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Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve summary

Name: Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve
Rating: 4.4 (437 reviews)
Author: Stanley Rosenberg

Stanley Rosenberg

Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Autism

4.4 (437 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

'Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve' by Stanley Rosenberg is a guide to activating the body's natural self-healing mechanisms through the vagus nerve, offering techniques to alleviate chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

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Mental Health

Table of Contents

Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve
Summary of 6 key ideas

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What’s in it for me? A new understanding of the nervous system, and how to make it work for you.

When was the last time you felt stressed? Maybe it was last week or last month. Maybe it was earlier today. Or maybe, like many of us, you’re anxious so often that you can’t remember the last time you weren’t stressed out, worrying about the past, present, or future.

Professional body therapist Stanley Rosenberg understands. Over the years, he’s seen hundreds of clients at his clinic in Copenhagen who are stuck in a state of stress. You might also be familiar with their symptoms: sleeplessness, depression, anxiety, weight gain or weight loss, a lack of interest in socializing, and even teeth grinding.

The good news is that Rosenberg has traced all these symptoms back to a single source: the vagus nerve. Even better? He’s pioneered a way to treat them at home.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why the vagus nerve is known as the wanderer;
how our nervous systems get stuck in a state of stress; and
how to help get yourself back into a state of social engagement.

Well-functioning cranial nerves are crucial to healthy social engagement.

You probably know the last time you were stressed. But when did you last feel relaxed? Maybe you were sharing a drink and a meal with a friend. Maybe you were taking a long walk with your partner or family. Your body and mind probably felt at ease and safe from any potential threat or danger.

This is what Stanley Rosenberg calls a state of social engagement. In this state, our minds and bodies rest and recover. We also enjoy intimacy and foster emotional connections with family and friends. But how do we access this state? Well, it all depends on one crucial component of our nervous system: our cranial nerves.

We have twelve cranial nerves, which, through tiny openings in the skull, connect the brain to our organs and muscles. The vagus nerve is the longest of these nerves.

The key message here is: Well-functioning cranial nerves are crucial to healthy social engagement.

Before we learn about the vagus nerve, let’s zoom out a bit. The overall goal of our nervous system is incredibly simple: to keep our physical bodies alive. Each of the twelve cranial nerves serves a different purpose in support of that goal. Many cranial nerves, as you might imagine, are related to helping us find, consume, and digest our food. The ninth cranial nerve – CN IX – is one of these. Its purpose is to facilitate tasting and swallowing.

But our ability to survive isn’t just about the physical requirements for life, like food and water. We need a healthy emotional life, too, and we achieve this through social engagement. Social engagement itself depends on five crucial cranial nerves. If these aren’t functioning properly, they can impede our social relationships and, as a result, hinder our evolutionary success.

To illustrate this point, let’s have a look at the spinal sympathetic nervous system. This system is a bundle of cranial and spinal nerves that, when activated, trigger our fight-or-flight response. If a lion is about to attack, we might appreciate this system being triggered, so we can either run away or brace for impact. But if the fight-or-flight response is triggered because of a stressful day at work, it can make us restless or aggressive, and not much fun to engage with.

These are just a few of the ways in which cranial nerves govern our lives. In the next blink, we’ll learn more about their evolutionary purposes.

According to Polyvagal Theory, there are five possible settings for our nervous systems.

Not all cranial nerves are created equal – at least not when it comes to social engagement. When it comes to social relationships, one cranial nerve is king. That’s the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve travels from the brain stem down into the chest and all the way into the abdomen. No surprise, then, that the nerve is named after the Latin vagus, which means “wanderer.”

Activating your ventral vagus nerve can improve your well-being.

When your nervous system gets stuck in a state of fear, it can be physically as well as emotionally debilitating.

Some people’s dorsal vagus nerve is overactive, meaning it’s consistently responding to dangers that are not present. Now, when the dorsal vagus nerve is activated, it immobilizes us with fear. If this happens repeatedly over time, we start to feel generally weak, tired, and weighed down.

You can easily try Rosenberg’s Basic Exercise for yourself.

Right, time to get down to business. We’re going to learn Rosenberg’s simple, two-minute exercise for activating the ventral vagus nerve. The exercise is called – wait for it – the Basic Exercise.

Though it’s incredibly simple, this exercise really does activate the ventral vagus nerve – which of course means it increases social engagement. But the Basic Exercise also increases mobility in the neck and spine, as well as upping blood flow to the brain stem, where the cranial nerves originate.

The Basic Exercise can help treat symptoms of severe physical disorders.

Pharmaceuticals and surgery are big business. That’s no surprise, given how often Western doctors prescribe or recommend them. In the US alone, about 500,000 people undergo back surgery every year – even though several studies have shown that such operations aren’t effective in the long run.

This would all look different if doctors paid more attention to how the nervous system in general, and the ventral vagus nerve in particular, affect physical health. In Rosenberg’s practice, he’s found that helping the ventral vagus nerve function properly reduces the severity of many health problems, which in turn reduces the need for prescription medication or surgery. But of course, you should never stop taking prescription medication without consulting your doctor first.

Ventral vagus activation can help people with psychological disorders, including autism-spectrum disorders.

Some physical problems have their roots in the mind. And some psychological problems can be addressed via body therapies.

As a body therapist, Rosenberg is not qualified to treat psychological problems, and he’s careful not to imply that he is. But his years of clinical experience have shown that people with a variety of psychological disorders can be positively affected by having their ventral vagus nerve activated. These include autism-spectrum disorders.

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What is Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve about?

Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve (2017) is a best-selling guide to understanding the role the cranial nerves – and in particular the vagus nerve – play in our physical and psychological well-being. In addition to explaining the function of the cranial nerves, it offers simple techniques for treating common medical symptoms without pharmacological or surgical intervention.

Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve Review

Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve (2017) is a valuable resource for understanding the role of the vagus nerve in healing and well-being. Here's why this book is worth reading:

It offers insightful explanations on how the vagus nerve impacts various aspects of our physical and mental health, empowering readers to take control of their well-being.
With an array of practical exercises, the book provides hands-on tools to activate and strengthen the vagus nerve, enabling individuals to harness its healing potential.
Through compelling case studies and personal stories, the book showcases the transformative power of vagus nerve stimulation, making it a captivating and informative read.

Who should read Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve?

Anyone who hates taking medicine
People struggling with depression and anxiety
Those who like coming up with their own solutions to problems

About the Author

Stanley Rosenberg is a craniosacral therapist who has operated a clinic in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the last three decades. He has helped thousands of clients with a wide variety of physical and psychological conditions, including respiratory problems, migraines, bipolar disorder, and autism.

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