# How to Activate Your Vagus Nerve and Heal Inflammation with Dr. Navaz Habib | SNH Podcast #128

An episode of [Health Optimization Medicine Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663974629), 18 Jun 2025, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/672d8edf-a640-45ce-ac61-cd5f898a7b27/SNH_129_-_FINAL_AUDIO.mp3?dest-id=3824325

Your vagus nerve might be the single most important nerve you've never heard of — until now. In this episode of the Smarter Not Harder Podcast, Dr. Navaz Habib joins Dr. Scott Sherr to explain why the vagus nerve controls far more than just your "rest and digest" functions. From heart rate variability to gut health to trauma, they break down how to assess and improve vagal tone to unlock your body's ability to heal, regulate, and optimize. Join us as we delve into: • What the vagus nerve actually does — and why it's crucial for healing • How to measure and improve vagal tone using HRV and simple practices • The overlooked link between breath, posture, trauma, and inflammation • Tools and techniques Dr. Habib recommends to support your nervous system This episode is for you if: • You deal with chronic stress, fatigue, gut issues, or inflammation • You're curious about HRV, wearables, and biofeedback tools • You want practical strategies for nervous system regulation • You're interested in how trauma and vagus nerve health are connected You can also find this episode on… YouTube: https://youtu.be/uVhmCQo4x-A Find more from Dr. Navaz Habib: Website: https://drnavazhabib.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drnavazhabib Books: Activate Your Vagus Nerve, Upgrade Your Vagus Nerve Find more from Smarter Not Harder:Website: https://troscriptions.com/blogs/podcast | https://homehope.org Instagram: @troscriptions | @homehopeorg Get 10% Off your purchase of the Metabolomics Module by using PODCAST10 at https://www.homehope.org Get 10% Off your Troscriptions purchase by using POD10 at https://www.troscriptions.com Get daily content from the hosts of Smarter Not Harder by following @troscriptions on Instagram.

## Transcript

[0:12] Scott: Hello and welcome back to the Smarter Not Harder Podcast, your home for
[0:15] 1 cent solutions to $64,000 questions.
[0:18] I'm your host again today.
[0:18] My name is Dr. Scott Cher, and it's a pleasure to be back with all of you today.
[0:23] I had a fantastic guest on the podcast, Dr. Nazz Habib.
[0:26] I've seen NAV at conferences for the last several years.
[0:29] He is a master at the Vegas nerve.
[0:31] He knows so much about it and that's why I wanted to have him on the podcast today.
[0:34] We had a deep dive into all things Vagus nerve, and I'm gonna
[0:38] go through that in a minute.
[0:39] But here's a quick bio on Neva.
[0:41] So he is a bestselling author.
[0:43] Two books Activate your Vagus Nerve and upgrade your Vagus nerve.
[0:47] He's also the host of his own podcast, which I've been on
[0:49] called The Health Upgrade Podcast.
[0:52] After graduating as class Vale valedictorian from a Canadian Memorial
[0:56] Chiropractic college in 2010, he wanted to practice traditional
[0:59] chiropractic for years until he utilized the power of functional
[1:01] medicine to transform his own health.
[1:03] Um, he's the founder of Health, upgraded and online functional
[1:06] Health Consulting Clinic.
[1:07] Clinic supporting optimal health by elevating awareness and
[1:10] function of the vagus nerve.
[1:12] And Neva is an expert in this field.
[1:15] And we went into detail on the vagus nerve in, in many ways
[1:18] actually, that I hadn't known.
[1:19] I really didn't know before this in various mechanisms and actions.
[1:23] And so we started off talking about what is the vagus nerve?
[1:27] Where is it?
[1:27] Where does it go?
[1:28] How does it function?
[1:29] And then we really discussed something that I talk about a lot,
[1:32] but the term vagal tone is extremely important and kind of used in
[1:37] various ways that may not be right.
[1:38] And so we talk about what is vagal tone?
[1:41] Why is it so important?
[1:42] And how you can optimize vagal tone with things like breath work, respiratory
[1:46] rate, and understanding under the idea of heart rate recovery after exercise
[1:51] and your HRV of course, as well.
[1:54] And so getting a sense of what those met markers are, how you can modulate those
[1:57] markers and why they're so important.
[1:59] We spoke in detail also about, you know, standout mo molecules, things that are.
[2:03] Optimizing vagal tone that are coming out.
[2:05] We talked about nutraceuticals.
[2:07] We talked about how 90% of the population is choline deficient, and the vagus
[2:12] nerve operates only on acetylcholine, so that's extremely important.
[2:16] Talked about various peptides, nutraceuticals, psychedelics
[2:19] that are important here that can potentially modulate vagal tone.
[2:24] We also talk about neuroplasticity and vagal tone, not just what's happening with
[2:27] the vagus nerve from below the neck, but also what's happening in the brain, how it
[2:31] can help with trauma recovery, learning, chronic pain, these kinds of things, and
[2:35] how neuroplasticity is all relegated to microglial activation and this transition
[2:41] of various states of microglial activation depending on parasympathetic tone.
[2:45] So in the end, we really spoke a lot about.
[2:48] The vagus nerve, how it works, how it functions, how you can modulate
[2:51] it, how you can test it, and how you can make it everything better
[2:55] over, over the long term if you can actually increase your vagal tone.
[2:59] Vagal tone is parasympathetic tone.
[3:01] This is when we rest.
[3:01] This is when we digest.
[3:03] This is when detoxify.
[3:04] This is when we heal.
[3:05] And so if you're working with patients on a regular basis and they cannot
[3:08] activate their parasympathetic nervous system, they're not going to heal.
[3:11] They're not going to recover, they're not going to feel as good as they could.
[3:15] Neva, good to see you, man.
[3:16] Great to see you, Scott.
[3:17] It is.
[3:17] It's been a pleasure to get to know you over the last couple years, and I'm
[3:21] impressed that every single conference that I go to there is Dr. Neva, Avi on
[3:26] stage talking about the vagus nerve, talking about parasympathetic activation,
[3:30] working with really cool companies.
[3:32] Um, you're just everywhere, man.
[3:34] And every, and I feel like, I mean, every month you must be
[3:36] traveling for another conference.
[3:37] At, at this point, I feel
[3:38] Navaz: the exact same way about you.
[3:39] I feel like we're, you know.
[3:42] Everybody has a few conference buddies that you see at almost
[3:45] every single conference.
[3:46] Yeah.
[3:46] And you're one of my conference buddies, no question.
[3:48] Scott: Well, there, yeah, it's, I know you've been on, back in the day you were
[3:50] on Boomers, boomer Anderson's podcast.
[3:52] Yes.
[3:52] Um, decoding, superhuman.
[3:54] Yes.
[3:54] Shout out Boomer.
[3:55] It was one of my
[3:56] Navaz: first podcast episodes and I was, I still remember just being in shock,
[4:00] getting his email to be like, he wants to talk about vagus nerve with me.
[4:04] And I was like, this is amazing.
[4:05] I'm gonna be a decoding superhuman.
[4:07] So I was just thrilled to get that initial invitation and.
[4:10] Look where we are now.
[4:11] Scott: I know, right?
[4:12] So how, how many years was that at this point then?
[4:14] Navaz: My God, that must have been five or six years ago.
[4:16] Scott: Yeah.
[4:16] So I'm always scared of, uh, to li to listen to myself five or six years ago.
[4:22] Navaz: Yeah.
[4:22] I won't go back, that's for sure.
[4:23] No, I know.
[4:23] But
[4:24] Scott: because you're, the way things form and the way you're able
[4:26] to message things, changes so much.
[4:28] Even when I first started talking about Methylene Blue, when I listened
[4:31] to those first initial interviews, I just start cringing, you know?
[4:33] Because you now have so much more clinical evidence.
[4:35] Right.
[4:36] And so, absolutely.
[4:36] The cool thing about Univa is that yes, you're, you're going to these places
[4:39] you're speaking, you're, you're talking about some of the companies that you work
[4:42] with, but you're also a clinician, right?
[4:43] You're also, yeah.
[4:44] You know, you have your own telemedicine practice over there
[4:47] in where in Canada are you?
[4:48] Remind me.
[4:48] I'm in Toronto.
[4:49] Navaz: Yeah.
[4:49] Scott: Toronto.
[4:49] Yeah.
[4:50] And how many years have you been practice now?
[4:51] Navaz: Uh, doing the online stuff?
[4:53] It's been about six years.
[4:54] I started just before COVID, and it's been, uh.
[4:58] A good stretch.
[4:59] I've, I've learned that this is much more up my alley for sure.
[5:03] Scott: Yeah.
[5:03] It's nice to have the freedom, especially if you have a family
[5:06] and, and things like that.
[5:07] As long as you have your own room someplace where you can close the door.
[5:10] Yes.
[5:10] That's, um, although for a while in my family, my, my youngest couldn't read.
[5:15] Right.
[5:15] And so I would have a sign that, you know, do not enter, but he couldn't read.
[5:18] Redo would just enter.
[5:18] Anyway, so the first couple podcasts that I recorded at my house, he
[5:21] would, he'd walk in and go, hi daddy.
[5:24] I had a great day at school today.
[5:27] I love that.
[5:27] Like, thanks sweetheart.
[5:28] We're gonna talk about that later.
[5:29] I go back and record my podcast.
[5:30] So.
[5:31] Alright.
[5:32] So anyways, um, Neva, you're one of these sort of premier experts on the
[5:35] vagus nerve and I, I love this topic.
[5:39] I think it's such a nuance, like such a.
[5:43] Universal requirement for all of us to know more about it.
[5:48] You and you, you know that I talk about this a lot at, at our company,
[5:51] we we're like on, on, on all the time.
[5:54] Like, go, go, go.
[5:55] The, you know, the, the New York hustle I grew up in New York is real.
[5:59] Um, but nobody knows how to calm the fuck down.
[6:01] Right.
[6:02] And so let's talk a little bit before we get into some details, like, let's
[6:06] go into like, what is the vagus nerve?
[6:07] Where is the vagus nerve?
[6:09] What does it do?
[6:10] We can go into some physiology.
[6:11] I think it's really important, and I wanna dig into this somewhat because
[6:14] I think this will kind of give us the framework to talk about all the
[6:17] cool things, like how psychedelics can affect the, the vagus nerve.
[6:19] Totally, totally.
[6:20] Later on.
[6:20] So foreshadowing.
[6:21] Yeah.
[6:21] Navaz: Yeah.
[6:22] Uh, the vagus nerve in itself, just the name of it, is a bit of misnomer.
[6:26] Because we have two of them.
[6:29] We have one on the right and one on the left, and there are two vagus nerves
[6:33] and they come out of the brainstem.
[6:34] They are the 10th cranial nerve.
[6:36] So we have 12 pairs of cranial nerves that come outta the brainstem.
[6:39] Majority of them, in fact, 11 of them stay within the head and neck
[6:43] cavity and they don't leave the head.
[6:45] So optic nerve, trigeminal, facial nerve glossopharyngeal, they
[6:49] all stay in the head and neck, and that's important, right?
