The article links to the hastag #vagusnerve at TikTok, where you will find stuff like this:
June 5, 2022
"Holding your breath and submerging your face in cold water can trigger the 'diving reflex'..."
"... a response that slows the heart beat and constricts blood vessels. Some people who have tried it report that it has a calming effect and can even reduce insomnia. Others wrap an ice pack in cloth and place it on their chest to relieve anxiety.
These specific exercises haven’t been sufficiently studied as methods for controlling anxiety or depression, so it is difficult to know if they work, or if they do, how well. Even so, some experts say they’re worth a shot. 'It’s certainly one of the more benign things you can do,' Dr. Aaronson said.
But Dr. Tracey urged caution, adding that it’s difficult to properly assess the risks and benefits without clinical data. 'I would not advise anyone to do any intervention without checking with their physician,' he said. 'For wellness, try to maintain high vagus nerve activity through mindfulness, exercise and paced breathing,' Dr. Tracey said. 'These are all very good for you.'"
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How to get rid of morning hangover
I don't know if it is related, but when I occasionally have trouble getting to sleep, I go and take a cold shower. It definitely works for me.
There has been a lot of interesting research on the vagus nerve in the last decade. The neurologist Steve Porges made some breakthroughs in understanding its functions (his work is summarized as the Polyvagal Theory). The psychotherapist Deb Dana got interested in those ideas and has worked out some good ways to apply them. Here is her page on that:
https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the New York Times has dumbed down these findings into an ice-bath gimmick.
In my cardiac rehab program, one recommended approach for exercising the parasympathetic nervous system -- of which the vagus nerve is part -- is box breathing, which seems a lot less severe than dunking one's face in ice water. In my experience, it does help quickly return heart and breathing rate to normal, relieving some of the obvious symptoms of stress. It is also equipment-free, so one can do it anywhere and any time.
is there shared etymology for vagus and vagina?
I guess it probably works better than the primal screen or hitting each other with rubber (or real) bats.
But how does it compare to my own favorite therapy -- repeatedly banging my head against a wall?
At one point, leeches were the cure-all.
I always thought dunking your face in ice water was about removing puffiness.
Rick Dalton meets Sam Wanamaker
(Sam played by Nicholas Hammond. Just 15 when he played the eldest son, Friedrich Von Trapp in the movie The Sound of Music. Hammond was one of the most experienced actors on set, having already appeared in Lord of the Flies and on Broadway.)
This is old news to those enlightened by the wisdom of Tor Eckman.
Snow works too.
By coincidence, I am just reading a book by a neurosurgeon called The Tenth Nerve. The vagus nerves can be spoken of collectively as the tenth of 12 cranial nerves. There are many branches which can be spoken of as distinct nerves or rootlets. The author Chris Honey says the vagus nerve "is made up of five or six much smaller rootlets that join together to form the tenth cranial nerve."
Honey is a functional neurosurgeon. Typically his patients have something that is not life or death, but imposes clear functional limits on their lives. For Parkinson patients it is possible to use electricity to modulate the activity of brain areas that cause symptoms. Some patients can regain the ability to walk. A related but somewhat different specialty is to stop a blood vessel from putting pressure on a particular nerve. Compression of the fifth cranial nerve causes intermittent facial pain. Compression of the ninth cranial nerve causes intermittent throat pain. For years before he saw any relevant patients, Honey had wondered if the compression of the tenth cranial nerve could cause intermittent spasms of the throat. He saw two patients with exactly this problem within a short time--other doctors had given up, concluding the symptoms might be psychomatic, but at least one ENT doctor had ordered an MRI which showed a potential problem with a blood vessel. Honey may have been the first neurosurgeon to identify this specific condition, and treat it successfully with surgery.
Icebaths remind me of runners, trying to reduce muscle inflammation between runs. I don't know if they also achieve inner peace. Honey mentions in passing that icebaths were used in the old mental institutions to treat apparently hopeless cases.
