Tuesday 12 January 2016

Parasympathetic Nervous system and ME CFS and CFIDS

This morning I've been reading an interesting article about Vagus nerve Stimulation courtesy of Cort Johnsons excellent blog/website article here
There has been some success in Fibromyalga pain reduction using Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS).  The article goes on to talk about how VNS can help stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system which helps the "rest and digest" processes in our body.  Electronic stimulators are very expensive, but there are several things that you can do to help the process manually which many of us are probably already trying as part of our recovery/treatment, these include yoga and meditation/deep breathing.  One of the things mentioned in an article Cort links to is Om chanting and how it can help:

‘OM’ Chanting An interesting study was performed by the International Journal of Yoga in 2011, where ‘OM’ chanting was compared with pronunciation of ‘SSS’ as well as a rest state to determine if chanting is more stimulatory to the vagus nerve. The study found that the chanting actually was more effective than either the ‘sss’ pronunciation or the rest state. Effective ‘OM’ chanting is associated with the experience of a vibration sensation around the ears and throughout the body. It is expected that such a sensation is also transmitted through the auricular branch of the vagus nerve and will produce limbic (HPA axis) deactivation.[iii] How to chant? Hold the vowel (o) part of the ‘OM’ for 5 seconds then continue into the consonant (m) part for the next 10 seconds. Continue chanting for 10 minutes. Conclude with some deep breathing and end with gratitude.

I'm going to give it a go.

3 comments:

  1. Great post, thanks so much for sharing. I recently read somewhere that humming (i.e humming a song you like) is also good for stimulating the vagus nerve. I also came across this program which is free and is supposed to stimulate the vagus nerve http://eiriu-eolas.org/online-version/

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  2. I read anbout the free eiriu-eolas program online a weeks ago and I just wanted to share it with other people as it is a free program and in case it helps someone http://eiriu-eolas.org/documents/Eiriu%20Eolas%20Quick%20Guide.pdf

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  3. Beauts, i know it’s been two years, how are you? Can you share anything about your progress for those who follow?

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