How Acupuncture Can Improve Your Mental Health by Stimulating the Vagus Nerve
Anxiety. Depression. Mental Health. These words are everywhere.
If you suffer from any of these diagnoses or related symptoms, you know it's more than a mental health problem. It affects your physical health.
Fatigue
Pain
Headaches
Lack of interest
Avoidance
Poor sleep
Weight gain/loss
You feel these symptoms deep down inside your gut. In fact, your gut health has a direct impact on your mental health. What’s in your gut plays a vital role in how you feel.
I’m Dr. Martina Sturm at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine. A few weeks ago, we took a deep dive into the gut-brain connection. I dove into the structures connecting the gut to the brain, where important information is passed. One of these primary structures is the vagus nerve
The vagus nerve is getting more and more press lately because of its incredible role in your health. For something so small, it affects everything.
How you digest food
Your heart rate
Mood and emotions
Even your speech (1)
Your gut and your vagus nerve play an important role in your physical and mental health.
This might seem overwhelming. But the amazing thing is there is so much you can do to improve your gut health. You can stimulate your vagus nerve and improve its ability to communicate vital information from the gut to the brain.
Acupuncture is an effective treatment used to stimulate the vagus nerve and improve your mental health from the inside out. Today we’re going to look at how acupuncture can help you feel better physically and emotionally.
What Is the Vagus Nerve?
The vagus nerve is a “bidirectional pathway” connecting the gut to the brain. It's part of the gut-brain axis, the fastest and most direct pathway through the body. This pathway relays information from our gut microbiota (bacteria) to the cognitive and emotional centers of the brain.(2)(3) Basically, this is like a powerline, sending messages through your body!
The vagus nerve sends messages from our gut, liver, heart, and lungs to the brain. It’s what tells us we are hungry, full, stressed, and regulates inflammation. Once this information is filtered by the brain, the brain communicates with your body to initiate a response.
Evidence dating back as early as the 20th century suggests a relationship between the vagus nerve, the gut microbiome, mental health, and mood-related disorders including:
Anxiety
Fear-related behavior
Depression
There is also a relationship related to other neurological disorders, including epilepsy and autism.
The vagus nerve plays a critical role in both involuntary and voluntary functions of the body and is directly influenced by bacteria found in the gut. Different strains of bacteria send various messages to the brain, impacting and altering how your brain functions.(3)
How Does the Vagus Nerve Affect Your Mental Health?
What you put into your body and your environment directly affects the health of your gut and your microbiome. The bacteria found within your gut microbiome send signals to your brain using the vagus nerve. Our gastrointestinal tract comes in constant contact with:
The food we eat
What we drink
Medications
The vagus nerve has anti-inflammatory properties and can help sort harmful bacteria from healthy bacteria. But when you flood your body with inflammatory foods, toxins, and chronic stress, your gut, and the vagus nerve have a harder time regulating the messages sent to the brain.(2)
Because the vagus nerve interacts with the emotional centers of our brain, mental health and mood disorders can arise.
Chronic exposure to inflammation can lead to depression and anxiety. Chronic inflammation also can affect peristalsis and slow digestion. Inflammatory bowel diseases, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, are also influenced by the vagus nerve’s inability to regulate and suppress inflammation signals to the brain.
PTSD can be influenced by the function of the vagus nerve. The nerve receives signals from the body, including heart rate and respiration. If you’ve experienced trauma or live in a constant state of stress, a “fight or flight” state, these signals can get hard-wired in your body and in your brain and can easily trigger PTSD symptoms such as:
Disruptive memories
Flashbacks
Defensiveness
Nightmares
Phobias
Social difficulty (2)
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) uses electrical impulses to stimulate the vagus nerve and treat conditions like epilepsy, depression, and PTSD. It helps to calm signals in the brain. There’s emerging evidence that VNS may be effective in treating cluster headaches, IBD, chronic pain, and rheumatoid arthritis. (1)
Red Light Therapy (RLT) is an effective treatment in reducing inflammation and stimulating mitochondrial function – the “powerhouse” of your cells. In 2019, Australian researchers found when you direct red and near-infrared light at the abdomen instead of the brain it can have a positive effect on the gut microbiome, vagus nerve, and ultimately brain health.(9)
Acupuncture is an effective treatment used to stimulate the vagus nerve and help heal the gut in the process. Acupuncture stimulates your body’s immune response and increases its anti-inflammatory properties reducing feelings of depression, anxiety, and gut-related diseases.(4)
How Acupuncture Can Help You Feel Better
Acupuncture is a widely used treatment in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Acupuncture is used to help regulate the inflammatory response within the body. It's backed by science and is effective in the treatment of numerous disorders.