[6:52] We know facial expression, we know, uh, facial movement, speech,
[6:56] all of these things come from.
[6:57] The movements and, and the nerves that send signals in and
[7:00] around the head and neck area.
[7:02] But the vagus nerve is unique in that it leaves, so it has a few
[7:06] connections within the head and neck.
[7:07] It has send, sends a branch to the ear skin of the ear area.
[7:11] Mm-hmm.
[7:12] Has branches to the pharyngeal and laryngeal muscles and the throat.
[7:15] So it helps to maintain a good, strong, open airway.
[7:18] Helps to actually create pitch and tone in your voice, allowing you to go
[7:22] really, really low or really, really high with your voice because you are
[7:25] stretching and tensioning the vocal cords through the laryn muscles.
[7:28] Ah.
[7:28] That's why humming
[7:29] Scott: and, and singing are so good for vagal tone.
[7:31] This is
[7:31] Navaz: exactly it.
[7:32] Right.
[7:32] Vocalization and vagal tone go hand in hand.
[7:35] Absolutely.
[7:36] But why it's called Vegas is because, and it's not spelt Las Vegas.
[7:40] It is V-A-G-U-S.
[7:42] It comes from the root word, vague, which I guess meant wandering because Right.
[7:47] Anatomically I. They found it went everywhere, virtually
[7:50] everywhere, detached to virtually every single organ in the body.
[7:54] Every visceral organ had almost a direct connection to the vagus nerve.
[7:57] The only couple that didn't were the lower part of the intestines, the, the
[8:03] transverse and the de descending colon.
[8:05] Scott: Hmm.
[8:05] Navaz: And directly, it didn't have a direct connection to the spleen.
[8:08] Otherwise, every single organ in the body has a direct connection.
[8:12] So the vagus nerves come together.
[8:15] They actually course down beside the carotid artery in the jugular vein in
[8:18] the neck, which should tell you just how important the nerve kind of is.
[8:22] It's beside the blood vessels that bring blood into the, to and from the brain.
[8:26] It comes down, it's surrounded within the carotid sheath.
[8:29] So it has a separate tissue that, uh.
[8:32] I guess protects it in some capacity.
[8:35] And then once it enters the thorax, it has branches to the hearts, to the lungs,
[8:39] goes down, along the esophagus, through the diaphragm, and then goes into the
[8:44] abdomen where it literally attaches to virtually every single organ directly.
[8:49] That's huge.
[8:50] I think there and, and not, I think there is no other nerve in the
[8:54] body that does anything like this.
[8:55] It's such a unique structure.
[8:57] And it was really funny because as I was trying to research and kind of learn more
[9:01] about it, this idea of it being vague in its distribution was one thing, but
[9:07] they didn't really understand what it was doing, what the connection was, right?
[9:11] Mm-hmm.
[9:12] Why, why is this unique nerve attached to virtually every organ?
[9:16] What's it doing in the pancreas while it's also in the lungs and while
[9:20] it's also connecting to the stomach?
[9:22] And like, why, why is this unique?
[9:24] And so there was a, a vagueness that came to the physiology.
[9:28] What was it actually attaching to?
[9:30] When we dig deeper and we figure out where the signals are being
[9:34] passed on this nerve, 80% of the signals on the vagus nerve are
[9:38] going up from organs to the brain.
[9:41] Okay.
[9:41] That in itself should be a defining factor in telling you what it's doing.
[9:46] That factor is the vagus nerve is sending signals up as to what's happening
[9:50] status wise in each of those organs.
[9:52] So pancreatic function, liver function, gut function like
[9:56] intestinal stomach function.
[9:58] Sure.
[9:58] Lung function, liver, all of those signals are being passed up so the brain knows
[10:02] what's happening in all of those areas and can coordinate function accordingly
[10:07] or can coordinate signals to those areas to allow for you to have good
[10:12] functionality or optimal functionality.
[10:13] Sure.
[10:13] The way I like to think of it is the brain is the CEO, but the CEO
[10:17] can't make good decisions without good information making its way up.
[10:20] So you need to have that good information making its way up.
[10:23] Now what if your vagus nerve isn't working well, then you're
[10:26] not getting good information.
[10:27] Right?
[10:27] Right.
[10:27] So 80% of the signals are going up.
[10:30] About 15% are actually going down from the brain to those organs.
[10:35] And then we have the 4% that go to the muscles of the neck and that last 1%,
[10:39] very, very few fibers go to the ear.
[10:41] Scott: Hmm.
[10:42] Navaz: Got it.
[10:43] It's not a huge signaling capacity to the ear, it's just a little bit of sensory
[10:47] and it's coming from the ear to the brain.
[10:48] Scott: Got it.
[10:49] So let's talk about what kind of information that this 80% of information,
[10:53] what is this information like?
[10:54] How do you define it or how do you, how do you categorize it overall?
[10:57] Obviously you're talking about it's how things are working.
[11:00] That's kind of like the broad heading, but maybe we can dig
[11:02] into what that means exactly.
[11:04] Navaz: Totally.
[11:05] Yeah.
[11:05] The key thing that it's looking for more than anything else is do I have
[11:10] optimal functionality or am I in a state where I'm slightly more inflamed?
[11:14] Scott: Hmm.
[11:14] Okay.
[11:15] Navaz: Right.
[11:15] So inflammation is really one of the driving forces of vagus nerve
[11:19] signaling and what inflammation is.
[11:21] We, we tend to think of inflammation in a very negative fashion.
[11:25] Scott: Right?
[11:25] Right.
[11:25] Navaz: Inflammation is a necessary process, but it's not a diagnosis.
[11:29] Right.
[11:29] I, I hate when we see all these, every named disease that has itis
[11:34] on the end of it is literally just inflammation of that thing.
[11:37] Inflammation is not a disease, it is a process.
[11:41] Okay.
[11:41] And that process of inflammation needs to be controlled.
[11:45] And that's really what the vagus nerve's job is primarily within the body.
[11:50] So we get these signals.
[11:52] Let's say for example, it starts in the gut.
[11:54] So we have microbiome signals that are coming in, food comes in, microbiome eats
[11:58] whatever creates short chain fatty acids.
[12:00] They come in through the gut lining, creates signaling within
[12:03] the enteric nervous system.
[12:05] Creates maybe an inflammatory process because you've eaten
[12:08] gluten and you're gluten sensitive.
[12:10] Scott: Or even just LPS or something like that.
[12:12] Ps exactly
[12:13] Navaz: right.
[12:13] Those issues are gonna come in and the LPS trigger is going to signal
[12:16] through the vagus nerve up to the brain.
[12:18] Hey, we have LPS going on here.
[12:20] We have LPS entering.
[12:21] The gut is more leaky than it needs to be.
[12:23] The brain should ideally have that good signal come up to it.
[12:27] So it can control or centralize that information process and send a signal down
[12:32] saying we need to increase the presence of immune cells here to help protect it.
[12:39] Or we need to build out more zonulin and occludin so that we can
[12:42] tighten up these tight junctions and get the leakiness to stop.
[12:46] Those signals need to be sent back down so those 15% of signals are gonna go down.
[12:50] So we're testing to see what's going on.
[12:52] The gut is the primary and easiest way to understand where the entrance
[12:56] of these triggers can be, right?
[12:58] But in the liver, for example, we have tons of toxins that make their way
[13:01] through the portal vein into the the liver, and we need to know that the
[13:05] liver is not sitting there dealing with a ton of excess toxic burden.
[13:10] We need to know that the pancreas is sending out enough of the digestive
[13:13] enzymes and insulin and whatnot.
[13:15] We need to know.
[13:17] That the kidneys are filtering out your blood effectively, and that we have
[13:21] sodium, potassium ballots, that we don't have electrolytes that we're losing.
[13:25] So all of those signals are making their way up to the brain, and that
[13:28] determination is being coordinated through the brain and signaled down
[13:32] whether we need to increase inflammation and immune support in certain areas
[13:37] or downregulate in certain other areas, and that's where the output.
[13:41] Piece to the vagus nerve signals tend to occur.
[13:44] Scott: Understood.
[13:44] So it's really an inflammatory signaler in the sense of like, from
[13:48] a, an ENT perspective, like what's coming towards the, uh, the, the
[13:52] central system is gonna be, that's ent, like ent, was it ENT or ent?
[13:56] Ent.
[13:56] Navaz: ENT up, efferent down.
[13:57] Scott: Thank you.
[13:57] I I used to have a, a way to remember that, but so the signals back to the brain
[14:02] are related to primarily inflammation.
[14:04] Okay.
[14:05] Yes.
[14:05] And so, and that makes a lot of sense, right?
[14:06] Because the system is always getting exposed, especially our gut, especially
[14:09] our GI system, whether it be our, like you said, in our, in our small intestines
[14:13] or large intestines, there's always things from outside the environment that,
[14:16] you know, they're gonna have problems.
[14:18] And in the sense of causing inflammation for a good reason, right?
[14:21] And then the system can kind of rebound from that.
[14:23] Yes.
[14:23] Um.
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[14:58] Now back to the show.
[15:00] Just question, do you have any ideas or any thoughts as to why the spleen
[15:03] or part of the small intestine or large intestine doesn't have, uh,
[15:07] any, any signaling or any connections?
[15:10] So we know that there are
[15:11] Navaz: parasympathetic branches that come up from the sacral, uh, trunk
[15:15] up to the rest of those, so Gotcha.
[15:17] Just because the vagus nerve doesn't have a direct signal to the transverse
[15:22] and the descending colon, there are still parasympathetic signals.
[15:25] Makes sense.
[15:25] But they come up through sacral branches, meaning that they're via the spinal cord
[15:28] and then up through the sacral nerves.
[15:30] That's that from a different
[15:31] Scott: side.
[15:31] Yeah.
[15:32] Navaz: The spleen is unique and that's really interesting here.
[15:34] So yes, we have these direct connections of vagal direct nerve
[15:39] connections to each organ, right?
[15:41] Liver, pancreas, et cetera.
[15:43] But the spleen doesn't have a direct connection, but it does
[15:46] have an indirect connection.
[15:47] This is one of the fun, unique things about it.
[15:50] So how do we get these signals that the vagus nerve needs to send out to tissues
[15:54] that don't have direct vagal signals?
[15:56] That's where the spleen comes in.
[15:58] Scott: Hmm.
[15:58] Navaz: So these vagal signals attach to the celiac, superior
[16:02] me enter ganglia, which is part of the, uh, sympathetic chain.
[16:06] So in the abdomen, it'll attach to this sympathetic chain ganglia, and it's
[16:10] going to release its neurotransmitter.
[16:13] The vagus nerve only uses acetylcholine as its neurotransmitter, by the way.
[16:16] That's a huge and important piece to the puzzle.
[16:19] Hmm.
[16:19] But acetylcholine gets released via that vagal leafer to the
[16:23] superior mesenteric ganglia.
[16:25] And then it activates, funny enough, a sympathetic nerve that goes to the
[16:29] spleen directly to activate a pathway.
[16:32] And that pathway is, it's gonna use this sympathetic nerve to turn on and release
[16:36] norepinephrine into the spleen activating the beta two adrenergic receptors that
[16:41] are present in the initial lymphocytes.
