, that kind of thing. And that's really what we would say, biologically is anxiety, you know, so there's, it's that too sensitive to move into that system and the vagal breaks, not keeping it in check. So that's one of its main roles. The other way that we might see is that we have a branch that if we're under threat, and we can't deal with it with fight or flight, we use another part of the vagus nerve, which can bring us down into like a shutdown state. So some people freeze when there's like, really highly stressful events. And some people might say in conflict, you know, you just have frozen and can't speak or do anything. And that's another part of our nervous system, which is there to protect us like It's like animals playing dead, in a way it's psychologically protective. But we used to say the, like, the old way of looking at the autonomic nervous system was just fight or flight, or rest and digest, but we actually know there's still this sense of shutdown. And it's really important because it shows us how not only how we respond in some situations, that isn't our fault. But also, it can be the precursor for burnout, so and depression, you know, that sense of always flat chronic fatigue, feeling lethargy, To some people whose vagus nerve isn't working so well, they can oscillate between anxiety, down to depression shutdown up to anxiety. And it's, they sort of miss that state where they're regulated, which is unfortunate, but we call that having nervous system dysregulation.
Katie: 15:19
It's so fascinating. And so essentially, the vagus nerve, what I just took from that was that it's kind of like the pathway between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system that, that goes back and forth to regulate the two and keep you balanced in between the two, is that a fair way of saying,
Jessica: 15:40
absolutely. So it's really about having enough like, we don't want to always be in this calm, regulated state, because sometimes you're angry, and we need to deal with things. Sometimes we get disappointed, or things don't work out. And we've get flat. And we need to grieve like, that's having that flexibility in our nervous systems really important. But exactly what you say, Katie, it's keeping all those systems in balance, rather than, you know, always being in sympathetic or always being in shutdown.
Katie: 16:10
And dysregulated nervous system, I genuinely think I experienced this towards the end of last year, it's it, from my perspective, what it looks like, and tell me if this is true, you're like, you're just highly reactive, you're kind of always on edge, and kind of always stressed. And like, like, something can just tip you off, where you don't, you don't have that, like, calm that ability to, to bring it down. And to go into that rest and digest phase. Like I definitely went through a short period like that, just from so much stress from a really stressful year. And I'm out of it now regulated again. But you know, it's just it's I, you know, like, when people say their nerves are shot. That's like, I always my parents were like, my mom would throw that saying around. I feel like that's what that means, right?
Jessica: 17:01
Absolutely. And it makes sense physiologically, because if we said, like, we have like a setpoint of our nervous system that we start out, that's a little bit like a thermostat in a house, you know, the say, it gets hot, then the aircon comes back on until it brings it back down. But it's sort of oscillating around that point. Well, what happens is say we go through something really stressful, the sympathetic energy will be released. And then we'll have a loss of the vagus nerve or vagal tone, like I said, where it comes off. But what would happen is, if we learned to, if we were recovering from that, we'd go back to that setpoint. So the vagus nerve would start working properly again, that sympathetic energy would be discharged, we'd be fine. So stress isn't bad for us if we recover. But when it's chronic, let's say what you were saying, say with your year, last year, Katie, and there was a wave of stress. And then the next thing came, then the next thing, can you set setpoint moves. So you don't have the vagal tone, but you're closer to that edge of being almost add anxiety already before you begin. So then it's just the littlest thing tips you over into that state. So we can move that setpoint. But what's interesting is that the chronicity, or the the the relentlessness of stress is what is worse. So you know, if we can recover from it, it's fine. But it's when we get hit again and again. Or we're in a situation where we feel helpless and powerless to do anything with what's happening. So say, for instance, for so many people with COVID-19, it's a classic example. You know, if you had a business and you were worried, but couldn't really do anything. So I think for so many people, it's what they're seeing now is that, you know, ongoing anxiety, and the health issues coming off that pandemic time. But, you know, for so many people, their life just is relentlessly challenging.
