Daily Vagus Nerve
A Simple Guide to Increase Vagal Tone and Heal Naturally
By
Elizabeth Williams
Copyright 2019 - All rights reserved.
The content contained within this book may not be reproduced, duplicated or transmitted without direct written permission from the author or the publisher.
Under no circumstances will any blame or legal responsibility be held against the publisher, or author, for any damages, reparation, or monetary loss due to the information contained within this book, either directly or indirectly.
Legal Notice:
This book is copyright protected. It is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote or paraphrase any part, or the content within this book, without the consent of the author or publisher.
Disclaimer Notice:
Please note the information contained within this document is for educational and entertainment purposes only. All effort has been executed to present accurate, up to date, reliable, complete information. No warranties of any kind are declared or implied. Readers acknowledge that the author is not engaging in the rendering of legal, financial, medical or professional advice. The content within this book has been derived from various sources. Please consult a licensed professional before attempting any techniques outlined in this book.
By reading this document, the reader agrees that under no circumstances is the author responsible for any losses, direct or indirect, that are incurred as a result of the use of information contained within this document, including, but not limited to, errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Our body is a wonderful system. Yet, many fail to take care of this system well. We let it slow down and be destroyed from within. We mostly react to situations, rather than being proactive about our health. And it is here that we need to focus on the vagus nerve.
Most of you might think to yourself, just what is this vagus nerve? What purpose does it serve? How is it related to taking care of your body?
We are going to look into great detail about the vagus nerve. But for now, know that this nerve is an important nerve that you probably have not heard of before. Some of its functions include regulating blood glucose and blood pressure, releasing testosterone and bile, promoting healthy functions of the kidneys, and even assisting with saliva secretion. And those are just some of its functions. The vagus nerve is an important part of our system and we dont pay much attention to it, let alone take care of it.
In recent years, there has been an increase in the studies about the vagus nerve. Just last year, a study was published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine about the many wonderful benefits of the vagus nerve (Gidron, Deschepper, De Couck, Thayer & Velkeniers, 2018). This increase shows the need for people to be more aware of the nerve and how it works with the entire system of our body.
This book is your guide to becoming more aware of the vagus nerve, finding out how it can help us, and learning more details about it. There is a lot to cover, so lets begin with what the vagus nerve is and dive into its functions.
Chapter 1: Vagus Nerve Anatomy and Functions
The nervous system helps the different parts of the body communicate with each other. It allows the bodys systems to respond to changes and stimuli both within and outside our body. The entire system is truly a marvel of our bodys engineering, able to coordinate various actions, responses, and functions. But it does not do this alone. In fact, the nervous system is itself a compilation of various smaller structures.
You could think of it like a large global corporation. From the outside, we can look at the corporation and admire it for its efficiency and success. But we all know that the organization is only successful because of the many smaller moving parts inside, namely, the staff, management, laborers, specialists, and leaders. Without them, the organization is a husk, incapable of doing anything on its own.
Among the many components of the nervous system, we have the cranial nerves, part of the peripheral nervous system. There are 12 pairs of cranial nerves.
What are Cranial Nerves?
The cranial nerves refer to those nerves that come out directly from the brain. They are different from other kinds of nerves, such as spinal nerves that emerge from the spinal cord. Since the brain is the origin point for the cranial nerves, they are responsible for transferring information from the brain to various sections of the body, mostly to and from different parts of the neck and head.
One of the more unique features of the cranial nerves is that each one is paired and they are present on both sides of the body or the brain.
You have 12 pairs of cranial nerves and we are going to go through all of them so you can see just how important each of these nerves is.
Olfactory nerve: Focused on smell so you can inhale the wonderful scents of that Fettuccine Alfredo that you prepared earlier
Optic nerve: Responsible for transferring information from the retina to the brain, allowing you to see the beauty of the world around you or enjoy Avengers: Infinity War in the local cinema
Oculomotor nerve: Controls the movement of the eye, the opening of the eyelid, and the constriction of the pupil
Trochlear nerve: This nerve is responsible for innervating the oblique muscle of the eye. By doing so, it controls the rotational movement of your eyes.
Trigeminal nerve: Handles the motor and sensory functions in the mouth and the face; Ever enjoyed the wonderful feeling of a cool breeze on your face? You can thank the trigeminal nerve for that.
Abducens nerve: This nerve is responsible for innervating the eyes lateral rectus muscle. As the name of the muscle suggests, the nerve controls lateral movement.
Facial nerve: How do you look when you are sad, angry, happy, disgusted, afraid, or express the many human emotions you have? All of these facial expressions are controlled by the facial nerve, which is also responsible for the sensation of taste from the anterior parts of the tongue to the oral cavity.
Vestibulocochlear nerve: This nerve is attached to the inner ear and is responsible for transferring information about sound and equilibrium to the brain from the inner ear.
Glossopharyngeal nerve: Responsible for sending information from the middle ear, the pharynx, the tonsils, and the tongue
Vagus nerve: The nerve that this book is focused on; Responsible for numerous tasks, some of which include sweating, heart rate, muscle movement in the tongue (including movements made for speech), keeping the larynx open for the purpose of breathing, and gastrointestinal peristalsis (which is a series of movements used for moving food in the body)
Spinal accessory nerve: Certain functions of the neck and shoulder are controlled by this nerve.
Hypoglossal nerve: Swallowing, speech, and food manipulation are the functions that are controlled by this nerve.
The above list gives you a gist of what each nerve is responsible for. But to get a deeper understanding of them, let us look at each nerve and see they how they sometimes manage numerous functions at the same time.
Olfactory Nerve
As we saw in the list provided above, this nerve is responsible for the sense of smell. Of the 12 cranial nerves, the olfactory nerve is the shortest one. It is also one of the two nerves that have no connection to the brainstem, with the optic nerve being the other one.