[16:44] The B lymphocytes in the.
[16:46] Um, in the spleen, those B lymphocytes are going to then create a new signal,
[16:52] sorry, T lymphocytes, not BT lymphocytes.
[16:55] And those T lymphocytes have a very specific enzyme in them called
[16:59] chat choline, acetyl transferase.
[17:01] And what that does is now these T lymphocytes, they're CD four plus
[17:05] T lymphocytes, they go out into the bloodstream and they produce
[17:09] acetylcholine and they release acetylcholine into the bloodstream.
[17:13] Scott: Hmm.
[17:13] So
[17:13] Navaz: they're actually taking that acetylcholine to all of the
[17:16] tissues that blood flows to that.
[17:18] The vagus nerve does not directly innervate.
[17:21] So that's, so now we have this amplifying effect Wow.
[17:23] Via the spleen to get these anti-inflammatory signals of acetylcholine
[17:27] into muscle, into bone, into skin tissue, all of the other places.
[17:31] So it's via the bloodstream, but it's through chat cells.
[17:34] And that's via how the spleen gets it.
[17:36] But there is a, a not direct connection, but it has a very
[17:40] important indirect connection.
[17:41] Scott: So this is like an essential indirect connection to get it to go all
[17:45] across the body is what it comes down to.
[17:46] 100%. So the, that the vagus nerve, the way it would, it regulates
[17:49] inflammation in the sense would be via the spleen systemically if it's
[17:53] not directly connected to the organs.
[17:55] That's exactly right.
[17:56] That's, that's super interesting.
[17:56] I didn't know that.
[17:57] Um, and then I think it's a really great point that you mentioned that.
[18:00] So the vagus nerve, the only neurotransmitter that it works with,
[18:03] that it releases is acetylcholine then.
[18:05] Navaz: Yes, absolutely.
[18:06] And because of that.
[18:07] The system that controls inflammation in the body is known as the
[18:10] cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway.
[18:13] Cholinergic coming from acetylcholine.
[18:15] Scott: Makes a lot of sense.
[18:16] Um, this is really good because I, I think a good anatomy lesson for
[18:19] everybody, including me, was helpful here.
[18:21] Um, and so I guess the corollary question to this is that when most
[18:25] of us think about the vagus nerve, we think about parasympathetic
[18:27] activation overall Of course.
[18:29] And so, and we talk about vagal tone all the time.
[18:32] And so can you help me understand the difference or if they're the same
[18:35] thing or how do you think about those kind of terms in the context of what
[18:39] we've already chatted about here?
[18:40] So
[18:41] Navaz: let's talk about sympathetic parasympathetic first.
[18:43] Sure.
[18:43] Because I think that's a good place to go to.
[18:46] And I'll almost go to the point of saying that sympathetic almost aligns with
[18:52] inflammatory and parasympathetic aligns with anti-inflammatory to some extent.
[18:57] And this is how, so the immune system is actually the primary
[19:02] target of the vagus nerve.
[19:03] It's the immune cells that are located within each organ, and it's the
[19:06] dictation of the vagus nerve that goes down and says, here's acetylcholine.
[19:10] We need you to go into an anti-inflammatory state.
[19:14] That's what drives that anti-inflammatory signaling pattern for those immune
[19:18] cells, for those macrophages.
[19:20] Right.
[19:20] So in the liver, they're the cup for cells in the gut, they're the
[19:24] intestinal macrophages, which make up 70% of the immune cells in the body.
[19:28] In the brain, they're the microglial cells, right?
[19:30] We've got different names for them all, but they're all tissue
[19:33] resident macrophages, all part of the innate immune system.
[19:36] And those cells are there in each organ coordinating the function
[19:40] of and maintaining the balance of optimal function within those organs.
[19:44] And then protecting if there is an inflammatory issue.
[19:46] So the main crosstalk between the vagus nerve is with these tissue
[19:50] resident macrophages, but all immune cells are are being signaled.
[19:53] So on the sympathetic parasympathetic side, if we don't have vagal signals
[19:58] coming in, if we don't have those parasympathetic acetylcholine
[20:01] signals making their way out.
[20:02] Those cells are pre, what's the word here?
[20:06] They're primed to be in a more sympathetic slash inflammatory state.
[20:12] Scott: Mm. Okay.
[20:12] So that's their default overall.
[20:14] Navaz: Exactly.
[20:15] Their default is going to be be aware, be ready, be primed for
[20:19] any potential inflammatory issue.
[20:21] Now, this is where vagal tone comes in.
[20:23] So vagal tone is, what is the signaling capacity of the vagus nerve?
[20:29] How strong are the signals able to be passed via this nerve?
[20:33] To all of the tissues that it's trying to attach to.
[20:35] How good is the electricity, basically?
[20:38] How, how strong is that cable, right?
[20:40] Mm. Mm-hmm.
[20:40] And if you don't have a good, strong cable, A, you're not gonna get the
[20:44] great signals up to the brain as to what's happening within those organs.
[20:48] And B, you're not gonna be able to send those efferent signals down to
[20:51] regulate and send a acetylcholine effectively to those areas.
[20:55] So in terms of vagal tone, the whole balance of whether you go inflammatory
[21:00] or not is dictated by vagus nerve signals coming through because it's the
[21:05] control of inflammation that determines whether you're gonna be pushed anti or.
[21:09] Or pro-inflammatory.
[21:10] Scott: Right.
[21:10] So the anti-inflammatory signal is the, the vagal tone and
[21:14] the strength of that overall.
[21:15] Exactly.
[21:15] And trying to balance the sort of, the more, the stronger single in
[21:19] general, which, or, or maybe just the prime signal, which is the
[21:22] sympathetic inflammatory state.
[21:24] Right?
[21:24] Yes.
[21:25] And so that's really helpful.
[21:26] So when you're thinking about vagal tone, I love how you like, sort of
[21:28] the strength of the chord itself.
[21:30] And I, I, I think I had a, a physical therapist working with me back in the
[21:33] day who talk about nerves as chords.
[21:37] Yes.
[21:37] And it's a really nice way to think about it.
[21:39] Like when you, like when somebody thinks about, this is maybe a kind of a helpful
[21:42] maybe image for, for me and maybe people listening this vagal nerve, right.
[21:46] Is and, and how, and it's going to all these organs, it's not just
[21:49] like going in one spot on the organ.
[21:51] Right.
[21:51] It's, it's like it's spreading out like, like a tree, like a branches.
[21:54] Right.
[21:54] Totally.
[21:55] Right.
[21:56] So you're getting like a full sort of coverage of the organ.
[21:59] You know, it's not like you just have this one tube that's coming to
[22:02] like your liver and they're like, that's your vagal nerve there.
[22:04] Right.
[22:04] It's like
[22:05] Navaz: it, it initially does, but then as it reaches the organ, it
[22:08] splits and it almost trees out into the entirety of the organ.
[22:11] Scott: Right.
[22:11] And then that's happening in all the places that it's going.
[22:13] Right, exactly.
[22:14] Yeah.
[22:14] And so the, the strength of the signal is really important.
[22:17] And I know that, and I have a lot of other questions about the vagus
[22:20] nerve and things, but I think maybe this is kind of a good initial place.
[22:22] 'cause we, there's, there's ways to measure vagal tone too, right?
[22:25] Yes.
[22:26] And so what are the, some of the ways that you would potentially be measuring
[22:29] sort of the strength of this signal?
[22:31] I know you have lots of different ideas and ways, but what are some of the
[22:34] ones that you're using most commonly?
[22:35] Because.
[22:37] Well, the way I think about this, and I, and I, but I love the way
[22:39] you just described it, is that vagal nerve is gonna give you more
[22:42] parasympathetic activation, right?
[22:44] And if you have better vagal tone, you have better parasympathetic activation.
[22:47] Yes.
[22:47] But am I wrong to say that or is there something wants
[22:50] to do No, that's absolutely
[22:50] Navaz: right.
[22:51] Yeah.
[22:51] The, and, and really what's the key thing to look for is it's not, do you
[22:55] have parasympathetic signaling, it's the ability to shift from sympathetic
[23:00] to parasympathetic effectively, right.
[23:02] To turn back onto the parasympathetic state.
[23:05] So.
[23:06] One of my good friends, Ben Koski, who is, I know Ben, yeah.
[23:09] One of the biggest, he, he's awesome.
[23:12] Great guy.
[23:12] Muscle Intelligence podcast.
[23:14] If you haven't listened.
[23:14] Scott: Yeah, it's great.
[23:15] Yeah.
[23:15] Navaz: He had this phenomenal way of explaining what this is.
[23:18] So let's say for example, you're sitting at your desk and let's say for example,
[23:22] you decide you want to go for a run.
[23:24] So how quickly are you capable of getting up off your rest state and
[23:28] going for a run and getting yourself into a state where your heart is
[23:32] beating super hard and you're on go.
[23:35] And that's your shift from parasympathetic to sympathetic.
[23:38] Okay.
[23:38] And then now let's say you go and you finish your run 10 minute run and you come
[23:42] back, how long does it take for your body?
[23:45] To shift back from being in that sympathetic state back to
[23:48] a parasympathetic state where it's rest, digest, recover.
[23:51] And that defining factor here determines your resilience.
[23:55] And that's really what I think the vagus nerve plays to us in, in our overall
[24:00] health piece is how resilient is our body?
[24:03] How quickly can we bounce back?
[24:05] How quickly can we switch Right between sympathetic and parasympathetic?
[24:08] And so, oh yeah, yeah.
[24:09] That's really the defining factor of can we turn it back on?
[24:13] That is the determination of vagal tone.
[24:15] So how we measure this is going to be really two different things.
[24:19] Literally do that same test that I told you.
[24:21] Go for a one minute run, sit down and see how long it takes for your heart
[24:24] rate to come back down if it's fast.
[24:26] Phenomenal.
[24:27] It's called heart rate recovery.
[24:28] If it's slow, it means that you're taking too long to send those signals
[24:32] to your heart to slow down, and it should be less than a minute.
[24:36] In an ideal world, after a one minute run, it should take less than
[24:39] a minute to come back to baseline.
[24:41] Scott: Is it one-to-one or just, it probably depends on
[24:43] how fast you're running and what you, A lot of effect Exactly.
[24:45] Like your intensity level.
[24:46] Sure.
[24:46] And so there's,
[24:46] Navaz: there's certain nuance around heart rate recovery.
[24:49] I dig into that in the book quite a bit.
[24:51] But yeah, there's a specific test that you can do.
[24:53] It's a three minute, uh, under three minutes after a 10
[24:56] minute run is kind of ideal.
[24:57] Scott: Gotcha.
[24:58] Okay.
[24:58] Under three minutes after a 10 minute run.
[25:00] Okay.
[25:00] Got it.
[25:00] Yeah.
[25:00] And, and I want to hear more, but I think the key here to understand is.
[25:03] Maybe why is it so important that you can bounce back so quickly?
[25:07] What is it, what's so important?
[25:08] Why do we care?
[25:09] Like, I think that's an important question.
