Let’s look at 5 ways vagal tone affects health. But first, what is vagal tone?

It’s the activity of the vagus nerve, which is the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system allowing the body to rest and digest. It counterbalances the sympathetic nervous system when the body is in fight or flight.

You can think of it as the key to letting stress roll off your back.

The vagus nerve wanders from the brain to all the organs, branching off with thousands of nerve fibers. What’s really cool is the vagus nerve communicates in both directions – both to and from the brain!

Here are just 5 ways vagal tone affects health:

1. Heart Health – The vagus nerve directly innervates the heart, influencing heart rate and blood pressure. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a direct measurement of vagal tone, with a higher HRV indicating better vagal tone.
2. Metabolic Health – The vagus nerve communicates from the brain to the gut, liver, pancreas and then back again. It helps to regulate hunger, insulin, blood sugar, lipids, and inflammation. Studies have even linked vagal tone with diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity.
3. Mood – The vagus nerve is thought to affect mental health through mechanisms related to stress, the gut-brain axis, and inflammation. Vagal nerve stimulation has been researched in people struggling with depression.
4. Digestion – Gut hormones and neurotransmitters trigger nerve endings in the vagus nerve to send signals back to the brain. In turn, the vagus nerve regulates gut motility, secretions, and more. This is what we call the gut-brain axis!
5. Healthy Aging – Vagal tone may decrease with age, affecting everything from the heart to the gut to inflammation.

In functional medicine, we are all about looking deeper for the root cause and using the least invasive approaches for the most effective results. Vagal tone is not considered a “cause” of disease, but we are learning more and more about how it affects nearly every aspect of health. Plus, there are simple and free ways to improve vagal tone!

Seven ways to increase vagal tone

The vagus nerve helps regulate everything from heart rate to gut motility to inflammation to mood. When you increase your vagal tone, you send a signal of safety to all of your organs so they can function at their best.

Here are some science backed ways to tone the vagus nerve:

• Deep Breathing
• Meditation
• Yoga
• Massage
• Exercise
• Cold Water Plunge
• Nutrition

All of these work because the vagus nerve communicates in both directions – both to and from the brain. These practices send signals to the brain that increase activity of the vagus nerve.

That means no more “fight or flight” and a lot more “rest and digest.”

Health doesn’t have to be hard.

Inflammation

Have you heard of the inflammatory reflex? Most people believe the nervous system and immune system function independently. Not true!

Actually, it was discovered 20 years ago that a reflex involving the vagus nerve helps to reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines and resolve inflammation. Since then, clinical trials have successfully used vagal nerve stimulation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

There are a lot of simple ways to increase activity of the vagus nerve, like deep breathing, meditation, and yoga.

Nutrition

Nutrition for the vagus nerve? It’s true! Foods can increase vagal tone through the gut-brain axis. For example:

• Fiber sends signals through the vagus nerve to the brain and back to slow gut movements and make us feel full.
• The Mediterranean Diet is associated with higher heart rate variability, which is a measure of vagal tone.
• Probiotics, omega-3 fatty acids, and B vitamins improve heart rate variability too.

The vagus nerve regulates everything from heart health to metabolic health to immune function, and it is strongly influenced by what is going on in the gut! That means that anything you do (or eat) to affect gut health will probably also affect vagal tone.

Vagal health and heart health

When approaching ways to great vagal health it is important to look at heart health as well.

February is Heart Health Month, so I thought I’d share a sneak peek into my whole-body approach to cardiovascular health (hint: it goes a bit beyond managing blood pressure and cholesterol!).

Here are some things I consider when it comes to heart health:

1. Functional Medicine Testing can identify risk factors that are overlooked by routine screenings (things like a more specific breakdown of cholesterol, markers of inflammation, and levels of omega-3 fatty acids).
2. Stress is a massive contributor to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. Functional medicine offers strategies to help your body better manage stress for heart health.
3. Poor metabolic health and elevated blood sugar can lead to cardiovascular disease if they are not recognized and managed early. It is vital to take prevention seriously.
4. Nutrition and supplements can be used proactively to support heart health before any medications or interventions are needed.
5. Look at the whole person from gut health to inflammation to sleep and mood. Body systems do not function separately but very much depend upon and influence each other. If we want to optimize heart health, we need to optimize the whole body, physically, mentally, and emotionally. This is especially true if one is concerned about heart health because of a family or personal history. But how about when the season is one that includes high sugar treats?

Healthy Valentine's Day treats

We all go for chocolate, but what if we could make those treats a little more healthy?

• Strawberry Skewers – Cut off the strawberry tops in a V-shape so the strawberries look like hearts. Alternate them with other berries or grapes on skewers.
• Dark Chocolate Chia Pudding – Mix up ¼ cup each of chia seeds and cocoa powder along with 1 cup of coconut milk and some vanilla, cinnamon, salt, and sweetener to taste. Top with fresh raspberries!
• Valentine Snack Board – Put together a snack board with all things red and white! Like grape tomatoes, strawberries, pomegranate hearts, and raspberries, alongside crackers, cheeses, or pretzels.
• Dark Chocolate Hummus – Find this one at your favorite natural grocers or search up an easy recipe online to make this delicious and nutritious dip!

Managing nutrition with seasonal produce

What’s in season? There are lots of benefits to eating seasonal produce – the most important being that it tastes better!

It’s easy to eat local produce through the summer months, but the winter gets a bit tricker. Here are some produce options that are in season in parts of the US and Canada in February:

• Broccoli: Roast it in the air-fryer with some olive oil and salt or stir-fry with garlic, ginger, and red pepper flakes!
• Brussels sprouts: So good when roasted in the oven and topped with a sauce of peanut butter, tamari, and hot sauce.
• Cauliflower: There are so many things you can do with this veg, from simply roasting and topping with parmesan cheese to making gluten-free breadsticks.
• Kale: People like to slam kale, but it’s so versatile that you can make it into chips, stir-fry, or even smoothies.

Another bonus of this seasonal produce is that they are all cruciferous vegetables, which means they support healthy detoxification and even hormone health .

Other produce in season includes citrus fruits, squash, sweet potatoes, fennel, radishes, and potatoes.

Twelve indoor exercises to avoid the cold outside

Movement is essential to vagal health! If you don’t want to brave the cold and don’t have a gym membership, here are some things that anybody can do in their own living room:

1. Jump Rope
2. Push-Ups
3. Jumping Jacks
4. Squats
5. Run in Place
6. Free Weights
7. Skip
8. Dance
9. Stretch
10. Shake
11. Yoga
12. Push-Ups

Health is not hard. You just have to commit.