A 2016 study found that acupuncture stimulates the vagus nerve and the anti-inflammatory properties of the spleen. VNS through acupuncture can help:
Relieve chronic pain
Treat IBD
Improve digestion
Manage Rheumatoid Arthritis
Control Diabetes
Lose weight (4)
Acupuncture and Anxiety
Acupuncture is a beneficial treatment for anxiety. With symptoms like:
Shortness of breath
Changes in heart rate
Panic attacks
Poor sleep
Pain
Headaches
Acupuncture can stimulate the vagus nerve and help the body release feel-good chemicals (endorphins) from the gut to help slow your heart rate, decrease blood pressure, and improve digestion. (5)
Acupuncture helps calm your body. The more relaxed you feel, the better your body can process what you put into it. So why not use acupuncture to help you get your health back on track? Testimonial Anxiety
Acupuncture and Depression
Acupuncture is a promising treatment against depression and other mental health disorders. There are studies showing its value in the treatment of primary depression and secondary depression related to:
Chronic pain
Post-stroke
Postpartum
Acupuncture helps to reduce the inflammation in the brain and increases its ability to heal. (6)
Acupuncture and PTSD
PTSD can be a debilitating disorder initiated by trauma. Acupuncture can help you decrease your stress response to traumatic triggers. In animal studies, acupuncture has helped PTSD symptoms like:
Anxiety
Fear
Sleep
Depression
Flashbacks (7)
In many of these studies, acupuncture was not a stand-alone treatment for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. It was often used with lifestyle and behavioral changes – and sometimes medications. But study after study proves acupuncture is a powerful treatment against mood and mental health disorders. (sources?)
All too often western medicine is quick to prescribe medications that help you feel better – but only treat your symptoms. and often Many medications comes with detrimental side effectsside-effects and potentially rebound effects when you disconitnue them.discontinuing. This is not a long-term solution.
At Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine, I use treatments and acupuncture to stimulate your body’s ability to heal itself. I dig down to the root cause of your symptoms to give you longer-lasting results and promote your health and well-being. Testimonial PTSD
Simple Ways You Can Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve at Home
Albeit, a powerful therapy, acupuncture is not the only way you can stimulate the vagus nerve and initiate healing.
From your gut, heart, lungs, liver, brain, and even your throat. Some easy ways you can stimulate your vagus nerve are:
Deep breathing
Cold exposure
Movement
Singing or humming
Meditation
Improving your gut microbiome through diet
Taking specific supplements, herbs, probiotics, and omega-3s
Connecting with friends and family (8)
The vagus nerve acts as your primary interstate between your body and your brain. Knowing how to optimize its function is key to improving your health. These self-healing techniques can be combined with acupuncture to optimize your results.
Treat Your Anxiety and Depression With Acupuncture at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine
How you feel affects your whole body – physically and mentally. Sometimes when you suffer from mental illness, mild or severe, it can feel like it’ll always be a part of your life.
But there is hope. There are effective treatments to help you feel better from the inside out.
This is exactly what I do at Denver Sports and Holistic Medicine. I partner with you to get to the root cause of your anxiety and depression. I dig deep down to the gut, literally, to help you turn your physical and mental health around. Just ask some of my previous clients who have found relief from anxiety and PTSD.
My goal is to act as a guide using science-backed treatment methods, including acupuncture, to stimulate the vagus nerve and other systems in the body to empower you to maximize your health. Because when you feel better, the world is a much brighter place.
Find out how you can optimize your health with a FREE 15-minute consultation.
Resources: