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Heart Palpitations Forum >> Symptoms and other concerns >> How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
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Message started by jason on Jun 7th, 2010, 1:03pm

Title: How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
Post by jason on Jun 7th, 2010, 1:03pm

So palpitations are caused by a stimulated Vagus Nerve, whether from anxiety, GI upset or whatever.

So what is the best ways to unstimulate or calm the Vagus Nerve and take us back to where we used to be, Vagus Nerve care free  :)

Title: Re: How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
Post by daybyday on Jun 7th, 2010, 1:24pm

That has been my question along this road of palpitation issues.  
We know the culprit.   :)

Title: Re: How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
Post by RLR on Jun 7th, 2010, 5:32pm

Well, wouldn't life be carefree if resolution were that direct. I certainly understand the plight of those affected by the symptoms, but the compexity with which the features are actually produced makes a direct line to reversal of the circumstances even more daunting.

Realize that the vagus nerve is but one nerve among the body's nervous system. It has a 24/7 function as part of the parasympathetic nervous system and regulates many processes. It is also known as the 10th cranial nerve and constitutes the largest mixed nerve in the body. One of its terminal endings lies at the level of the heart and its job there is to actually slow the heart beat following sympathetic nervous stimulation.

The answer to your predicament lies not in trying to subdue the vagus nerve, but rather identifying and addressing the underlying problem which has originally produced the anxiety and/or stress that has culminated into the features now being experienced physicially. You need to understand that it is the chronic fear and apprehension which is generating the circumstances necessary for the palpitations to occur.

Many people will often exclaim, "well I didn't have any anxiety or fear before these darn palpitations appeared. Now they literally own my life and I want it back!" What this statement is actually reflecting is that the affected individual has entirely dissociated the actual precipitating circumstances from the outcome and has become strictly vigilent to the physical manifestations and implications associated with the palpitation events. In most cases, people become gradually affected by stress and anxiety such that the original cause might not be readily identifiable and if it is, it's characterizations are being repressed because thinking about them induces the anxiety and stress.

I often had patients who exclaimed "This is not anxiety. I know what anxiety is and this is something different." Well, in a manner of speaking, it is indeed something different. People always recognize the original and baseline features of situational anxiety. They experience butterflies sensation in their gut, their palms become sweaty, the mouth becomes dry, they have fine motor tremors and general nervousness. Anxiety, however, has a much larger characterization and at sufficient levels, is entirely capable of inducing physiological changes that are universally mistaken as symptoms of disease, ie palpitation events.

So the key is to learn how to wrap your brain around the fact that the emotional groundwork inherent in anxiety disorder and stress can transform into a form that produces physiological changes because the brain is responding to elements of fear and apprehension being emotionally generated. It is not the physical realm where you need to focus your efforts, but to reflect upon how the entire circumstances came to being. The key to resolving the physical manifestations is the direct confrontation and resolution of the emotional platform wherein the anxiety and stress first took formation.

Now I worked within my profession for more than 40 years and you can believe in your instincts all you care to and you can undergo all the diagnostic tests you feel warranted in order to establish a sense of reassurance, but you will not make headway in resolving your problem until you realize that the cause is not an underlying physical problem of some kind, but rather one which is formed in the emotional and cognitive realm that you are either refusing to acknowledge and address, or one that you feel unable to confront and resolve.

Whether you believe it or not, it indeed originates in this form and can be reversed. You can have your lives back, but you have to first stop being guided by irrational beliefs, by influences which hold no basis in fact and to step away from the notion that the physical changes are the result of some type of disease or physical problem.

Whenever you are ready to accept those terms, you can begin the journey back to your lives and back to the normality you seek.

Best regards and Good Health


Title: Re: How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
Post by jason on Jun 7th, 2010, 11:42pm

Thanks RLR, so when I get the missed beats, which can go on for a long time, it feels like a very slow pulse, this is actually the vagus nerve sending a signal to pause or stop a beat? As the vagus nerve does the slowing not the speeding up? am I correct?

I had anx before the palps for sure, and have struggled off + on to get rid of it for prob 7 years now. strangely when my son was born 6 years ago I had about 4 years anx free, like I just couldnt let him down by being anx or something.

But 2 years ago my mother suddenly passed away, and although I coped strangely well (for me) organizing all the immediate arrangements etc after a month or so the palps + anx started in earnest.

2 years on the palps and the anx about them is what remains. I also sleep very poorly 2-3 times most weeks too.

So I guess looking back I know where they intensified.

Title: Re: How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
Post by Typer on Jun 8th, 2010, 5:48am

As always, I have printed off RLR's reply. I read things back to myself when I get anxious about these palps.

Jason, the other person  know in real life who had these (well I know of three people) had lost her father when they began. Once she knew why they were there, unlike me she calmed down and they disappeared. Another friend had them after a bereavement 25 years ago, and when she recovered the palps went. RLR and these people have allowed me to hang on to hope

Title: Re: How to Calm the Vagus Nerve?
Post by emma09 on Jun 9th, 2010, 8:11am


414A584445462B0 wrote:
Thanks RLR, so when I get the missed beats, which can go on for a long time, it feels like a very slow pulse, this is actually the vagus nerve sending a signal to pause or stop a beat? As the vagus nerve does the slowing not the speeding up? am I correct?

I had anx before the palps for sure, and have struggled off + on to get rid of it for prob 7 years now. strangely when my son was born 6 years ago I had about 4 years anx free, like I just couldnt let him down by being anx or something.

But 2 years ago my mother suddenly passed away, and although I coped strangely well (for me) organizing all the immediate arrangements etc after a month or so the palps + anx started in earnest.

2 years on the palps and the anx about them is what remains. I also sleep very poorly 2-3 times most weeks too.

So I guess looking back I know where they intensified.



i would defo try and get the sleep issue sorted, my anxiety is at its worse when i have no sleep, and then it can take a week of at least 7 hrs a night to catch up on the missing sleep ! i also find if i have had less sleep my palps are bad.

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