At the far end of the casino, beneath chandeliers that hum like overworked neurons, 🧠💡 sits the most sensitive player in the room: the Vegas Nerve.
It wanders everywhere — from the bar, 🍸 to the buffet, 🍤 from the poker table, ♣️ to the slot machines, 🎰 which is why the old Latin gamblers nicknamed it vagus, meaning “the drifter.”
But tonight it’s parked at a high-stakes Texas Hold’em table, 🃏 quietly reading the room.
Not playing the cards.
Reading the players. 👀
Around the felt sit three familiar characters.
First up is Ventral Vinnie. 😌
Relaxed as a Sunday brunch. ☕🥐 He’s chatting with the dealer, sipping tea, breathing slow and steady. His chips rise and fall like a healthy Heart Rate Variability chart. 📈
When he wins, he smiles. 🙂
When he loses, he shrugs. 🤷♂️
The table feels calmer just having him there.
Next is Sympathetic Sam. 😰
Sweaty palms. Rapid breathing. Eyes darting like a cat in a laser-pointer convention. 🐱🔴
He keeps pushing all-in at imaginary threats.
“Someone’s bluffing!” he mutters. 😬
Sam’s stack rises fast… 📈 then vanishes just as fast. 📉
Fight-or-flight poker rarely ends well.
Then there’s Dorsal Dave. 😐
Dave has folded the last twelve hands without looking at his cards. 🃏
Slumped in his chair, chips untouched, expression blank.
“Why bother?” he sighs.
“The house always wins.” 🎲
The dealer glances at the Vegas Nerve.
Because the Vegas Nerve isn’t actually playing.
It’s reading the tells. 👁️
The flicker in someone’s eyes.
The pitch of a voice. 🎤
The rhythm of breath. 🌬️
It listens for safety cues the way seasoned gamblers listen for the shuffle of aces. ♠️
Some nights the room feels friendly — laughter, 😂 warm light, 💡 the low hum of human connection. 🤝
The Vegas Nerve relaxes.
The chips move smoothly.
The game flows.
Other nights the air is thick with tension. ⚡
The lighting is harsh. 💡
The players are anxious. 😬
Someone’s been drinking too much industrial seed-oil margarita mix from the bar. 🍹
The Vegas Nerve tightens its collar and whispers to the table.
“Something’s off.” 👀
The amateurs try to silence it.
“Take a pill.” 💊 says one.
“Try a breathing hack.” 🫁 says another.
“Cold plunge in the ice bucket!” 🧊 shouts a wellness influencer passing by.
But the Vegas Nerve just taps the felt and points to the obvious.
“The problem isn’t the cards.” 🃏
It gestures toward the smoky air, 🚬 the flashing lights, 🎰 the sleepless players grinding through another all-night tournament. 🌙
“The problem,” it says calmly, “is the table conditions.”
Because the Vegas Nerve isn’t there to control the game.
It’s there to read it.
And if the signals say the house is hostile, the smartest move isn’t to bluff harder.
It’s to stand up, 🚶♂️ push back your chair, and find a better table.
This is right out genius. Thank you so much for this fabulous story, been to Vegas and seen a casino - and it fits so well with the article. Not sure if it would work as a song, but certainly would make a lovely shortie.
Massive thanks! 👍🕺 I'm delighted it resonated, especially with someone who's actually seen the tables in action. Maybe one day Ventral Vinnie, Sympathetic Sam, and Dorsal Dave will make it into a remake of Goodfellas or Casino. 🎰
Disengage from the medical mafia, stop taking its poisons and stop listening to its ridiculous nonsense. Allow your magical body to do the talking. It never needs any medicine because all medicines are poisons. Were you born with a "medicine" deficit? NO.
You were born in a pristine state and whatever ails you is the result of disrupting that state. Medical poisons and toxins do not fix you...they make things worse so you remain captured by the ghouls of medicine. The answer is less, not more.
In 1996, a book titled "The Medical Mafia" by Dr. Ghislaine Lanctot (first printing) landed in my hands. That book saved my (as yet unborn) son from the vaccine & medical industry.
After I read it I became pregnant. My only child was born in 1997.
He remained unvaccinated until his was 24. He was coerced and worn down by Turdeau's nationwide vaccine mandates.