[25:10] Yeah.
[25:10] Navaz: That's, that's really the defining feature of resilience and resilience
[25:15] is when you have a, a moment of stress.
[25:17] When you experience stress, your body pushes into that sympathetic state.
[25:21] That's our, our necessary requirement.
[25:24] Right, right, right.
[25:24] When there's something that pushes you to that stressful piece, whether
[25:28] it's emotional, psychological, physical, or biochemical, it's
[25:31] pushing you into a sympathetic state.
[25:33] You want to be able to handle that with the sympathetic tool, but you
[25:37] want to then be able to come back because when you're in sympathetic
[25:40] state, your body cannot heal.
[25:42] Period.
[25:43] Exactly.
[25:43] Yes.
[25:43] You cannot heal in sympathetic state.
[25:45] Your body needs to shift back to parasympathetic for healing to.
[25:49] Take place.
[25:50] So inflammation, sympathetic activation necessary in short bursts.
[25:55] The issue occurs when inflammation is uncontrolled and it becomes chronic.
[25:59] And that's where resilience comes in.
[26:01] And that's why it matters how strong your vagus nerve is.
[26:04] Yeah.
[26:04] Because if you can come back to a good, strong vagus nerve, you're gonna
[26:07] be able to bounce back from whatever stressors hit you in the first place.
[26:11] Scott: That's beautifully said.
[26:11] And that's what I was hoping you were gonna go, because this is
[26:14] where I go clinically all the time.
[26:15] If you're always stuck in fight or flight, which so many people are, yes.
[26:19] You can't heal, you can't recover no matter what supplements or
[26:22] everything else I try to throw at you like nothing's gonna work.
[26:25] I'm not in my experiences in the hyperbaric world, hyperbaric
[26:28] medicine for many years.
[26:29] Yes.
[26:30] I noticed this very, very quickly.
[26:31] Right.
[26:32] And I have a funny story.
[26:33] Like I, I was in a hyperbaric chamber.
[26:35] After I gave myself a mile concussion and I turned on a movie because
[26:40] in these chambers you could watch movies and I put on John Wick three
[26:43] or two or whatever it was, and I was watching this movie in the chamber.
[26:46] I'm like, why the fuck am I watching this movie?
[26:49] This is the worst movie I could ever watch to try to heal.
[26:52] Right?
[26:52] And it was like this exact example of what you described, like if
[26:55] you're, if you're in sympathetic dominance, there's no way you can heal.
[26:59] One other thing that kinda came to mind too, as you were talking, you ever watch
[27:01] like the National Geographic, where you have this animal that's getting chased
[27:05] by like a lion or a tiger, and then like they have this amazing response, right?
[27:10] Yeah.
[27:10] They have this sort of, once they.
[27:11] Don't get eaten and you've seen their response.
[27:13] It's like this amazing sort of like, what would you call it?
[27:15] Like a parasympathetic discharge or what?
[27:17] I don't know what it is that, what that is.
[27:18] They literally
[27:18] Navaz: go heavy into parasympathetic state right away.
[27:21] They know that the threat to their survival is gone or is, is
[27:25] essentially taken care of, and now they're in survival mode.
[27:28] Now they're in thriving mode.
[27:29] Perfect.
[27:30] Now let's go into a mode where we can shift right down.
[27:33] And so you can see this with dogs, you can see this with all animals.
[27:36] Their ability to shift, for the most part is very, very quick.
[27:39] Scott: And we just have a problem with this whole like.
[27:41] Cortex thing.
[27:42] Cerebral that we have, right?
[27:44] Navaz: It's, we get into overthinking, right?
[27:47] Yeah.
[27:47] That's really where a lot of us tend to sit, and this is where a lot of
[27:51] mental health type issues will pop up because we're in rumination.
[27:54] We're thinking about what could be, we're, we're future pacing, we're,
[27:58] we're thinking about the past, we're not being present in the moment.
[28:02] And the moment is really where you can determine, am I under threat or am I
[28:06] able to rest, digest, recover right now?
[28:09] And animals live in the moment.
[28:10] They don't have future pacing.
[28:11] They don't have past, other than knowing that if something's
[28:14] chasing you, you wanna run.
[28:16] Right?
[28:16] They don't have memories like we do.
[28:18] They don't ruminate or think about things the way that humans do.
[28:21] So yes, we have a wonderful, you know, prefrontal cortex that allows us to, to
[28:26] think about things, to imagine, to dream.
[28:29] Scott: Yeah.
[28:30] Yep.
[28:30] Navaz: But in reality, it can also be hijacked.
[28:33] Especially when we have lots of stress that comes up and up and up.
[28:37] Yeah.
[28:37] And that drives anxiety, that drives depression because we sit in this
[28:41] rumination state for a lot of people.
[28:43] And that affects your mood.
[28:44] That affects how you do things.
[28:45] For sure.
[28:45] And what's really important here is we know serotonin, the vast majority
[28:50] of it is produced in the gut.
[28:51] We know that norepinephrine, the vast majority is produced
[28:54] in the gut, same with dopamine.
[28:56] And those signals are actually also being relayed via the, via
[28:59] the vagus nerve up to the brain.
[29:01] So neurotransmitter balance actually comes down to vagus nerve and interoception.
[29:06] And um, I just watched something by Mel Robbins recently where she was
[29:09] talking about you don't have anxiety.
[29:11] Like you have this thing where the vagus nerve is, you're switch to turn that off.
[29:16] And if we get stuck up here, we're gonna ruminate.
[29:18] We're gonna think because that's what this does.
[29:21] But if we bring our attention back down to our lungs, to our heart, it
[29:24] brings us back to the present moment.
[29:26] What are we doing now?
[29:27] We're breathing.
[29:28] We're heart beating, we're in this state and mm-hmm.
[29:31] So yes, that might be a little spiritual woowoo, but in reality
[29:35] that's, that's the truth, right?
[29:36] Physiology.
[29:36] When the vagus nerve is able to turn on, you can go back to that
[29:39] parasympathetic state far more easily.
[29:41] Scott: So coming back into your body is really, I. Coming back
[29:43] into your, your, your vag and tone.
[29:45] Totally.
[29:45] Increasing your vehicle tone.
[29:46] Totally.
[29:46] So it doesn't have to be woo woo or crazy.
[29:48] Right.
[29:48] And you mentioned the other neurotransmitters coming from the gut.
[29:51] There's also gaba, you know, GABA signaling is coming from the gut too,
[29:54] which is going to be your neurotransmitter signaling to help calm your brain down.
[29:58] Exactly.
[29:58] So, um, I think it's really important you mention that and I, I think that.
[30:03] All these sort of techniques, and we'll talk about more, more of them later.
[30:05] As far as, you know, tools, technologies, practices and things
[30:08] like that that we can do to increase vagal tone, which we've alluded to.
[30:10] Yes.
[30:11] But before we get there, you talked about heart rate recovery
[30:14] as an as a one indicator.
[30:15] What are some of the other indicators that you use clinically?
[30:18] Navaz: The top one that I love looking at without a shadow of the
[30:21] doubt is heart rate variability.
[30:23] HRV.
[30:24] Mm-hmm.
[30:24] Which is the best way to know whether you're in more of a
[30:27] sympathetic or parasympathetic state.
[30:29] So I use Ora Ring.
[30:31] I've had mine for eight years, seven years, something like that.
[30:34] Um,
[30:35] Scott: pardon the interruption.
[30:36] This episode is brought to you by Health Optimization Medicine and Practice
[30:38] Association, a nonprofit organization, training practitioners how to optimize
[30:42] health rather than treat disease.
[30:44] For this episode, check out our chronobiology module.
[30:46] This is our module.
[30:47] That's all based on circadian rhythms, your sleep, how you can optimize it.
[30:50] And of course, the vagus nerve is such a big part of that.
[30:53] We talk about trackers, we talk about assessments, we talk about
[30:56] various neurotransmitters and more.
[30:58] Go to home hope.org and save 10% on this module or any module as a certification.
[31:02] Please, in code podcast 10 at checkout.
[31:04] Now, back to the show.
[31:05] Navaz: Whoop Apple, watch you choose Garmin.
[31:08] Go for it.
[31:08] Like whatever works well for you that you can use on a daily basis that doesn't buzz
[31:12] and annoy the crap outta you all the time.
[31:15] Yeah.
[31:15] Let's, let's use these tools Yes.
[31:17] For your sympathetic and parasympathetic comments.
[31:19] Absolutely.
[31:20] Or I used to have a Garmin watch and every time I got an email it
[31:22] would buzz and I'd be, oh my God.
[31:24] Yeah.
[31:24] And I just could not handle it.
[31:26] So no, this is much better for me, but.
[31:28] HRV heart rate variability is really the determining, uh, tool
[31:32] that I use in a clinical setting.
[31:34] And so the way that I like to do this is, first off, I wanna get a
[31:37] baseline of where people are at.
[31:38] Sure.
[31:38] So I'll have them use the tool for between two and four weeks before we say
[31:43] anything about what their HRV should be.
[31:45] Shouldn't be anything like that.
[31:47] And here's the biggest thing with HRV.
[31:49] What it is, first off, is we're measuring the number of milliseconds between beats
[31:53] of the heart, so the RR interval, right?
[31:56] Mm-hmm.
[31:57] Between R spikes.
[31:58] We're measuring the number of milliseconds.
[32:00] Averaged over a period of time.
[32:02] Okay, so we're taking, let's say a three minute period, which is
[32:05] what's required for things like Aura to get an accurate HRV reading
[32:08] in a three minute, minute period.
[32:10] How variable is that number of milliseconds?
[32:13] Is it going from short to long, to short to long, or is it staying very metronomic?
[32:18] Is your heart beating at almost the same rate all the time?
[32:22] The way this is important, and I think it's, this is a little
[32:24] counterintuitive for some people, so I'm gonna explain this out.
[32:27] Scott: Yeah, it's, yeah, please.
[32:27] Yep.
[32:27] Please.
[32:28] Yeah.
[32:28] Navaz: If your heart is beating like a metronome, it's telling us that we are
[32:32] not able to shift between sympathetic and parasympathetic effectively, and that
[32:36] means the primary signals that are coming into the heart are more sympathetic.
[32:40] The role of the sympathetic nerves that come to the heart is to elevate heart
[32:43] rate, so to increase the number of beats per minute, the role of the vagus nerve
[32:48] and the parasympathetic signals that come into the heart is to lower the heart rate.
[32:52] What that does is it creates variability, and when you don't have that variability,
[32:57] it tells us that vagal tone is very low.
[33:00] It tells us that vagal signals are not coming in at this moment very high.
[33:04] So you're signaling through the vagus nerve is down, and that means
[33:07] not necessarily that your heart rate is gonna go up, but rather that
[33:10] the signals that are coming in are much more sympathetically driven.
[33:14] And we want to have balance.
[33:16] We want to be able to shift between these two, and that's how the resilience
[33:20] piece and heart rate recovery is driven is how quickly can you bring the
[33:25] parasympathetics back to lower the heart rate, back to your baseline heart rate?