Temujin said...
How to get rid of morning hangover
Also helps when you need a new drug...
"is there shared etymology for vagus and vagina?"
"Vagus" is the Latin word for "wandering, straying."
"Vagina" was the Latin word for "sheath, scabbard, natural structure resembling a sheath, especially applied to the husk that encloses an ear of corn before it emerges" (OED).
Considering the etymology, I'd say that "vagina" is a phallocratic word.
It would be very easy to write an essay taking the position that the suppression of the word "cunt" is a phallocratic phenomenon, maintaining the use of "vagina," which is the characterization of the woman's body part as having the relationship to the man's part that is analogous to a sheath for a sword.
"Cunt" does not have that etymology. There's no record of a root that refers to something else other than "certain topographical features, such as a cleft in a small hill or mound (in e.g. Cuntelowe , Warwickshire (1221; now lost)), a wooded gulley or valley (in e.g. Kuntecliue , Lancashire (1246, now Lower Cunliffe), Cuntewellewang , Lincolnshire (1317; now lost)), and a cleft with a stream running through it (in e.g. Cuntebecsic (field name), Caistor, Lincolnshire (a1272; now lost), Shauecuntewelle , Kent (1321; earlier as Savetuntewell (1275), now Shinglewell)), although some of the examples (from Danelaw counties)" (OED).
Yes let’s have a super duper double blind study before we try so with it as banal as putting our head in ice water. Which has been done for decades. My first seeing was Paul Newman in the morning after what I assume was a hangover.
The vagina label was inspired by Her Choice, and conceived to serve social progress.
My lovely wife and I have been fiddling with her vagus nerve (and mine) for some time now. Years now. All roads to good health travel through the vagus nerve.
Nearly every time I'd do some research to fix this condition or that situation, my research would lead to the vagus nerve. Some of it is garbage. A lot of it is sound, far as I can tell.
Rhythmic breathing, yoga stretches, humming (yes, humming)-- all of it stimulates the ol' vagus nerve.
It's tied into anxiety, hunger, sleep, cortisol levels. Start plucking your vagus nerve. The NYT is behind the curve on this one.
It’s hard to see how putting your face in cold water counts as an intervention. It just sounds like an activity. Like a million other things we do for a million different reasons that stress our body in some way.
Is swimming in a cold lake an intervention that requires “clinical data”? How about cutting your lawn with a push mower or playing a pick-up soccer game? Are these interventions?
I don't have the vagus clue whether this means anything.
Caught my eye because this is a thing with some recreation divers. When we're in conditions that leave us a little concerned, you'll see some divers take off their mask and reg before descending, and submerge their face for a few seconds and then put the gear back on to descend. Theoretically, superstitiously, the idea is that if our mask or reg were to come off our instinct would not be to attempt a sudden breath.
Of course, if we're more than a little concerned, we just don't dive. Because we're recreation divers and there's no recreation in drowning.
Breathing exercises really work for me.
in the "bio-pic" of Temple Grandin
- has a box for her autism ?episodes? that she sticks her head into.
could there be a connection?
Maybe the brain just says ‘don’t worry about these mental gymnastics I’m putting on you, worry about drowning in an ice cold puddle of water!’
It's funny that you linked to that clip. I remember reading an interview with Newman about 30 years ago where he said that one of the things he did religiously, every morning, was to dunk his whole head in ice water for a few minutes. He credited this routine as the reason that his face always remained youthful-looking.
Take the word back from the misogynists.
Start calling it a va-jay-jay.
Showering with cold water is the best thing I’ve done for my health since I quit drinking.
I’ve noticed my old handwriting pulse has returned. It works.
I have to start walking again though.
Showering with cold water is the best thing I’ve done for my health since I quit drinking.
I’ve noticed my old handwriting pulse has returned. It works.
I have to start walking again though.
Muh corn done popped.
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