The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in your body.
It connects your brain with too many important organs throughout the body, including the gut (intestines, stomach), heart and lungs.
In fact, the word Vagus means “wanderer” in Latin, which accurately represents how the nerve wanders all over the body and reaches various organs.
The vagus nerve is also a key part of your parasympathetic “rest and digest” nervous system. It influences your breathing, digestive function and heart rate, all of which can have a huge impact on your mental health.
But what you really need to pay special attention to is the "tone" of your vagus nerve.
Vagal tone is an internal biological process that represents the activity of the vagus nerve. Increasing your vagal tone activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and having a higher vagal tone means that your body can relax faster.
In 2010, researchers discovered a positive feedback loop between high vagal tone, positive emotions, and good physical health. In other words, the more you increase
Your vagal tone, the more your physical and mental health will improve, and vice versa.
In the brain, the vagus nerve helps the mood and controls anxiety and depression.
The vagus nerve is largely responsible for the mind-body connection since it goes to all the major organs (except the adrenal and thyroid glands).
Your vagus nerve is connected to your vocal cords and the muscles at the back of your throat. These are activated when you sing, hum, chant or gargle. To introduce these activities in your daily life – sing or hum in the shower, chant during meditation, and gargle with water after brushing your teeth and since it's connected to your vocal cords and muscles at the back of your throat and is activated when you sing, chant etc.
We need to make sure that for children's rhymes and rhythm with voice modulations shouldn’t be confined to pre-primary only but must be inculcated in the curriculum for the higher grades as well, the activation of these vocal cords and muscles will also enhance the calmness of mind and heart.
Hearing the rhythm and modulations in tune helps a child and adult to relax their mood and re-energize to start fresh with positivity and happiness.
- Tazeen Siddiqui, Mansha Vision India <fortazeen@gmail.com>