[33:29] The variability piece comes in telling us, okay, are we sending
[33:32] signals equally between sympathetic and parasympathetic over time?
[33:36] And that creates variance in the number of milliseconds between beats of the heart.
[33:40] The primary driver of this.
[33:43] Is your breath, how you are breathing.
[33:45] Your breathing pattern
[33:47] Scott: is
[33:47] Navaz: the primary driver through, uh, a system called a
[33:50] respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA.
[33:53] And as you breathe, what you're doing is you're creating, as you inhale, you're
[33:57] pushing towards sympathetic, you're turning on the sympathetic nerves.
[34:01] So think of it this way.
[34:03] Um, you hear a loud sound or a big flash of light or something that
[34:06] scares you a little bit, you're gonna go immediately, right?
[34:10] Threat to my survival, hands up, fight or flight.
[34:13] That's a sympathetic state.
[34:14] You're taking a breath in during that time.
[34:16] Scott: Hmm.
[34:17] Navaz: Versus just like the, the animals, when the threat to their
[34:20] survival is gone, they go and they stop and they take an exhale, right?
[34:24] It's a sigh of relief.
[34:25] It's a calming moment.
[34:27] When you exhale, you're turning on your parasympathetics, you're turning on your
[34:30] vagus nerve with the exhales, right?
[34:32] So your breath pattern is going to determine whether you're pushing
[34:35] sympathetic or parasympathetic.
[34:37] The way this is done is how much time are you spending in inhale versus
[34:41] exhale over that period of time, and that's gonna determine your HRV.
[34:45] Scott: Hmm.
[34:46] Got it.
[34:46] And so when you're looking at.
[34:49] Respiratory rate itself, does that kind of factor in or how do you think about that?
[34:53] And then also on the H RV side, you know, there's all a lot of
[34:56] questions out there as like, what's a normal HRV, what's an optimal HRV?
[34:59] I have one friend that I know that is like an HRV of like 150 on, on,
[35:04] on the Aura or something like that.
[35:06] Yes.
[35:06] And like he tries to teach people how to get their HRV better.
[35:09] But I mean, maybe you can talk about them in kind of in combination,
[35:11] because I know there's probably like a baseline respiratory rate
[35:14] that will give you indications of your HRVI would imagine, right?
[35:17] Yes.
[35:17] Um.
[35:18] I have a friend of mine, I think, I don't know if you know who Brian McKenzie is.
[35:20] I talk about him sometime on pods.
[35:22] No, uh, he's a, he's a breath expert.
[35:24] He does a lot of CO2 training.
[35:25] Love, love it.
[35:26] That's exactly where
[35:26] Navaz: I was gonna go with this.
[35:27] Yeah.
[35:27] Scott: So, so maybe go through some of that and, and we can talk about
[35:29] Navaz: it.
[35:29] So on the respiratory rate, and I'm sure Brian has this lockdown, but I'm
[35:34] a huge fan of checking your bolt score.
[35:36] BOLT body oxygen level test.
[35:38] I learned this through, uh, Patrick McQueen's book.
[35:41] Yeah.
[35:41] Patrick McKean stuff.
[35:41] Yep.
[35:42] Mm-hmm.
[35:42] Which is phenomenal.
[35:44] The bolt score tells us how well your body can handle CO2 rising levels and how
[35:50] efficient your breathing is, and that is gonna be correlated to your breath rate.
[35:55] In that the lower your breath rate, the more efficient your breathing pattern.
[35:59] Okay?
[36:00] And so if you have a lower breath rate or lower rest rate, and the ideal not,
[36:06] not practicing breathing, ideal resting sleep breath rate is somewhere between
[36:11] 11 and 14 breaths per minute for men.
[36:14] And somewhere between 12 and 16 breaths per minute for women.
[36:20] Just a higher
[36:20] Scott: rate for women slightly.
[36:21] Okay.
[36:21] Just
[36:22] Navaz: generally they, it's smaller lungs just in terms of size.
[36:25] Okay?
[36:25] And so the capacity is generally a little lower.
[36:28] So if your breath rate is a little higher than that.
[36:31] Then you're not as efficient.
[36:33] Efficiency of your breath is really the key that you're looking for here.
[36:36] Now people with a lower respiratory rate tend to have higher HRV
[36:40] Scott: Makes sense?
[36:41] Yeah.
[36:41] Navaz: Great.
[36:42] Because they're able to spend more time in a parasympathetic state, even a slightly
[36:46] higher CO2 level is not going to push them into a state where they feel like there's
[36:51] survival mechanism that needs to turn on.
[36:53] Right.
[36:53] So they're driven more parasympathetically.
[36:56] And so what that means is the signals are gonna be much more balanced and there's
[37:00] more parasympathetic signals coming in.
[37:02] Increasing HRV overall.
[37:04] Hmm.
[37:04] So breath rate HRV are absolutely intertwined.
[37:07] No question.
[37:08] When you're practicing, when you're doing like a practiced breath work
[37:11] meditation or some sort of resonance breathing pattern, if you can get your
[37:16] pattern to between four and six and a half breaths per minute, that's where
[37:21] you're gonna be able to change your HRV.
[37:23] Scott: Mm.
[37:24] Navaz: Change it.
[37:24] You're gonna be able to build up your BOLT score and increase
[37:27] and benefit your HRV over time.
[37:29] So HRV training comes down to resonance breathing patterns of between
[37:33] four and six breaths per minute.
[37:35] I see.
[37:35] So what you mean that means slowing it down, training it down
[37:38] increases the efficiency and that brings you to a higher HRV level.
[37:41] Sorry.
[37:42] Scott: No, totally understand.
[37:42] Understood.
[37:43] I, I think that's a really important point.
[37:44] So you're saying that.
[37:46] Training req for long-term benefit requires getting your heart, your,
[37:50] sorry, your respiratory rate down to being about four to eight or
[37:54] six to eight breath per minute.
[37:55] Correct?
[37:55] Four.
[37:56] Four to six.
[37:57] Four to six, okay.
[37:58] Yeah.
[37:58] And that's when you know that you've gotten to the point where you're
[38:00] now gonna be able to train this and your I v's gonna get better.
[38:03] What kind of, as far as how long, how long would somebody need to do it like
[38:07] in a session to start seeing benefit?
[38:09] Like is it a five minute session, is it a 10 minute session a day,
[38:11] or does it depend on the person?
[38:13] That kind
[38:13] Navaz: of thing?
[38:13] It depends on the person, but where I see the best effect and what people
[38:17] can plug into their daily lives between 10 and 20 minutes is kind of required.
[38:21] Scott: Yeah.
[38:21] I always find that when I do, when I have a, like a meditation.
[38:24] Timeframe and many people probably would resonate with this.
[38:27] It takes, it feels like it takes about 10 minutes.
[38:29] Yes.
[38:29] Like it takes about, although you can do things and we can talk about some of those
[38:32] devices and things that we'll talk about later to help you drop in there faster.
[38:35] Yes.
[38:35] But in essence, it can take about eight to 10 minutes to feel like
[38:39] you've actually sort of dropped into that meditative state.
[38:42] Yes.
[38:42] Um, and that's kind of what you're, kind of, kind of what you're driving.
[38:45] That's probably when that, that you've changed that resonance and now
[38:48] you're having that breath pattern.
[38:49] Navaz: That's exactly right.
[38:50] Yeah.
[38:50] Scott: Yeah.
[38:51] Nice.
[38:51] Okay.
[38:52] So HRV as far as averages and things like that, you know, people talk
[38:56] about this like, my H RV sucks.
[38:58] It's, or my H RV's.
[38:59] Fantastic.
[39:00] You talked about your respiratory rates, so, uh, we have a sense of that now.
[39:03] Um, I know it's corollary, but what are some of the numbers that you kind of look
[39:06] at, or how do you think about looking at the numbers, obviously trends are
[39:09] the most important, but other than that, or maybe you can talk about that too.
[39:13] Navaz: So.
[39:14] The answer to this question, I love getting this question.
[39:16] What's a good HRV?
[39:18] Yeah.
[39:18] Is the answer for me is better than yesterday.
[39:21] Yeah.
[39:21] Period.
[39:21] I love that.
[39:22] Right?
[39:23] If you can slowly work to increase your HRV day over day and increase
[39:27] your average over time, that's where you wanna be trend-wise.
[39:30] I couldn't care less what the number is.
[39:32] If you have 150 HRV and like, that's your, your real potential capacity is
[39:38] to get up to 1 50, 1 70, go for it.
[39:40] But, but if you're sitting at 88 90, then that's telling you that you're
[39:46] not reaching what your capacity is.
[39:48] Right.
[39:49] Right.
[39:49] So, right.
[39:49] Right.
[39:50] Like, let's say your average is one 20 and you're at 80 that's
[39:54] telling you that today is a bad day.
[39:56] Like you're not, today is a good day.
[39:57] Yeah.
[39:57] You're not having a good day today.
[39:58] Today's a day to rest and recover and give yourself don't, don't push yourself
[40:01] versus if you're at one 50, great.
[40:03] So on average, what I see is.
[40:05] Between 30 and 50 for most people, right?
[40:08] Depending on the device you're using.
[40:09] They have different algorithms.
[40:10] They have different sensors.
[40:11] And remember when they're checking on your finger or they're checking on your
[40:14] wrist, they're not measuring heart rate variability, they're measuring pulse rate
[40:18] variability, which is gonna be different.
[40:20] And then they're using these light sensors and whatnot, which are
[40:23] great, but they're not diagnostics.
[40:25] So none of this should be used in a diagnostic way at all.
[40:28] You should simply be looking at it for trend practice and for
[40:31] understanding where you stand, okay?
[40:33] Scott: Mm-hmm.
[40:33] Navaz: So let's say, for example, me and I'll, I'll tell you today,
[40:36] my HRV this morning was 22.
[40:38] Scott: Hmm.
[40:39] Navaz: I've been fasting now for about 65 hours.
[40:42] Oh.
[40:43] So for some odd reason, when I fast and I'm just having
[40:47] water, that's literally it.
[40:48] Water and black coffee.
[40:50] When I fast, for some reason, my HRV comes down, but my breath rate does as well.
[40:55] But afterwards, my breath rate will stay relatively low, but my HRV will bump up.
[41:00] I'll tend to get into the forties, fifties, sixties at that point, because
[41:04] I'm in a much more recovered state, I've given my body the opportunity to recover.
[41:10] And fasting can be a sympathetic driver.
[41:12] While it can be while you're actively doing it, for sure.
[41:14] Which it is for me.
[41:15] Scott: Yeah.
[41:15] Navaz: But I love how I feel while I'm doing it.
[41:18] And then once I come out of it and I stay, if I can stay in
[41:21] a keto state, then phenomenal.
[41:22] But that allows me to enter that recovery state far more readily.
[41:26] And so that's where my HRV goes up.
[41:27] So I don't use it.
[41:29] And, and I think this is huge.
[41:30] Don't judge your HRV.
[41:31] Don't be judgmental about yourself saying, crap, I have a 12 or a 22.
[41:36] It's not great to judge yourself.
[41:38] Just know that this is where you stand today.
