Vagus Nerve Massage For Stress And Anxiety Relief

Massage is a great way to stimulate the

vagus

nerve

to relieve

stress

and

anxiety

, so today I am going to show you a simple

vagus

nerve

massage

technique that you can do any time you feel

stress

ed to calm your nervous system. quickly Hello, beautiful humans. I'm suki baxter, founder of Whole Body Revolution, where I help you rewire yourself for greater health, happiness, and success. If you're new here, be sure to click the subscribe button and hit the bell to get notified so you never miss any video updates. which I mentioned in this video, you can find it linked in the description box below, let's get into it.

The vagus nerve is the main parasympathetic nerve in the body and is also quite long. Today we will focus specifically on the branches of the vagus nerve. that go to your ear, which are now called auricular branches, just before you start, remember to check with your doctor or healthcare provider before doing any new exercises to make sure they are appropriate for you. One interesting thing to evaluate before doing this practice is to check your ears and notice if there is more tension on one side than the other or if your ears are just tight. In general, you probably don't think that your ears are tight, but in They can actually get stuck, so what are we doing?

What I'm going to do is just gently reach out and move your ear away from your skull and feel how soft or firm your ear feels. If you can move it a lot, you know you can move it up and down a little bit and just see. how it feels and then compare it to the other side, so move this ear away from the skull and just notice that one side is a little tighter, stiffer or if they feel the same, fine, and then we can check that again after we do that. this vagus nerve

massage

technique, so the first place we're going to access the vagus nerve in the ear is in the little gap on top of the ridge that's right above the ear canal, so go ahead and find the little The hole that you're in goes towards the ear canal, there's a little ridge on top of it and then you just gently slide your finger into the hole that's on top of that ridge and what we're going to do is just make gentle circles there, you can also go back and forth. back yeah That's a little bit easier, but we're just gently massaging this little area here and you really want to think about moving the skin of your ear in little circles, you're not pressing too hard, polishing it, you don't really need a lot of pressure. not at all, we are just sliding the skin in circles and as you do this you may or may not notice some physiological changes, so the things you may notice may be changes in your breathing, maybe a sigh or a gulp that you can just feel . a calm feeling and if you don't, that's okay, too, and then we're going to do the same thing on the other side, so look for the little gap that's on the ridge above your ear canal and we're just going to make little circles and again you can Whether you notice those physiological changes or not, you might have a reaction on one side and not the other, that's pretty common and you can really spend as much time as you want here, so if this makes you feel productive, you can pause the video. and continue with it a little more.

Okay, now we're going to move on to the second place where we can access the vagus nerve in your ear and that's in the back of your ear canal. So what? What we're going to do is find your ear canal and we're just going to press towards the back of your head and again we're going to make little circles to massage this area, remembering that we're really just focusing on the skin more than In any of the deeper structures here, there is no need to press very hard or use a lot of force, we are just providing sensory information to your nervous system, so the additional force is not really more productive.

Okay, now let's go. To do the same on the other side again, find the ear canal by pressing towards the back of the ear canal and then just make small circles and as you do this you may notice that one side is easier to massage than the other. You may find that one side feels stiffer or you may not, you may feel the same but just pay attention and notice what you are finding again, be kind to yourself, there is no need to force this and again you can stay with that whenever you can. so if that sounds really productive to you, feel free to pause the video and continue with that from this place, we can actually check and see if our ears have changed, they can move a little bit more easily so you can reach up and just compare to what that you noticed at first and see if one side moves a little better so my left side feels a little looser now, the reality is that while these are the main places in your ear where it can contact and stimulate your vagus nerve manually with massage, there are many branches of the vagus nerve that run through your neck, it is a cranial nerve and therefore they are affected by the tension in the tissue around your ears, so we can do an additional massage that It's not directly targeting the branches of the vagus nerve, but it will indirectly help send sensory information that can help your nervous system calm down, so one of the things we can do is, just like we did with the assessment, we we can take your ear so if you just catch Stretch it gently and just gently stretch it away from your skull so I'm pulling it out in this direction and again, I'm not being forceful I'm just gently stretching it and this can be very beneficial If you have any TMJ problems or if you suffer from tension headaches, you can also reach down, taking the same kind of part of your ear and gently pulling down and away from the skull in this direction and then we can do the same upwards and down. and you can actually move around your ear just by gently stretching it and this is pulling and creating stretch in the skin around your ear which again sends that sensory information through your nervous system which can create a calming response okay and let's go .

Go ahead and do the other side, so again we're going to stretch and move away from your skull, so stretching in this direction nice and gentle if it's uncomfortable or painful, stretch less or don't at all, the pain is counterproductive and it will be Stretch down and out. then up and out and again working around your ear with these gentle stretches and just like the other massages you can spend as much time here as you want so if you find this very nourishing and productive you can continue for the time you want. feels good and then we can check again and notice if that created more changes in your ears, if they move more easily now, so it's the same thing we just did to create the stretch, but you can move your ears and say Oh, what?

Do they feel more similar? Do they feel looser? Is there more movement available? The skin slides off easier and the final place that we're going to want to massage is right behind the ear, so what we're going to do is take the skin that's right behind the ear between the ear and the hairline and just slide it gently towards the top of your head so that you're basically stretching the skin behind your ear up and it's right at the level of the skin you don't need to press hard and you'll just stretch it and then hold it down again, we're going to send a nice data packet of sensory information to your brain saying this can move here, which in turn can make your brain say oh yeah, actually, it can move there. let's relax all the muscles that are connected to that because they don't need to be as tense, okay, and then we're going to do the same thing in reverse, we're going to take the skin and we're going to pull it. down from the top of your head towards your neck or towards your chin down and holding the stretch again you don't need to press hard you're just moving your skin and then you can grab that same piece of skin so this You're still on the skin right behind the ear, between the ear and the hairline, and you can stretch it back from the ear so that you go towards the back of the head, okay, and then we'll do the same on the other side , so again you will find the skin that is between the back of your ear and your hairline and slide it towards the top of your head so you can notice that the skin moves more easily on one side. direction that other that's also good information and then now we're going to reverse that we're going to go down so you're going to slide the skin towards the floor and now we're going to take that skin we're going to stretch it away from the ear to stretch it towards the back of the head , you may notice that the skin stretches more easily in one direction than another, that is very common, it is often productive to go in the direction where the skin moves more easily. you might spend a little more time if your skin slides up easily then maybe spend a little more time there and vice versa if it slides down better okay go ahead and let that go and again let's check our ears and see if that changed something and you.

You may notice that they feel a little looser. You may also feel some release of tension in your jaw. Some tension release in your neck. Your eyes will often feel softer. A little less tension. I notice my breathing is a little easier through my sinuses. There are many. things you may notice because your vagus nerve is connected to many functions in your throat and also visceral functions in your chest and lower abdomen, so there are many potential effects that can occur from this and they will be unique to you, so that's a simple way to massage your vagus nerve and calm your autonomic nervous system for virtually instant

relief

from stress and

anxiety

.

Be sure to leave me a comment and tell me how this Las Vegas nerve massage technique went for you and if you like this video, give it a like, remember. To subscribe, hit the bell to get notified every time I post a new video and I'll see you in the next one.