Amy: 19:07
Some people are probably more in tune with their body than others. So a few questions. So how would one know if they're, I don't I don't even know what the right terminology would be. But for lack of a better word, and how would someone know if their vagus nerve is off? And also, how do you keep it balanced? Or is it like through? What are the methods in which to keep it balanced?
Jessica: 19:31
Sure. So we we say vagal tone is how we would assess whether it's working properly or not. So it's a bit like a muscle. It's working well, it's got good vagal tone. Normally what you'll see is a cluster of symptoms or things that happen concurrently because of its role. As I said, We'd like our emotional health but also our physical health. So it can be prolonged anxiety, that inability to switch off, can't relax, maybe insomnia thrown in with that. Or on the other hand, people can have like that prolonged feeling of depression, exhaustion, flatness, people that tend to be more on the flat side will probably internalize this as they're lazy and just can't, you know, get this stuff together. But that procrastination is actually a physiological sign of being in that state would see the other gut conditions. So a lot of people can experience either that chronic constipation, they might experience like sensitivities that they've never had before pain, bloating, just can't tolerate foods that they used to be able to, that would be one of the main ones and then also pain. So it can be just tension up through the neck and shoulders, it could be lower back pain. And the immune system as well can be another hint. So skin conditions, allergies, respiratory things, with some people, you they say, just I'm thinking of people that I've worked with their throat, like their voice feels a bit funny, because the vagus nerve has a branch that comes up through the throat and innovates the muscles of communication and speech. So they would be the main things to look for that would be a clue, the gold standard measurement is using like ECG leads, where you look at the beats of the heart. Because what I said before that break coming on to the heart, the heart doesn't actually be like a metronome, it has rhythm. So when you breathe in, it beats a little bit faster. And when you breathe out, it beats a little bit slower. And that's because of the vagal brake, I was saying before, when you breathe in, there's just a real slight release. And when you breathe out the vagal brake starts working properly again. So you can actually see that on an ECG and see the difference. And it tells you how the how the vagus nerve is working. But in order to answer the second part of your question, it really depends on knowing where or how your nervous system is sitting. So if we were talking about before, that where some people can be at the edge where they're closer to anxiety, we'd have looking at certain ways to work with that. For some people, if it's, you know, that they're more towards the flat side of things, you'd be looking at different ways to work with that physical or how that's changed someone's physiology. It's, it's tricky, because it's like people saying to me, oh, what's the best practice I can use? There isn't one like, and it's not something? You know, we see a lot of,
Amy: 22:51
it's a big question. I was just curious, is it like, are you treating the vagus nerve? Are you treating the symptoms that in turn help the vagus nerve? Like is it and this is totally different, but we had Dr. Deborah block on our show, who is a chiropractor, and she was talking, we were talking about the Atlas. And she was saying, if your Atlas is out, she can adjust it and therefore XYZ, so like, Is it physical therapy related to this? Or is it more just treating the symptoms, which then help us? I'm trying to understand the
Jessica: 23:21
question, and I'm really glad you asked it, because I think this is important for people understanding for their own symptoms, the symptoms that you see are more at the more that end product, if that makes sense. So when I was working as a physiotherapist, what I found frustrating was that people were coming in with pain. And it was when they had something really stressful without really, you know, emotional experiences going on. And I would go to treat the pain, but it's not really getting to the root cause of the pain, but the pain is only showing up because you're dysregulated. So the key is coming back into that regulated state. Now you can look at this of what Dr. Daniel Siegel, who's a neuroscientist has called coined it the window of tolerance. And so we all have this but you can say it's a dynamic system, like it changes by what's happening in our lives. So if we say inside the window, you are in that regulated state where the vagus nerve is working. But then above the window is that sympathetic fight or flight state? And below the window is that flat, what we might call hypo arousal so to flap, well, the width of our window can be changed. And also, you know, like, if we said typically I'm in the middle, and let's say I go to work, I've got emails, I'm coming up to the edge, traffic's a pain. Then my boss says, I need to see you in my office and I'm up into feeling My heart beat fast and anxiety. And then let's