Hello and welcome to this quick vagus nerve reset.
Your vagus nerve is a cranial nerve that helps you to get out of fight or flight and into rest and digest.
We'll do a few exercises together,
Starting with a few big deep easy breaths,
Just inhaling through the nose.
And open mouth exhale,
Letting it go.
Waking up the throat here,
The vagus nerve runs on either side of your throat.
And then taking your hands,
Interlacing them behind your head,
Opening up the elbows.
Without moving your head at all,
Gaze over to the right until you yawn or sigh.
Doing this exercise helps to tap into the vagus nerve.
And then we'll go looking in the other direction without moving our torso or our head.
And just wait for that yawn or sigh.
And then coming back to center,
Taking one hand right on your forehead,
The other hand,
Gently cradling the back of the head.
Just very,
Very light pressure here.
Noticing the warmth of the hand.
This exercise not only helps stimulate the vagus nerve,
But it's also very comforting for the body.
Very soothing.
We'll just switch our hands,
The opposite hand goes on the forehead,
Then the other goes to cradle the back of the head.
Continuing to breathe deeply here.
Then releasing our hands.
Taking a moment.
And then lightly massaging in front of and behind the ears.
So ever so lightly,
Just rubbing up and down by the ears.
And releasing the hands back down.
And we're going to take some deep belly breaths here.
Focusing on inhaling completely.
And exhaling entirely.
And as you breathe here,
Imagine.
That your body softens.
Even 1% more.
You want you can sort of wiggle your jaw side to side a little bit.
Perhaps relaxing the tongue away from the roof of the mouth.
Even just one single minute.
Of these deep belly breaths can be so supportive for your body and your mind and your nervous system.
Continuing to breathe down low into the belly.
And then we will end our reset with one more breath practice.
We're going to move into a bumblebee breath.
So to do this,
You'll take your hands,
Using the thumbs to plug your ears and hands to cover the eyes.
You'll take a big deep breath in and exhaling,
Closing the lips and humming.
We'll do this just for about one minute.
But the hums and the vibrations are great for activating the vagus nerve.
And you just continue with this,
Rolling cycles,
Inhaling through the nose.
And as you exhale,
Lips are closed,
Humming,
Creating those vibrations in the mouth and throat.
And then doing one more round.
And after that final round is complete,
You can release your hands,
Floating them down.
And taking one more big,
Deep breath.
And then blinking the eyes open.
And just noticing how you feel.
Thank you for joining me and thank you for taking these five minutes just for you.
