Is Your vagus nerve disrupting your sleep?

If you asked yourself, “how well am I really sleeping?” What would your honest answer be?

My answer is, “it varies”. Honestly, there are quite a few factors that may affect how well and deeply we sleep. In my career I have heard complaints of an unruly bladder, hot flashes, babies and toddlers, pain, and an over active, perhaps, anxious mind. The racing mind that seems to have forgotten how to settle down and fall asleep, stay asleep, or at least quiet again to allow sleep once again.

There are many suggested remedies to improve sleep. You have probably heard about various tips and tricks including having a regular bed time, avoiding caffeine, avoiding foods that irritate your digestive system, yoga practices, meditations, and breathing practices to name a few. I’m sure there are more that I am missing. I personally like manual therapy, restorative yoga, yoga nidra, breathing practices and meditations.

I wanted to pause and talk about the myofascial system and the nervous system and their potential affects on our lives, sleep and sleep patterns and may even be a way to support our efforts for better sleep. We are talking about the autonomic nervous system the combination of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, our fight or flight response vs our rest and digest response, respectively.

Some science

A textbook from my PT school days, “Orthopedic Physical Assessment” by D. Magee (6th edition, St. Louis, MO; Saunders; 2014) noted that symptoms from the autonomic nervous system involvement include:

• aches and pains

• anxiety

• chronic fatigue

• difficulty concentrating

• difficulty sleeping

• dizziness

• flushing (or hot flashes)

• generalized loss of muscle strength

• headaches

• irritability and impatience

• lightheadedness

• loss of interest and enjoyment in life

• memory problems

• muscle tension

• neck pain/stiffness

• and the list continues…

That is quite a list. Do you relate to any of these symptoms? My wish for you is “no”. But if, “yes”, I offer the following thoughts.

Myofascial Release

More than 50 years ago John F. Barnes introduced his myofascial release techniques. These gentle hands on techniques address fascial restrictions within the body creating pain and limiting mobility. Fasica is a 3-dimensional web of connective tissue that starts with the skin and goes down the the cellular level. It surrounds, separates, and supports our bones, organs, nerves, arteries, and veins. Essentially it holds us together and when it moves freely, then we move freely without pain.

The fascia will bind up as a result of physical or emotional trauma, daily stresses from repetitive activities, and/or inflammatory responses to surgery, infections, or digestive issues. the lack of motion in the fascia can cause our bodies to compensate resulting in excessive motion where we need stability, poorly controlled movement or misalignment, limited range of motion, pain, and a host of other symptoms like the ones listed above.

The myofascial restrictions can withstand up to 2000 lbs of tensile force but surprisingly respond and soften to gentle pressure, compression, or stretch. Practitioners like me look for areas of restriction and pain to open and release the tissues to restore movement. We follow the body’s signals, moving from pain or restricted area to another often traveling a mandala around the body during a session. Clients leave with a sense of calm, less pain freedom of motion. They often report feeling stronger, more flexible and notice improved balance. By releasing fascial restrictions the muscles, nerves, arteries, and veins have more mobility all the way down the cellular level.

In case you are curious Body in Tune would love to collaborate with you to help you find relief from stiffness, aches, and pains like neck and back pain, pelvic pain and hip and shoulder pain among other things.

A Protocol to Release the Vagus Nerve

In his book “Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve”, Stanley Rosenberg writes, ““The Autonomic nervous system not only regulates the working of our visceral organs (stomach, lungs, heart, liver, etc.) but is closely tied to our emotional state, which directly influences our behavior. Thus the proper working of our autonomic nervous system is central to our emotional as well as physical health and well-being.” In his book, Dr. Rosenberg discusses the ANS, polyvagal theory, many of the problems on our list and Autism spectrum disorders.

I don’t know about you, but I am seeing a lot on social media about the vagus nerve. This amazing nerve is one of our cranial nerves, meaning it originates inside the skull off the brainstem (the beginning of the spinal column off the brain itself). The nerve runs from the brainstem down through the neck, chest/ribcage and into the abdomen. There it connects with multiple organs. It is an important part of your autonomic nervous system (ANS).

As mentioned above the ANS has two parts. The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) which is the one that is our fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses. The parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is our rest and digest. It helps us calm down after we have been stressed. It unconsciously regulates physiological processes like heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. You can read more detail here. https://www.massgeneral.org/news/article/vagus-nerve

What if the vagus nerve can’t move freely?

All our muscles, nerves, arteries/veins, and organs like freedom of movement and like getting good blood flow. We see may people in physical therapy because of symptoms related to lack of mobility of these structures. The vagus nerve has a long distance to travel within the body. What happens if it gets “stuck” or “glued down” to other tissues due to inflammation or injury. I think of nerves as being like one of two siblings where sibling one is poking sibling two. How long before sibling two gets fed up and pokes back? Well our nerves when they get stuck or bound up, let us know by creating symptoms in anyone of the structures that they innervate and control (aka having symptoms on our list).

You may also hear talk of “vagal tone”. Essentially, the stronger the vagal response or tone is the stronger your body is at regulating the functions of the ANS.

For a list of problems related to autonomic problems and altered vagal tone we circle back to the list above and may add:

• digestive issues

• urinary problems

• PTSD

• long COVID

The vagus nerve treatment techniques developed by the Institute of Physical Art focuses on manual techniques to enhance vagal mobility and mechanical capacity, and vagal tone exercises. Follow-up treatments addresses visceral mobilization for the organs. There is a joint effort between client and therapist to locate organs observed to have sensation when imagining anxiety-filled situations so we can treat and release tension, torsion, or compression and restore mobility and flexibility, and return to homeostasis within the tissues and nervous system. Breath and gentle yoga practices offer ongoing support and guidance to help clients maintain the results. Incorporating this protocol into my myofascial release practice has been fascinating. Clients are reporting a decrease in headaches, improve neck and shoulder mobility with less tension, and improved sleep that was also documented on their smart devices.

We want the ANS to feel like it can breathe, move, and function freely. The vagus nerve is one place to start.

Body in Tune is ready to help you regulate your nervous system. We offer manual therapy following this specific protocol to restore balance.

Body in Tune, LLC was born from a belief that quality of life matters; both life and physical balance matters.

I would welcome the opportunity to be part of your support team with regards to women’s health, your muscles, joints, bones and osteoporosis. The goal is, after all, to help you feel confident in your body so you can play with your grand children, take that long-dreamed of vacation and get outside and enjoy a walk with friends.