My son now suffers with a debilitating autoimmune disease and injects himself with an immunosuppressant cancer drug (Methotrexate) and a "biological" (Amjevita) to keep his autoimmune disease at bay. 😭
As a kinesiologist, when I frequency test some one's vagus nerve, most often the harmonizing treatment that shows is tongue on the roof of the mouth while humming. Testing thereafter shows the vagus is now balanced and settled. While its not the answer for every situation it is interesting that it shows up repeatedly when the vagus nerve is under stress.
I grew up as a trombone player, and still play, at 62, not because I am great at it, but because of the way it makes me feel, physically. The pressure created in the throat presses on the vegas nerve, gently. I suppose most wind instruments to have the similar effects; again, art saves lives!!
Fantastic article! Thank you for continuing to address the critical importance of terrain, the intelligent design and innate intelligence of the body, the dangers of symptom suppression, and the wisdom of assessing inputs and responding in ways to optimize health.
For those interested in a good and related read, check out Forrest Maready’s book, “Crooked: Manmade Disease Explained”:
It covers injected metals’ (aluminum, mercury, and others found in vaccines) effects on the brain stem, the triggering of the dorsal vagus nerve when infants, toddlers, and young children are forcefully held down/pinned down/strapped down for terrifying and painful procedures such as circumcision and frequent vaccinations, and the interplay of the two…and lots more!
Book Overview
Why do babies have lopsided smiles? Why are so many people's eyes misaligned? What started as a simple search to understand this phenomenon turned into a two-year quest that uncovered hidden links between our crooked faces and some of the most puzzling diseases of our time.
From autism to Alzheimer's and from chronic fatigue syndrome to Crohn's disease, Crooked methodically goes through the most recent scientific research and connects the dots from the outbreak of metallic medicine in 1800s England to the eruption of neurological and autoimmune disorders so many are suffering from today. If the theories put forth in this book are true, the convergence of metals, microbes and medicine that started two hundred years ago may have set humanity on a path of suffering that could make the deadliest epidemics in history pale in comparison. Thankfully, for the millions who are afflicted, who may have found nothing to explain the cause of their suffering - these same theories could also illuminate the path to healing and recovery.
I have reduced my anxiety dramatically over the past 20 years (method worked well immediately). My method is every night, before I go to bed, I yell with a *semi-high* pitched tone into a bath towel or paper towels - similar to a loud "aaaaahhhhh". The back pressure in my throat created by the bath towel partially blocking the air flow helps with the anti-anxiety effect and it reduces damage to vocal cords. Using a high pitch or medium high pitch tone is *very* important because it prevents damage to vocal cords. Raspy-type, low pitch, yelling will damage your vocal cords, and you do not need that low pitch / low frequency to create the anti-anxiety effect. The day after doing this I am much more calm and relaxed with a lower heart rate. I am sure this is caused by stimulation of my vagus nerve which runs through the neck near the vocal cords. Go on youtube and find videos of vocal warm ups that singers do and search for videos on how they reduce vocal cord damage by not doing raspy/low tone singing. Again, the raspy or low frequency tone singing is *not* needed for the anti-anxiety effect. Imagine saying "aaaaahhhhh" with a loud voice into a big wad of paper towels. The same effect can be noticed if a person speaks a significant amount at a party or bar where they need to speak loudly due to the noise. They will notice that they are less anxious the next day. This is what I noticed and how I developed the technique. Doing it at night, just before I go to bed (within an hour or so before bed) seems to work best.
actually it is an "aaaaahhhhh!" with lots of back pressure from the paper towels (reducing the air flow) because I notice now that "eeeeeee" is more raspy and harder to control
Thanks for confirming that as this does make sense from a TCM perspective. The Aaaah or Aaaaaaaw sound helps to stabilise the heart meridian, settling anxiety by calming the spirit.
but one key point is that it is a medium to high pitch aaaaaaaahhhh!! because that won't hurt vocal cords, a raspy or lower pitch aaaaahhh! can make you slightly or more than slightly hoarse the next day. While high pitch won't.
I have a little to add to vocalization.. Everything is frequency and vibration. Humming, singing, etc sends that not only through the vagus nerve, also through the body and the biofield. And if you're hitting the frequencies that are out of sorts within you you can retune yourself.
