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The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)

Plus: the optimal morning routine, according to neuroscience

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The 10almonds Team
May 03, 2023

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⏰ IN A RUSH?

Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

  • Vagus nerve stimulation has also been researched and found potentially helpful for managing:

    • Depression, inflammation, and heart disease

    • Diabetes and glycemic issues in general

    • Multiple sclerosis and autoimmune disease in general

    • Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in general

    • Ozempic can cause major loss of muscle mass and reduce bone density

  • Non-optimal temperature is a significant contributor to cardiovascular disease

  • Medicinal cannabis can safely relieve cancer pain and curb total meds and opioid use

Read on to learn about these things and more…

One almond

Hello dear readers! We have an announcement:

We love bringing you these daily emails—and we love doing so without charging you a cent. However, a lot of time and effort goes into each edition and, at the moment, we aren’t covering our costs.

So, to continue to bring you this newsletter for free, we’ve been working with a few brands on some upcoming collaborations. We wanted to let you know about these collaborations before we started publishing them, to avoid any shock!

The brands we’re looking to work with are brands that we believe a) will have a large crossover with your interests and b) offer a product or service that is actually useful to you. In short, they’re brands we think you’ll love.

And, what’s more, when you check them out you are directly supporting 10almonds 😊

P.S. while you’re here… Do you have any health and productivity-related brands that you live by? If so, please do reply to this email and let us know—perhaps we can work with them in an upcoming collaboration!

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👀 WATCH AND LEARN

The Optimal Morning Routine | Andrew Huberman, Neuroscientist

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and tenured Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In this video, he talks about the optimal morning routine, from a science standpoint:

Key moments:

  • 2:07 Get some natural light in your eyes

  • 2:36 Cortisol pulse

  • 3:16 Circadian dead-zone

  • 9:08 What time do yuo wake up, typically?

  • 9:48 Temperature minimum

  • 10:09 Viewing bright light during the morning

  • 11:49 Cold showers

🧠 MAIN FEATURE

The Vagus Nerve: The Brain-Gut Highway

The longest cranial nerve is the vagus nerve; it runs all the way from your brain to your colon. It’s very important, and (amongst other tasks) it largely regulates your parasympathetic nervous system, and autonomous functions like:

  • Breathing

  • Heart rate

  • Vasodilation & vasoconstriction

  • Blood pressure

  • Reflex actions (e.g. coughing, sneezing, swallowing, vomiting, hiccuping)

That’s great, but how does knowing about it help us?

Because of vagal maneuvers! This means taking an action to stimulate the vagus nerve, and prompt it to calm down various bodily functions that need calming down. This can take the form of:

  • Massage

  • Electrostimulation

  • Diaphragmatic breathing

Massage is perhaps the simplest; “vagus” means “wandering”, and the nerve is accessible in various places, including behind the ears. That’s the kind of thing that’ easier to show than tell, though, so we’ll include a video at the end.

Electrostimulation is the fanciest, and has been used to treat migraines and cluster headaches. Check out, for example:

Diaphragmatic breathing means breathing from the diaphragm—the big muscular tissue that sits under your lungs. You might know it as “abdominal breathing”, and refers to breathing “to the abdomen” rather than merely to the chest.

Even though your lungs are obviously in your chest not your abdomen, breathing with a focus on expanding the abdomen (rather than the chest) when breathing in, will result in much deeper breathing as the diaphragm allows the lungs to fill downwards as well as outwards.

Why this helps when it comes to the vagus nerve is simply that the vagus nerve passes by the diaphragm, such that diaphragmatic breathing will massage the vagus nerve deep inside your body.

More than just treating migraines

Vagus nerve stimulation has also been researched and found potentially helpful for managing:

All this is particularly important as we get older, because vagal response reduces with age, and vagus nerve stimulation, which improves vagal tone, makes it easier not just to manage the aforementioned maladies, but also simply to relax more easily and more deeply.

We promised a video for the massage, so here it is:

🌏 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

Gut Health for Women: 6 Tips to Heal Your Gut, Optimize Digestion, Reduce Stress, and Balance Your Hormones Naturally - by Aurora Bloom

First things first: though the title says "For Women", almost all of it applies to men too—and the things that don't apply, don't cause a problem. So if you're cooking for your family that contains one or more men, this is still great.

Bloom gives us a good, simple, practical introduction to gut health. Her overview also covers gut-related ailments beyond the obvious "tummy hurts". On which note:

A very valuable section of this book covers dealing with any stomach-upsets that do occur... without harming your trillions of tiny friends (friendly gut microbiota). This alone can make a big difference!

The book does of course also cover the things you'd most expect: things to eat or avoid. But it goes beyond that, looking at optimizing and maintaining your gut health. It's not just dietary advice here, because the gut affects—and is affected by—other lifestyle factors too. Ranges from mindful eating, to a synchronous sleep schedule, to what kinds of exercise are best to keep your gut ticking over nicely.

There's also a two-week meal plan, and an extensive appendix of resources, not to mention a lengthy bibliography for sourcing health claims (and suggesting further reading).

In short, a fine and well-written guide to optimizing your gut health and enjoying the benefits.

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Wishing you excellent health in all respects,

The 10almonds Team