Give Your Body an All-Natural Reset

If you ignore your computer when it starts acting strange, chances are, something is going to stop working soon.

The same goes for your health—especially your nervous system.

The nervous system is a highly complex part of the human body. It controls everything from breathing to walking to dreaming.

And just like taking the time to update your computer’s software can help prevent glitches, keeping your nervous system healthy can make all the difference between staying calm and focused—or letting worry and anxiety distract you.

What many people don’t realize is there’s a natural way to balance the nervous system without resorting to prescription medication.

In fact, research shows that strengthening your nervous system is easier than you think and can be done using your body’s natural ability to create sound.

You could already be doing it and not even know it!

Let me explain...

The secret lies in something called vagal tone.

Strengthening your body’s chemical superhighway

To better understand vagal tone, it’s important to know about the vagus nerve in your body.

Never heard of it?

Either did I.

Until I started to really understand why sound and rhythm were able to make me and others feel so good.

The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in your body.

It starts at the bottom of your brain stem, and runs through your neck, and ends in your abdomen.

See the yellow line on the picture below?

That's your vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve is like an elaborate chemical superhighway sending signals to and from your brain.

One of these key signals determines whether your body goes into “fight or flight mode”—governed by your sympathetic nervous system—or stays calm in “rest and restore mode,” controlled by your parasympathetic nervous system.

And the strength or “tone” of your vagus nerve plays a large role in determining which “mode” you’ll experience.

In other words, vagal tone determines how effectively you bounce back after a stressful event.

Research shows that a strong vagal tone helps your parasympathetic nervous system return your body to a calm state quickly and easily. And the higher your vagal tone, the better your body is at reaching that ideal resting state.

The good news is, strengthening your vagal tone is easy...

4 simple steps to boost vagal tone

A 2016 study showed how sound healing helped participants turn off their “fight or flight” system. I go into more detail in this article.

Here’s a simple exercise that can help strengthen your vagal tone:

1. Slowly inhale through the nose.
2. Exhale through the mouth while making a humming sound.
3. Inhale and repeat.
4. Try performing eight back-to-back hums, three times a day.

Remember, strengthening your vagal tone isn’t just a “one and done” activity—the best results come from giving it the attention it deserves on a consistent basis. But that doesn’t mean you have to carve an extra hour out of your day.

The exercise I outlined above is something you can do anytime, anywhere—at your desk, in your car, or even in the shower.

It only takes a few minutes a day, but the benefits will last a lifetime.

SOURCES:
“Immediate effects of Bhramari Pranayama on resting cardiovascular parameters in healthy
adolescents.” Journal of clinical and diagnostic research. 2016; 10(5): CC17-CC19.
“To Lower Blood Pressure, Open Up and Say “Om.” NPR (www.npr.org), 8/21/08.