Sounds almost like instinct - deep inside, our nervous system is still an animal.
As to food and environment - we can hardly escape the polluted world of today. Nothing is 'clean' anymore. Our health system will suffer unwillingly, as we cannot avoid these poisons. My system got deranged first by a bad doctor who scolded me 'for not taking care of myself' and caused me to doubt what I was doing - followed by a hurricane - one cannot escape that! Yes I took meds for a while but then realized I was poisoning myself.
The article surprised me with the humming and singing, something that I was forbidden to do as a child, and that I love! Now that I am alone, I hum and sing very often! Yesterday night I found a site with old folk songs and sang out loud. What a joy! and now it turns out to be healthy. There is no coincicence!
And right in the next paragraph an explanation why people tell me they feel relieved and uplifted when being with me.
And I feel uplifted being with my animals, walking in the woods.
This is truly an eye-opening article! thank you so much. Tried to give you 5 hearts but can't.
Great article! I would add we were created with all of this. God knew what man would do and has given us the tools. We can change our thoughts by renewing our mind with Scripture. The fears of this world are a lack of trusting the only God who can help.
I’m quite worried about this stuff tbh. These are very spiritually potent techniques which I learned from devoted monks. I’m not sure people realise the full implications.
Breath control and cold immersion isnt simply a ‘health thing’..
In fact many of us discovered that our health collapsed after about a decade of doing such practises. Some couldn’t cope with cold again ever since. Researching at the time I found a whole lot of science research showing that cold immersion exhausts the body after about a decade. This fitted my own experience accurately.
In recent years trying to find that research, even going directly to the Universities who published it, I cant find the papers any more at all. Now why would all that vanish ? It had been helpful to me in my recovery.
As with all things there is a down side to these practises and people need to weigh it up. I could write quite a long list of downsides as well as upsides. I do hope people read around these subjects before taking the plunge as it were.
Good points, @Yeowoman. It is good to understand what a practice does or how it helps.
Not every breathing technique works for everyone. But a longer out-breath — ideally six seconds or more, and humming are broadly beneficial, given that you are more in the sympathetic dominance, stress or you do it to rebalance.
Humming creates movement of tiny hairs inside the paranasal sinuses and this generates nitric oxide (NO), a vasodilator that improves circulation and increases nutrient delivery to tissues (which is head in this case). Nitric oxide is also produced naturally by shear pressure as blood moves through the endothelium. Still, research suggests we produce less of it as we age (much, much less after 50), which is part of why blood vessels and capillaries narrow over time. Chronic stress compounds this by causing vasoconstriction and contributing to high blood pressure.
NO belongs to a group called gasotransmitters. These are signalling gases with wide-ranging roles in the body. I consider it part of what Chinese medicine calls Qi: an umbrella for communication at every level of the body's system. There is a substantial body of research on nitric oxide (+ humming too) available on PubMed if you want to go deeper.
One more mechanism worth knowing: humming, gargling, and singing activate the glossopharyngeal nerve. This is a cranial nerve sitting alongside the vagus nerve. Stimulating it modulates vagal tone. So something as simple as humming is working on your nervous system at the same time as your sinuses.
On cold water exposure - I'm not against it, but I am against it being applied without context.
The principle is sound, it seems. A short, controlled stress of one to two minutes can build resilience and stimulate the system. But in my clinical experience, cold exposure works well only when the person is already well enough to handle it. If you have an underactive thyroid, tend to have cold hands, cold feet, or show a thick white tongue coating, cold water will make things worse, not better. The same logic applies to green smoothies or cooling foods in winter (yoghurt, for instance). It's the same mismatch.
In Chinese medicine, we work with patterns. A method that is genuinely helpful for one person can actively harm another. Food, exercise, breathing, cold exposure , all of it has to be read against signs and symptoms, constitution, medical history, and lifestyle. The tool is not the treatment.It has to be chosen well wrt to what a person presents with.
Just as an added point, it was always worth noting that while Wim Hoff and family promoted veganism alongside cold immersion and breathwork, he was never vegan himself and nor were the priest and monks who traditionally practised it. In addition studies of his twin brother showed that they seem to have more brown fat naturally than the average person .. making it a good deal easier to cope with the practise. This may explain why he has done better with it than some other folks have. It is *always worth reading around.
Bhramari meditation is basically a humming and vocalizing a sound like a bee, that vibrates the lips, tongue and vagus nerve. It is SOOO easy to do and very beneficial. Jonathan and Andi Goldman have published a book titles "The Humming Effect." The comments below regarding wind instruments speak of the same body-vagus nerve stimulation. This is a great article. Thanks, Unbecoming! 🙏🎵
Great article, I learned a lot, especially about the Vagus nerve being a feedback mechanism and the 3 main states and the subconscious activation of them.
Did you write an article about the GLP-1 drugs? It suppresses the feedback from the Vagus nerve, from what I understand. I know many people on it and they lose a lot of weight, mainly because they lose interest in food. They also report brain fog and other concentration issues, and gastric distress. It seems like a very unsound thing to do but I’d like to know more.
You said: "SSRIs increase serotonin availability within hours, but therapeutic effects, when they occur, take weeks. The timeline doesn’t fit the theory."
Exactly. That fact is explained by something I read in a great book years ago. It said that the anti-depressive effect comes AFTER the chronically high levels serotonin burn out the serotonin receptors, meaning that it's the effective disappearance of serotonin that makes it work.
It also explains why SSRIs produce their famous sexual side-effect. Fascinating explanation which I've put into a post, here:
The Vegas Nerve 🎰♠️
At the far end of the casino, beneath chandeliers that hum like overworked neurons, 🧠💡 sits the most sensitive player in the room: the Vegas Nerve.
It wanders everywhere — from the bar, 🍸 to the buffet, 🍤 from the poker table, ♣️ to the slot machines, 🎰 which is why the old Latin gamblers nicknamed it vagus, meaning “the drifter.”
But tonight it’s parked at a high-stakes Texas Hold’em table, 🃏 quietly reading the room.
Not playing the cards.
Reading the players. 👀
Around the felt sit three familiar characters.
First up is Ventral Vinnie. 😌
Relaxed as a Sunday brunch. ☕🥐 He’s chatting with the dealer, sipping tea, breathing slow and steady. His chips rise and fall like a healthy Heart Rate Variability chart. 📈
When he wins, he smiles. 🙂
When he loses, he shrugs. 🤷♂️
The table feels calmer just having him there.
Next is Sympathetic Sam. 😰
Sweaty palms. Rapid breathing. Eyes darting like a cat in a laser-pointer convention. 🐱🔴
He keeps pushing all-in at imaginary threats.
“Someone’s bluffing!” he mutters. 😬
Sam’s stack rises fast… 📈 then vanishes just as fast. 📉
Fight-or-flight poker rarely ends well.
Then there’s Dorsal Dave. 😐
Dave has folded the last twelve hands without looking at his cards. 🃏
Slumped in his chair, chips untouched, expression blank.
“Why bother?” he sighs.
“The house always wins.” 🎲
The dealer glances at the Vegas Nerve.
Because the Vegas Nerve isn’t actually playing.
It’s reading the tells. 👁️
The flicker in someone’s eyes.
The pitch of a voice. 🎤
The rhythm of breath. 🌬️
It listens for safety cues the way seasoned gamblers listen for the shuffle of aces. ♠️
Some nights the room feels friendly — laughter, 😂 warm light, 💡 the low hum of human connection. 🤝
The Vegas Nerve relaxes.
The chips move smoothly.
The game flows.
Other nights the air is thick with tension. ⚡
The lighting is harsh. 💡
The players are anxious. 😬
Someone’s been drinking too much industrial seed-oil margarita mix from the bar. 🍹
The Vegas Nerve tightens its collar and whispers to the table.
“Something’s off.” 👀
The amateurs try to silence it.
“Take a pill.” 💊 says one.
“Try a breathing hack.” 🫁 says another.
“Cold plunge in the ice bucket!” 🧊 shouts a wellness influencer passing by.
But the Vegas Nerve just taps the felt and points to the obvious.
“The problem isn’t the cards.” 🃏
It gestures toward the smoky air, 🚬 the flashing lights, 🎰 the sleepless players grinding through another all-night tournament. 🌙
“The problem,” it says calmly, “is the table conditions.”
Because the Vegas Nerve isn’t there to control the game.
It’s there to read it.
And if the signals say the house is hostile, the smartest move isn’t to bluff harder.
