The Body Is One System
Yes, modern medicine is amazing at urgent care. However, going to a hospital is perhaps the last place on earth that a relatively healthy person would think of going to find tools and strategies to reach greater health/wellness.
Thankfully, the field of functional medicine is bringing the modern understanding of the many systems of the human body under one big umbrella point of view.
One of the fundamental points of focus of functional medicine is intestinal permeability, what is commonly called leaky gut.
Leaky gut isn’t a disease in the formal sense of the word. It’s a root cause for disease. Leaky gut occurs when the barrier between the inside of our bodies and the ‘outside world’ is consistently compromised, allowing foreign ‘stuff’ (that’s the technical word) to enter our bloodstream.
Having foreign matter like bacteria, fungi, parasites and incompletely digested food particles in the bloodstream puts the immune system on red alert. After all, none of this ‘stuff’ is supposed to be in the bloodstream so the immune system rings the alarm.
One of the strategies functional medicine uses to restore gut health and heal leaky gut is to stimulate the vagus nerve. So the game becomes finding strategies how we can wake up the massive communication highway the vagus nerve is for the whole body.
Interestingly, this brings us to… the mouth.
How To Stimulate The Vagus Nerve By Activating The Throat
One of the easiest ways to stimulate the vagus nerve is at the throat. Here are three actions we can take to wake up a sleepy vagus nerve and help heal leaky gut.
1. Oil pulling
Oil pulling using the musculature of the throat, we can help stimulate and wake up a sleepy vagus nerve. However, an important distinction needs to be made. If we’re lazy with our oil pulling and ‘just’ swish oil around our mouths, primarily through our front teeth, this action isn’t going to activate the vagus like we want. We have to swish the oil more vigorously and use the muscles of the throat to activate the vagus.
2. Gagging
You know when you are cleaning your tongue and you go ‘just’ too far and feel like you are going to provoke a vomit response? Well, there’s a silver lining for this feeling… It stimulates the vagus nerve! Yep, while vomiting regularly has its obvious very unhealthy results, researchers have found that just provoking the gag reflex stimulates and helps wake up a sleepy vagus nerve. Since we all clean our tongues 1-2 times each day, might as well ramp up your vagal connection and get the very back of your tongue clean too!
3. Singing
Ok, this one definitely is more fun than the gagging option! The game for singing to effectively stimulate the vagus nerve is you’ve got to sing LOUD!
Belt it out and vibrate your vocal chords! While this may be painful for others in your life, just let them know that it’s helping you heal your leaky gut and maintain optimal digestive health. Better yet, make it a group activity and sing songs that feel good and have healthy/happy lyrics.
So there you go, 3 simple actions each of us can apply that help heal leaky gut. We hope these strategies not only help keep your belly healthy but also help bring more joy and love into your day.