[41:40] Use it as a tool to help guide how you get better over time.
[41:43] I think that's the best thing I can say about it.
[41:45] I love being able to track my patient's HRV and I had a, a patient the other
[41:50] day who said, you know, this month I've been using my vagus nerve stimulator
[41:54] and nothing's changed and whatnot.
[41:56] And I go and I look and I say, no, your HRV is 15% higher
[41:59] this month than it was last.
[42:00] We see a trend upwards because you're using it, but because you
[42:04] didn't see the difference between 16 and 18 on average, it doesn't
[42:08] look like it's working, but it is.
[42:09] We're trending upwards and that's really what you wanna be driving.
[42:12] Scott: I love it.
[42:13] Yeah, I think that's a very, a very good barometer overall in the sense that we're
[42:17] not trying to give people exact numbers.
[42:19] Exactly.
[42:19] Uh, but it's the trends overall.
[42:21] And I wanna talk about the devices a little bit, but before we get there,
[42:24] I wanna ask you about some standout molecules, nutraceuticals, peptides,
[42:28] psychedelics that you're excited about when it comes to modulating
[42:32] the vagal tone, parasympathetic tone.
[42:34] There's a lot coming out and I, I dunno how much you've do you do, you've dove in.
[42:37] This is your area, but anything you want to talk about here would be super cool.
[42:41] Navaz: I've dug into a few things more on the nutraceutical side.
[42:44] Yeah.
[42:44] A little bit in peptides, which I still need to dig into.
[42:47] And I'm really interested in psychedelics.
[42:49] So on the nutraceutical side, I know for a fact that 90% of people are not
[42:54] getting enough choline in their diet.
[42:56] Hmm.
[42:56] I think choline is the most underrated.
[43:00] Supportive tool for vagus nerve health and for overall brain health period.
[43:05] And so I really like the form phosphatidylcholine
[43:08] rather than any other form.
[43:10] There's choline by Tartrate, there's C Choline, there's a bunch of other ones.
[43:13] All of the other ones increased TMAO in the gut, which we know is a
[43:17] marker of heart disease type issues.
[43:19] Sure,
[43:19] Scott: sure.
[43:19] Yeah.
[43:19] So
[43:20] Navaz: cardiovascular issues, so we don't want to go down that path.
[43:22] Phosphatidyl choline.
[43:23] By far the best from a food source.
[43:26] Egg yolks, runny egg yolks.
[43:27] Easiest one to get.
[43:29] Highest quantity per amount that you're gonna have.
[43:32] So sure.
[43:32] Runny egg yolks.
[43:33] Sunnyside eggs.
[43:34] The best to do.
[43:35] Um, liver is great.
[43:37] Potatoes have some, from a supplemental nutraceutical standpoint, sunflower
[43:42] lesser than is the cheapest and highest form of phosphatidylcholine
[43:46] that you could possibly get.
[43:48] Scott: Mm-hmm.
[43:48] Navaz: So I really like sunflower cetin as a way to get
[43:51] choline in for a lot of people.
[43:53] I'm also a big fan of anything that supports mitochondrial function
[43:57] because you're gonna support carb and fat metabolism more effectively,
[44:00] and that's gonna increase acetyl-CoA.
[44:02] acetyl-CoA plus choline come together to produce acetylcholine.
[44:06] Imagine that.
[44:07] So acetylcholine being the primary molecule, we need both sides supported.
[44:10] So mitochondrial support, N-A-D-N-M-N.
[44:13] Sure.
[44:14] Uh, some vitamins depending on the person.
[44:16] Yeah.
[44:16] And then that sunflower lesser than, or phosphatidylcholine
[44:20] or food sources for sure.
[44:22] Those are my tops.
[44:23] Scott: 90% of people.
[44:24] Huh?
[44:24] That many people are not getting, it's, it's
[44:25] Navaz: insane.
[44:26] The 90% of the American diet is deficient in choline.
[44:29] Wow.
[44:29] Like, it's insane how much we miss that.
[44:31] So that's a big one for, so precursors
[44:33] Scott: are really important.
[44:34] Totally.
[44:34] Get it right.
[44:34] You have to have your precursors to be able to make the neurotransmitters.
[44:37] A hundred percent.
[44:38] You have to have optimized mitochondria.
[44:39] And this is what this, this whole our nonprofit's all about, right.
[44:42] At health optimization, medicine and practice is that looking at foundational
[44:46] biomarkers, cellular energy, mitochondrial function is totally, is primary.
[44:50] Like you don't, before you get all fancy with psychedelics and whatever, right.
[44:53] And peptides like get your house in OD man, right?
[44:55] Yes.
[44:55] That's what we talk about.
[44:56] Absolutely.
[44:57] Navaz: Yeah.
[44:58] On the peptide side, um, one of the primary areas where I see the.
[45:03] Major stressors, biochemical stressors that cause vagus nerve
[45:06] dysfunction is from the gut.
[45:07] No question.
[45:08] So I'm a big fan of BPC 1 57 in those situations that help gut health, right?
[45:13] So if you want recovery or, or rebuilding support, BPC 1 57.
[45:17] I found some great results with, and actually had a couple patients that
[45:21] increased their HRV with it as well.
[45:22] So, phenomenal early
[45:24] Scott: or either way.
[45:25] Navaz: Um, I've, I've not found a huge difference between the two,
[45:27] but I, most of them are using oral.
[45:30] Scott: Cool.
[45:30] Cool.
[45:31] Navaz: And then on the psychedelic side of things, um, I haven't dug
[45:34] into the research a ton, but there is, uh, some very unique stuff coming
[45:39] out about psilocybin and HRV and I think all of them have, to some
[45:44] extent, a very calming effect as long as it's in those situations where.
[45:50] Even, even like a microdose option has a great way to, to
[45:53] support vagus nerve health.
[45:55] But I found that virtually all of them when done in a positive therapeutic
[45:59] fashion, are going to have the effect of calm, of relaxation, of vagus
[46:04] nerve activation as part of that.
[46:06] And so those are, those are kind of my favorites as a, unless
[46:09] circumstance, unless you're getting
[46:09] Scott: chased by aliens maybe, and you don't know that reality exists anymore,
[46:13] Navaz: a bad trip is gonna push you sympathetic.
[46:16] Yeah.
[46:18] Scott: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[46:18] Um, I know, I think we all know at some point, um, but, um.
[46:22] So in general, we think it's more because of the parasympathetic activation that
[46:25] most of these are just opening and then getting you back in your body.
[46:29] You know, those kinds of things we were talking about before.
[46:30] Exactly.
[46:31] That's exactly right.
[46:31] The
[46:31] Navaz: primary driver is pushing you back towards mindful body internal experience.
[46:36] Scott: Yeah.
[46:36] Cool.
[46:37] There's a couple of other things I wanted to ask you about.
[46:38] The biggest nerve that I forgot, um, one was related to how the tone changes
[46:41] throughout the day in the evening.
[46:43] Navaz: Yeah.
[46:43] Like how,
[46:44] Scott: can you talk about sort of like the circadian rhythms
[46:46] of the vagus vagus nerve?
[46:47] Nerve?
[46:48] Navaz: Yeah.
[46:48] There's a direct correlation and the two are absolutely hand in hand.
[46:52] The moment you fall asleep, vagus nerve activity spikes and it's because melatonin
[46:57] has a sym sympathic effect, meaning that it shuts down sympathetic function Right.
[47:02] And allows your vagus nerve to turn on and just be on through the night.
[47:06] So you have, I, I saw this great study where they measured vagus nerve function
[47:10] over a 48 hour period in rats, not in humans, but the moment they fell asleep.
[47:14] Vagus activity spiked and it stayed high until they woke up, and then it came down.
[47:19] So during the day, our vagus nerve activity is lower because during the
[47:22] daytime we have more sympathetic things.
[47:24] We have more stressors that we're gonna be experiencing.
[47:27] The melatonin ideally isn't on, so it's not having that
[47:30] sympathetic analytic effect.
[47:32] Scott: Mm-hmm.
[47:32] Navaz: It's allowing the sympathetic co parasympathetic balance to be there.
[47:36] Mm-hmm.
[47:36] Which is why HRV during the day is not as effective as looking at HRV across
[47:41] the night, because that tells you where you're, where you stand that day.
[47:45] In terms of, did you recover well over.
[47:47] Scott: Got it.
[47:47] I didn't realize that.
[47:48] So checking your HIV during the day is not as helpful as taking it in the evenings.
[47:52] Best time to
[47:53] Navaz: do it is within the first five minutes of waking up, after going
[47:56] to the bathroom and doing a three minute measurement at that time.
[48:00] Scott: Mm.
[48:00] Navaz: That is kind of gold.
[48:02] Standard time to do it is first thing in the morning.
[48:04] As soon as you've woken up and you haven't checked your phone and
[48:07] you haven't done anything, that was before or after your phone.
[48:11] Yeah, you don't wanna do anything.
[48:12] Obviously stressful.
[48:13] Wake up, go to the bathroom, and then do a quick check.
[48:15] That's the best way.
[48:16] The second best way is look at the average over the night, but look at the pattern
[48:19] that your HRV took at night as well.
[48:21] How spiky was it?
[48:23] Did you go into moments where you were hyper parasympathetic and then
[48:26] it dropped down to sympathetic?
[48:27] What's going on with your HRV at night?
[48:29] And look that up depending on the device that you're using as well.
[48:31] Scott: Okay.
[48:31] So those algorithms might change somebody.
[48:33] Spiky might mean one thing for one algorithm versus spiky might be something
[48:37] different for a different algorithm.
[48:39] Absolutely.
[48:39] So it's not like in general you want it to be more flat or you
[48:41] want No, that just depends on that.
[48:42] And in fact,
[48:43] Navaz: you don't want it to be flat period.
[48:44] Yeah.
[48:44] You want to be up and down.
[48:45] Scott: Of course it makes sense.
[48:46] 'cause that's the, the balance between the two.
[48:48] Exactly.
[48:48] So, so sleep, even during REM sleep, you know when you have like your
[48:51] dreaming and you're like, you're, so your para sympathetic tone still could
[48:54] be more elevated compared to your, you know, obviously during the day, right?
[48:57] Navaz: Yes, absolutely.
[48:58] Relative to the day.
[48:59] Now REM sleep is more thinking, more storing of information and,
[49:05] and kind of how those things work.
[49:07] So deep sleep is glymphatic activation.
[49:09] You're clearing out the toxins you're getting.
[49:11] Mm-hmm.
[49:11] Lymphatic drainage to occur.
[49:13] The glial cells are more active during that time.
[49:15] That's an important piece to.
[49:18] Literally eliminating the, uh, the biochemical and physical
[49:21] toxins that are present.
[49:22] Then we end up in, and that should happen.
[49:24] The first two cycles of sleep should be much more deep sleep.
[49:27] Right?
[49:28] Right.
[49:28] Scott: Yeah.
[49:28] Navaz: Then we get into more light and then at the end we
[49:31] should end with more REM sleep.
[49:32] Right?
[49:32] And that's where the consolidation of memories is occurring.
[49:35] And REM sleep is often where we see HRV.