say I find out, somebody else gets the promotion that I wanted, then I might move up into anger and become quite reactive. So the width of our window, if my Windows narrow, then emails are going to be experienced up in this state things before where I was still in that regulated state. So if we can widen the window of our window of tolerance, that's really helpful. And I think what we need to start with for to be able to do this is to get to know our nervous system, and then see what moves us into those different states, then in the heat of the moment, having tools that we can use. So for some people, that might be what we call core regulation. So this is where, if you're around somebody else whose nervous system is inside their window, they're in a regulated state, you will begin to mirror their nervous system, and you will come down into a calmer state. So car regulation is one of the most powerful things, we hear so much about how codependency is bad, and we shouldn't rely on other people. But we're actually wired for connection, we're wired to depend on other people like biologically, it's been our entire makeup. And we can look at what we call the social engagement system. That explains it, I touched on it a little bit before with the branch that goes from the heart up to the face. So if someone's inside their window, you'll hear their voice has a lot of porosity. So that means changes in rhythm and pitch. If if you listen to how parents do this intuitively, with their baby, they started talking new things or new voice like this, they're intuitively using their voice to co regulate the baby, or people do it with their puppies, like you're probably doing now with your new one. But that change is showing that the vagus nerve is active, and it's innovating these muscles of communication and speech, you'll also see it on someone's face. So they'll smile with the upper part of the face as well. So it's like you'll see the expression right through. And then they'll also when when someone's in that state of inside that window, they can really tune in to the sound of the human voice. So if you're at a party, or whatever, and you're having a conversation with someone, you'll be able to listen in on just the person that you're talking with just their voice. So if I move above the window of tolerance, I will probably lose that vocal prosody. And my voice might sound something like this will find good anxiety. And I'll have a breath every few words. But that's the loss of the vagus nerve. Or for someone who's angry, the voice might sound more like this, so that it becomes monotone. And then when they smile, it will probably just be with the lower face, or it will, there'll be no expression at all. And above the window. They weren't people actually can't hear the sound of the human voice properly. So it goes from hearing this mid range frequency down to this really low range frequency, which is meant to be like predator sounds. So like a tiger walking through the jungle. And here it's like treading on a state and that breaking. That's the kind of what we tune into when we feel stressed. So if we can tap into somebody else who's in a regulated state, and we hear their voice that's got prosity, we see the kindness in their eyes, we see their gestures are calm, they're slow to our resonant circuits, our internal state will shift to mirror them. So that would be I would say, the most important thing that you can do for your autonomic nervous system and your vagus nerve.
Katie: 29:21
I just want to say I was getting chills the whole time, he said that I could relate so much to everything of what you're saying. But also, is it kind of like, you know, people say you pick up on another person's energy. I feel like that's exactly what what you're speaking to. That's exactly what that is. Right?
Jessica: 29:38
Totally. We have a thing as well called posture, resonance circuits. So this works. You see animals do this. If they're in the wild and one of them like this. They head up and looks around like what was that? They'll all get like, and so it's a little bit like as if we were in a movie theater say and People started looking around looking really scared. Our circuits in our brain would affect our nervous system. And we would start to feel oh, something's not right, I need to take action. But we can read cues that we might not even be aware of. So I can see, you know, it's like gestures with the head. It can be somebody, a movement with their eyes, and we're like, oh, that doesn't quite match, and our autonomic nervous system will pick up on that. And a lot of it's happening outside of our conscious awareness.
Katie: 30:34
Stay tuned for part two of this episode, where Amy asks Jessica, if vagal tone was maybe a factor in her vestibular migraines, plus Jessica explains to us what we can do to improve our vagal tone and so much more. We hope you enjoyed part one of our time with Jessica McGuire in this super fascinating topic.
Amy: 30:54
Thanks for listening to Nirvana sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes please subscribe and leave us a review. also find us on Instagram at Nirvana sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana sisters will continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.