If you are in the health world and follow natural, holistic living, there is no doubt that you’ve heard of the vagus nerve. With all the research, biohacking, and natural science that has been reported lately, there’s no shortage on how amazing of an impact it has on our health and adaptability.

But did you know the vagus nerve plays a critical role in your child’s development, behavior, and sensory comfort? We wanted to dig into the science of an active vagus nerve and a vagus nerve that is “turned down.”

WHAT IS THE VAGUS NERVE?

The vagus nerve is a nerve that comes out from underneath the skull from the brainstem on both sides and goes throughout the entire body. Some of the functions the vagus nerve controls are:

• Swallowing

• Speech

• Respiration

• Heart rate

• Blood pressure

• Taste

What you may have heard about the vagus nerve the most however is its role in the brain-gut or gut-brain balance, which of course is extremely important in digestion and immune function. Both of which are vitally important to our health, and especially a child’s health. While that is one of the incredible things the vagus nerve can do, it actually has a more all-encompassing role in health that is so important for kids that we want to dive deeper into.

THE VAGUS NERVE AND REST/SLEEP, EMOTIONAL REGULATION, AND DIGESTIVE FUNCTION

There are two main things that can happen with the vagus nerve. If you turn it up, it is a sensory relaxer, so it will help the body rest, relax, and digest. Turning it down allows the other side of the nervous system to take effect –  the go, go go, fight or flight, busy brain side.

What we really want is a balance of up and down regulation and what we usually end up needing for our kids is to turn the vagus nerve up because, in the world we live in, it’s so often turned down. That’s why our kiddos seem to have that “busy brain”, fight or flight response.

When we turn it up, it really has 3 main impacts for our kids. The first one is rest because it is a sensory deregulator–it helps the body block out all the external noise that helps the brain calm and body calm. And rest and sleep (quality sleep, to be specific) is hugely important for not only physical development but brain development. Kids are learning and growing neurologically at lightning speed. In order to reinforce these neural connections they need to be able to hit the brake pedal, calm and rest. And that’s what the vagus nerve is all about.

The second is emotional regulation and the ability to relax. When our vagus nerve is turned down, it feels like it’s running from a bear, it is in fight or flight and it doesn’t feel comfortable in its situations. This is why emotions in kids are so controlled by that up or down regulation of the vagus nerve.

Third, is what we touched upon early: digestion. Not only is the vagus nerve responsible for actually moving things alone in the gut and digestive tract but it’s hugely responsible for kids and their bodies to actually feel ready developmentally to take the next step. Digestion is in fact a big developmental milestone that not a lot of parents, or even health providers for that matter, know about or recognize. If you have a kiddo is struggling with digestion, it is going to take a lot of energy and resources to just try to process that milk or those new foods you’re introducing. What this means is the more and more it needs to work on digestion because their body struggles to process food with ease, the less resources and capacity their body has to properly continue to make progress in their higher cognitive development, e.g. to motor or movement systems and also their social systems (the Big Brain Functions). This includes sensory processing, behavior, relationship building, decision making and impulse regulation. This is why part of the vagus nerve is called the “social vagus”.

THE VAGUS NERVE AND BIRTH TRAUMA, STRESS, AND PHYSICAL TRAUMA

The vagus nerve plays a fundamental role in a child’s health and development, which is why we want to understand the health of every child’s vagus nerve. What we see in our pediatric chiropractic practice is the vagus nerve is most commonly affected by three things.

Firstly, is birth trauma. If there wasn’t a lot of room in utero; if there was cord wrap; if they were delivered and they had to use forceps or a vacuum to do so, if they had a C section. This impacts the vagus nerve and actually turns it down because in general, what we see with birth trauma is the exact area that takes on the most stress during birth for a baby is the exact place that the vagus nerve comes out of, right underneath the skull. 

Secondly, the vagus nerve can be affected by the toxic levels of stress we experience today. When the environment comes at us with many different stressors, it actually affects our gut which communicates back and forth with our brain (remember that connection between the brain and gut we talked about?). If that gut and brain connection is imbalanced, that’s going to cause the body to do all different things, including down regulate the vagus nerve causing the body to go more into fight or flight.

Thirdly, when kids are learning to walk, falling off a bike, playing sports, they are going to have accidents. A lot of these bumps and bruises are inevitable because they are learning new gross motor skills but these are big physical traumas or stress. This puts stress and tension on their system, especially when there’s stress to the upper neck or upper cervical regions, it puts the body in fight or flight and turns down the vagus nerve. It puts the body in a faster, go-go-go state which downregulates the vagus nerve even more.

If you’re seeing any of these (did they have a tough birth, are they struggling with stomach issues, or did they have physical trauma in the past), those things can all impact the vagus nerve. Common and easy to notice signs for parents to recognize when their child’s vagus nerve is turned down are:

• Trouble falling asleep (during naps or at night)

• Frequent outbursts and tantrums to seemingly small situations

• Constipation struggles

• Tense or tight body

Mom gut or dad gut never lies, so when you are thinking, “Something is not right,” you’re probably on the right track. 

We use technology in our office called INSiGHT scans to measure this nerve and see whether it is turned up or down. If it is more turned up, chances are, you will have a much easier, well-regulated rest and digest, chill kiddo that can adapt and overcome many things. 

If it’s turned down, they most likely want to do those things but might struggle to get them done. That’s where we come in, and we really want to help you. We know every kiddo is unique, which is why our Clinical Process is so in-depth and thorough. It allows us to put together a custom care plan to help your child reach their full potential.

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