[49:38] Come up a little bit more as well.
[49:39] Scott: Gotcha.
[49:40] So in an AA ring, for example, one thing you could do is when you first
[49:43] wake up before getting outta bed, or maybe after you pee, like you
[49:46] said, but not checking your phone.
[49:47] Exactly.
[49:48] You could just do like a quick session to check to see what your H RV is and Yes.
[49:51] And then on the
[49:52] Navaz: AA ring, they have the unguided session tool.
[49:54] Uhhuh.
[49:54] I love using that for three minutes first thing in the morning.
[49:56] That's the key that, that's good to know.
[49:57] I haven't
[49:58] Scott: tried that.
[49:58] I'd love to actually work on that with some of my patients that have, most
[50:00] Navaz: people don't know.
[50:01] I feel like that little unique tool is hidden.
[50:04] The unguided session is powerful.
[50:05] Like you can look up a lot of things using your our ring just while you're awake
[50:10] through that unguided session Marker.
[50:12] Scott: That's good to know.
[50:12] I mean, I've certainly used it for like meditations during the day.
[50:15] Yes.
[50:15] Uh, but I haven't used it specifically to check H RV in that capacity.
[50:19] Yeah.
[50:19] So the first
[50:19] Navaz: thing, three minutes.
[50:20] Perfect.
[50:21] Yeah.
[50:21] Yeah.
[50:21] I also like to do it.
[50:22] If you're a cold plunge person, go in and see what you do
[50:25] with your breathing pattern.
[50:26] And see your HRV just go tank and then zip right back up at the end.
[50:30] Nice.
[50:30] So just add it, like
[50:31] Scott: add an activity that you're doing and then just kind
[50:33] of do a session at the same time.
[50:34] Exactly.
[50:35] That's cool.
[50:35] That's cool.
[50:35] I haven't used it in that capacity.
[50:37] I need to try that for my hyperbaric chamber too.
[50:39] I haven't used that either, so that would be awesome.
[50:40] Yeah, I would
[50:41] Navaz: love to see the hyperbaric.
[50:42] I know you've had some
[50:43] Scott: experience with it, with HYPERBARICS and HRV in the in
[50:45] the past and seen some benefits.
[50:47] Yeah,
[50:47] Navaz: we've seen some definite.
[50:48] Improvements, uh, over time.
[50:50] Over time.
[50:50] Yeah.
[50:50] Not, not during the session itself, but over time using H HR v uh,
[50:55] tracking at night plus HBOT therapy, and we see definite improvement
[51:01] about patients that are ready for it.
[51:02] Yeah.
[51:03] Scott: No, that's, that's a really good point.
[51:04] I, I appreciate you saying that because not everybody's
[51:06] ready for hyperbaric therapy.
[51:07] Totally.
[51:08] And they might not be, uh, optimized enough to be able to
[51:10] really, really tolerate going in.
[51:12] And I wanna talk about this with you separately.
[51:14] I have, uh, some interesting things I need to tell you about.
[51:15] Well, love it.
[51:16] But that's, but I was, I'm working on a couple things there on the
[51:18] hyperbaric space with HRV, but, um, for another time for the podcast
[51:23] though, I have a couple more questions.
[51:24] Um, I wanted to ask you about, uh, vagus nerve and neuroplasticity.
[51:28] 'cause I've heard various things here and, um, you know, with memory,
[51:31] with learning, with, you know, with recovery, with like trauma even.
[51:35] Like what, what, what's going on in the brain?
[51:37] We know that obviously the vagus nerve is going all these places.
[51:39] You've told us all about that, but what's actually maybe happening in
[51:42] the brain itself with the nerve too?
[51:43] Navaz: Yeah.
[51:44] Yeah.
[51:44] We've talked about brainstem down, we haven't talked about
[51:46] brainstem up very much, right?
[51:48] And this is huge.
[51:49] So we think of acetylcholine as just going down vagus nerve having
[51:52] in its its effect in the body.
[51:54] It has a massive, massive effect on the brain and the specific cells.
[51:58] I've alluded to them earlier, but they're the microglial cells.
[52:01] So the signals of the vagus nerve come up and those 80% of signals
[52:05] that are coming up ENT into the brainstem go to the nucleus.
[52:09] Tractus, solitar, the nucleus of the solitary tract.
[52:12] Those bump up to the locus Aurelius locus.
[52:14] Aurelius is.
[52:15] The primary kind of dispersion tool.
[52:18] Mm-hmm.
[52:18] And that's where norepinephrine is gonna be created.
[52:20] And then it branches out into a bunch of different areas.
[52:23] Now, one particular area that the vagus nerve signals go to in the cerebrum is
[52:28] called the Nucleus bacillus of Maynard.
[52:30] And the nucleus, bacillus of Maynard is the primary acetylcholine production site
[52:35] in it's, in fact the only acetylcholine production site in the brain.
[52:39] Hmm.
[52:39] And what it does is it, when it gets activated, it has
[52:42] a different way of acting.
[52:44] So we tend to think of neurotransmitters as being only synaptic, right?
[52:48] It comes out of the axon of one synapse or one pre-synaptic
[52:53] terminal and goes towards the post synaptic terminal and binds to it.
[52:56] We also have volumetric release or volume release of neurotransmitters.
[53:00] And this is particularly true for, uh, acetylcholine, particularly
[53:05] from that acetyl or from the nucleus bacillus of Maynard.
[53:08] So when the signals go in, when vagus nerve afferent signals are strong,
[53:12] and we have good vagal tone, and we have these signals coming up.
[53:15] Acetylcholine release from that nucleus bacillus of Maynard
[53:18] is gonna be much stronger.
[53:19] And that produces acetylcholine, that goes throughout the entirety of the
[53:23] brain structure, through the lymphatics of the brain, through the dura, through
[53:28] the cerebral, uh, blood flow passages.
[53:31] And what that's gonna do is the acetylcholine binds to the tissue
[53:35] resident macrophages in the brain, which are the microglial cells.
[53:38] Scott: Mm-hmm.
[53:38] Mm-hmm.
[53:39] Navaz: And when it comes to plasticity, we've now found that it's not neuron
[53:42] neuron connection that matters quite as much as the microglial cells that are
[53:46] monitoring and managing those synapses.
[53:48] So microglia that are in a parasympathetic rest, digest, recover
[53:53] regulatory state are much better primed to support neuroplasticity.
[53:59] Scott: Mm. Yeah.
[54:00] Navaz: They're not gonna break down as many synapses that
[54:03] don't need to be broken down.
[54:05] So they're gonna allow for connections to become stronger.
[54:07] So microglial activation, when the microglia become hyper activated,
[54:12] because there's stressors.
[54:13] Because there's toxins.
[54:14] LPS is a primary driver of this.
[54:16] Hmm.
[54:17] LPS through the gut actually causes microglial activation in the
[54:20] brain's and cognitive dysfunction.
[54:21] Scott: That's, yep.
[54:22] Navaz: But what it's doing is it's driving these microglial cells into what's called
[54:25] an M1 state, which I call the fight state.
[54:28] We need to shift to the M two state, which is a regulatory state, and that regulatory
[54:33] state can be shifted using acetylcholine.
[54:36] And one of the greatest tools for this is vagus nerve stimulation.
[54:40] Scott: Mm. Okay.
[54:40] Navaz: Because we're electrically increasing the tone or the signaling
[54:43] capacity of the vagus nerve to create that shift from M1 to M two.
[54:47] That's why vagus nerve stimulation studies, and we'll get into the devices,
[54:51] but that's why these studies have shown specifically for the cervical
[54:55] device increases in learning capacity.
[54:58] Actually, there was a really great study that was done with the darpa, uh,
[55:02] people, so Defense Language Learning Institute in, uh, in San Diego, and
[55:07] they found that ca a, a operatives were able to learn Arabic 25 to 40% faster.
[55:14] When using a vagus nerve stimulator.
[55:16] Scott: Wow.
[55:16] Yeah.
[55:17] Navaz: Right.
[55:17] Cognitive improvements, fatigue, imbalance, like improvements in sleep,
[55:21] improvements in calm and memory.
[55:23] All of those things come from shifting those immune cells to that M two
[55:27] state, cognitive resilience, cognitive functionality, neuroplasticity are all
[55:32] tied to that microglial cell and vagus nerve signals play a huge role in that.
[55:36] Scott: Amazing.
[55:36] Yeah.
[55:37] Well, I think that's a really great overall transition to some of the devices
[55:40] that you're using in clinical practice.
[55:42] You talked about a vagal nerve stimulator, there's a d, there's all all
[55:45] different types of devices out there.
[55:47] There's obviously other ways of, uh, of accessing vagal nerve.
[55:51] Tone.
[55:52] And we talked a little bit about these earlier.
[55:53] We talked about breath work.
[55:54] Yes.
[55:54] We talked about singing and humming.
[55:56] So maybe give us a like a bit of an overview.
[55:58] I know we don't have a lot of time, but there's an overview on tools,
[56:01] technologies, practices, things like that, that you're using in clinical practice.
[56:04] In any which order you decide.
[56:05] Navaz: Breath is key.
[56:06] Everything aligns to breath.
[56:08] Learning to breathe effectively.
[56:10] Nothing will ever trump that period, but it takes time and effort and that's
[56:14] okay, but let's start to do things.
[56:17] I love this podcast.
[56:18] Name smarter, not harder.
[56:19] Scott: Indeed.
[56:20] Right,
[56:20] Navaz: right.
[56:21] So yes, do your breath work.
[56:23] I'm all for it.
[56:23] And in fact I recommend it across the board.
[56:26] But what if there were ways to do singing, humming, chanting gargling,
[56:30] like cold plunge, but in like a two minute electrical stimulation?
[56:34] Right, right.
[56:34] So I really like it.
[56:36] I'm holding this up for the people that are listening on audio.
[56:38] It's a true Vega.
[56:39] This is one of my favorite devices.
[56:41] I, I do speak for the company, but I've seen it firsthand, the
[56:45] effect of this with my patients.
[56:47] And so it's a very simple two minute electrical stimulation on the neck, which.
[56:51] Activates vagus nerve in that exact area where we mentioned it's located.
[56:55] So if you hit the carotid artery jugular vein, you hit your pulse, you're actually
[56:59] very close to the vagus nerve by using a two minute stimulation on that area.
[57:02] We've seen, I, I alluded to the cognitive issues, but improved sleep, decreased
[57:09] experience of stress, feeling less stressed than 85% of people within a
[57:14] few minutes of using this thing, right?
[57:16] Two minute stimulation is literally, I pair it with the breath work, I pair it
[57:21] with calm, diaphragmatic nasal breathing.
[57:23] Your breathing should be three things.
[57:24] We'll get into that in a second, but I pair that breathing practice
[57:28] with the electrical stimulation.
[57:30] I use this with my 7-year-old daughter.
[57:32] It's been a game changer helping her calm down.
[57:35] So she has baseball from six till 7 30, 8 o'clock almost.
[57:39] We get home and she's riled up, running around, driving me nuts,
[57:42] two minutes of stimulation, breathing, and she passes out.
[57:46] Like you wouldn't believe, like, so calm so quick.
[57:49] Scott: Mm-hmm.
[57:50] Navaz: A lot of professional athletes have a ton of trouble
[57:52] ramping down after a game.
[57:54] Right, right, right.
[57:54] Yeah.
[57:54] This is one of the tools that we found to be really beneficial in cases like that.
[57:58] So this is a great way to help shift that and catalyze that
[58:03] sympathetic to parasympathetic shift, allowing your body to enter that
[58:06] recovery state far more readily.
[58:08] So the true Vega is my favorite device for sure.
[58:11] It's easy, it's handheld, right?
[58:13] It's two minutes and it's accessible, uh, in the United States.
[58:18] That's my, my game changer for sure.
[58:20] There are other devices out there you've mentioned.
[58:22] Um, there are auricular devices.
[58:24] Great.
[58:24] Remember, only 1% of the signals are.
[58:27] On the vagus nerve are going to the ear.
[58:29] What that means is not that you're not gonna get this, the signal activation
[58:33] within the nucleus tractus solitary is, but rather it's taking longer
[58:37] to get the same level of activation.
[58:39] So a stimulation tool such as dolphin, which is a great tool, but it takes
[58:43] between 15 and 60 minutes to get the same activation on the ear that
[58:48] it does in two minutes on the neck.
[58:49] Scott: Mm, mm-hmm.
[58:50] Navaz: Right.
[58:50] Yeah.
[58:50] So let's work smarter, not harder.
[58:52] Scott: Yeah.
[58:53] You mentioned, uh, breathing and three parts to the breathing.
[58:56] Can you talk about that?
[58:57] Yes.
[58:57] Navaz: Yeah.
[58:57] So the three things that your breath should be to help shift
[59:00] towards that parasympathetic breath.
[59:01] Number one, nasal.
[59:03] We need to breathe through our nose.
[59:04] We have hairs in our nose.
[59:05] We have teeth in our mouth.
[59:07] Our nose is our breathing tube.
[59:08] Our mouth is our eating tube.
[59:09] One way directionality here.
[59:11] Okay, we have a backup if we need it, but yes, breathe through your nose.
[59:14] Number two, diaphragmatic.
[59:16] We need to stop breathing with our chest muscles, with our upper back muscles.
[59:19] Most people have really tight traps, upper back, shoulders, rhomboids scaling.
[59:23] Those muscles are activated as the.
[59:26] Accessory breathing muscles, but many people's breath mechanisms have shifted
[59:31] to using the accessory breathing muscles.
[59:33] Primarily we need to get back to diaphragm.
[59:36] Diaphragmatic breath creates a belly breath.
[59:38] Scott: Mm-hmm.
[59:38] Navaz: Mm-hmm.
[59:39] So I put a hand on the chest, hand on the belly and make sure
[59:42] that my breathing is belly lead.
[59:44] I do this with my patients, I do this with my daughter.
[59:46] It's great.
[59:47] So great tools.
[59:48] Belly breathing, nasal diaphragmatic.
[59:51] And then we mentioned this when we were talking about resonance,
[59:53] uh, sinus arrhythmia or the respiratory sinus arrhythmia.
[59:56] We want to have longer exhales mm-hmm.
[59:58] Than inhales.
[59:59] Mm-hmm.
[59:59] So nasal diaphragmatic longer.
[1:00:01] Exhale.
[1:00:02] So, 4, 7, 8.
[1:00:03] Breathing pattern through the nose, belly breath is my absolute favorite.
[1:00:07] Four seconds.
[1:00:08] Inhale.
[1:00:09] Seven.
[1:00:09] Second hold, eight second.
[1:00:10] Exhale.
[1:00:11] Phenomenal practice.
[1:00:12] It's the one used by Navy Seals to go sleep quickly.
[1:00:15] It's the best way to create that shift into a hyper parasympathetic state.
[1:00:20] Scott: Yeah, that's great.
[1:00:20] I also use box breathing with my kids.
[1:00:22] Yeah.
[1:00:22] Phenomenal.
[1:00:23] And then the easiest one I've found for people is just three
[1:00:25] seconds in and five seconds out.
[1:00:27] Yeah.
[1:00:27] Just a three five kind of pattern.
[1:00:28] Great place to start.
[1:00:29] Yeah.
[1:00:29] Yeah, all these are gonna help.
[1:00:31] And you know, of course, you know, leveraging the GABA system as
[1:00:33] you know, we do at our company, but it's not gonna be immediate.
[1:00:36] Right?
[1:00:36] Having the breath work associated with it.
[1:00:38] It's not using a vagal nerve stimulator.
[1:00:39] I know Boomer has been a big fan of the Tru Vaga that you guys have, you know,
[1:00:42] that you, that you work with as well.
[1:00:44] I think, I think the key here, here really is that this is a pretty big
[1:00:48] tour de force on a fantastic nerve that's going everywhere, right?
[1:00:51] Yeah.
[1:00:52] And it has such an amazing impact on our parasympathetic tone, on
[1:00:56] our, on our on, on our gut, on our brain, everything, right?
[1:00:59] And so, one, one last question for you, which is we ask everybody at the end of
[1:01:02] the podcast, it's, what are three ways that anybody can live smarter, not harder?
[1:01:07] And it can be, you've already kind of alluded to many of these
[1:01:09] probably within the podcast, it can be related to the, the vagus nerve.
[1:01:12] It could be related to what you don't do when you go to
[1:01:14] Vegas, the actual city, right?
[1:01:16] It can be whatever you choose, choose them to be.
[1:01:18] But, um, I'd love to hear your thoughts, you know, given your
[1:01:21] experience of three of the ways we all can live smarter, not harder,
[1:01:24] Navaz: the number one.
[1:01:26] Um, no question is, is learn to breathe correctly.
[1:01:29] Most people are breathing.
[1:01:31] So ineffectively and so inefficiently that we're really driving ourselves into
[1:01:36] a sympathetic state that's so problematic.
[1:01:38] Like it's, it's tough to even put into words how important that is.
[1:01:41] The breath is key.
[1:01:42] It helps you handle stress, and so that's gonna be number one.
[1:01:45] Mm-hmm.
[1:01:45] Number two, learn to handle stress.
[1:01:47] And the way that I do that is I utilize hormesis.
[1:01:51] Hormesis is slight bits of excess stress to teach your body how to handle it.
[1:01:55] 'cause you know that you're safe when you're doing something
[1:01:58] that's a little bit stressful.
[1:01:59] But it teaches you how to bounce back, create that resilience piece.
[1:02:03] Mm-hmm.
[1:02:03] I think that's huge.
[1:02:05] Like fasting.
[1:02:05] So exercise, cold plunge, fasting.
[1:02:07] Yep.
[1:02:07] These are, these are moments of hormesis that push you into a state
[1:02:10] where, okay, this is hard, but I can do it and it's gonna have a very
[1:02:14] positive, conscious effect on you.
[1:02:16] You're gonna be able to be driven to do better.
[1:02:18] Mm-hmm.
[1:02:19] But.
[1:02:19] Hormesis is awesome, right?
[1:02:20] Like these are, these are great ways to push us into that time.
[1:02:24] You're currently hor automatically?
[1:02:25] Scott: Yeah.
[1:02:26] The goal
[1:02:26] Navaz: is, the goal is 72, but I ate a little late the last day,
[1:02:29] so it's gonna be 69 hours today.
[1:02:32] Okay.
[1:02:32] That's my goal.
[1:02:33] Scott: All good?
[1:02:33] Yeah.
[1:02:34] What, and we what?
[1:02:34] I'm sorry to interrupt, but what was your third one you're thinking?
[1:02:36] The last
[1:02:37] Navaz: one, I think, and, and obviously my bias is vagus nerve stimulation, but I
[1:02:40] really do think that a lot of people can benefit from utilizing these tools because
[1:02:45] if we can just work a little smarter on this particular piece and get ourselves to
[1:02:50] sleep more effectively, get ourselves to enter that, that state more effectively.
[1:02:54] Vagus nerve stimulation is so simple, and I've had countless
[1:02:59] phenomenal cases with my patients.
[1:03:01] Vagus nerve stem I think is gonna be my absolute.
[1:03:04] Third one for sure.
[1:03:05] Scott: Drop in in parasympathetic, everything else gets better.
[1:03:07] Absolutely.
[1:03:07] Initially, it could be pretty challenging for patients, as you know, when they
[1:03:10] first start feeling parasympathetic after being sympathetic for a long time.
[1:03:14] Yes.
[1:03:14] So as a clinician, if you're listening, be aware that your patients might have
[1:03:17] a reactive anxiety to not having their sympathetic system on online, and I'm
[1:03:21] sure you've seen that many times before.
[1:03:23] Navaz: Yep.
[1:03:23] Scott: It can be nasty.
[1:03:24] Yeah.
[1:03:24] But it's, but it's something you just have to counsel your patients
[1:03:27] with and you can get them through it.
[1:03:28] But Navos has been great, man.
[1:03:29] I really do appreciate your time, your expertise.
[1:03:32] Where can people find out more about you?
[1:03:33] About the companies that you work with?
[1:03:35] Yeah.
[1:03:35] And I'm sure I'll be seeing you like in a couple days at some sort of conference.
[1:03:38] So
[1:03:38] Navaz: Absolutely.
[1:03:39] I, uh, you can find me on Instagram or, um.
[1:03:43] Any social media, Dr. Neva Habib, um, go to health upgraded.com
[1:03:49] if you're interested in learning more about what we do.
[1:03:51] And, uh, the tool that I'm the biggest fan of, no question is
[1:03:55] Tru Vega, T-R-U-V-A-G a.com.
[1:03:58] Check it out.
[1:03:58] The Tru Vega Plus devices the easiest one to get and dead easy to use and I
[1:04:03] think that's the best way to go about it.
[1:04:05] Scott: Please bring a couple extra to the next conference that I
[1:04:07] see you at so that I can use it.
[1:04:09] Please.
[1:04:09] I think they're gonna
[1:04:09] Navaz: be there, in fact in San Diego, so,
[1:04:11] Scott: okay, good.
[1:04:13] Alright man, well enjoy the rest of your, your afternoon over there in Toronto
[1:04:16] and thanks so much for being here.
[1:04:17] We'll see you next time.
[1:04:18] My
[1:04:18] Navaz: pleasure.
[1:04:18] Thanks Scott.
[1:04:19] Scott: Thanks so much for tuning into another episode of the Smarter or Not
[1:04:21] Harder podcast, where we give you 1 cent solutions to $64,000 questions.
[1:04:25] And wow, the vagus nerve gives you more than $64,000 answers to
[1:04:29] questions and everything in between.
[1:04:30] It's such a fantastic topic, an interesting point of science, of
[1:04:34] clinical relevance, so I really hope you enjoyed this podcast.
[1:04:37] If you did, don't forget to like and subscribe below so
[1:04:40] you never miss an episode.
[1:04:41] Share with your friends, with your family, with your colleagues, and increase your
[1:04:44] parasympathetic tone sometime soon.
[1:04:46] All right, take care.

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