It’s to stand up, 🚶♂️ push back your chair, and find a better table.
After all…
Even the best nerves know when to fold ♣️
This is right out genius. Thank you so much for this fabulous story, been to Vegas and seen a casino - and it fits so well with the article. Not sure if it would work as a song, but certainly would make a lovely shortie.
Massive thanks! 👍🕺 I'm delighted it resonated, especially with someone who's actually seen the tables in action. Maybe one day Ventral Vinnie, Sympathetic Sam, and Dorsal Dave will make it into a remake of Goodfellas or Casino. 🎰
BRILLIANT!
Massive thanks for the kind feedback! 👍🎉
As a poker player: I concur. 😉
Absolutely brilliant description, love it!
Deeply appreciated 🙏👍 Have a great day! 🎉
I LOVE THIS! 😁😁😁
Massive Thanks, Misty, for the lovely feedback 😄 and the restack! ♠️🎰 Your kind words make me feel like I just scooped a huge pot with a royal flush.
Disengage from the medical mafia, stop taking its poisons and stop listening to its ridiculous nonsense. Allow your magical body to do the talking. It never needs any medicine because all medicines are poisons. Were you born with a "medicine" deficit? NO.
You were born in a pristine state and whatever ails you is the result of disrupting that state. Medical poisons and toxins do not fix you...they make things worse so you remain captured by the ghouls of medicine. The answer is less, not more.
In 1996, a book titled "The Medical Mafia" by Dr. Ghislaine Lanctot (first printing) landed in my hands. That book saved my (as yet unborn) son from the vaccine & medical industry.
https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Mafia-Lanctot-Ghislaine-Staff/dp/2980746525
After I read it I became pregnant. My only child was born in 1997.
He remained unvaccinated until his was 24. He was coerced and worn down by Turdeau's nationwide vaccine mandates.
My son now suffers with a debilitating autoimmune disease and injects himself with an immunosuppressant cancer drug (Methotrexate) and a "biological" (Amjevita) to keep his autoimmune disease at bay. 😭
👏
As a kinesiologist, when I frequency test some one's vagus nerve, most often the harmonizing treatment that shows is tongue on the roof of the mouth while humming. Testing thereafter shows the vagus is now balanced and settled. While its not the answer for every situation it is interesting that it shows up repeatedly when the vagus nerve is under stress.
Thanks for a great perspective article.
take a look at my comment below about humming
I grew up as a trombone player, and still play, at 62, not because I am great at it, but because of the way it makes me feel, physically. The pressure created in the throat presses on the vegas nerve, gently. I suppose most wind instruments to have the similar effects; again, art saves lives!!
yes!
Fantastic article! Thank you for continuing to address the critical importance of terrain, the intelligent design and innate intelligence of the body, the dangers of symptom suppression, and the wisdom of assessing inputs and responding in ways to optimize health.
For those interested in a good and related read, check out Forrest Maready’s book, “Crooked: Manmade Disease Explained”:
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/crooked-man-made-disease-explained--the-incredible-story-of-metal-microbes-and-medicine---hidden-within-our-faces/18855081/#edition=20080949&idiq=26108707
It covers injected metals’ (aluminum, mercury, and others found in vaccines) effects on the brain stem, the triggering of the dorsal vagus nerve when infants, toddlers, and young children are forcefully held down/pinned down/strapped down for terrifying and painful procedures such as circumcision and frequent vaccinations, and the interplay of the two…and lots more!
Book Overview
Why do babies have lopsided smiles? Why are so many people's eyes misaligned? What started as a simple search to understand this phenomenon turned into a two-year quest that uncovered hidden links between our crooked faces and some of the most puzzling diseases of our time.
From autism to Alzheimer's and from chronic fatigue syndrome to Crohn's disease, Crooked methodically goes through the most recent scientific research and connects the dots from the outbreak of metallic medicine in 1800s England to the eruption of neurological and autoimmune disorders so many are suffering from today. If the theories put forth in this book are true, the convergence of metals, microbes and medicine that started two hundred years ago may have set humanity on a path of suffering that could make the deadliest epidemics in history pale in comparison. Thankfully, for the millions who are afflicted, who may have found nothing to explain the cause of their suffering - these same theories could also illuminate the path to healing and recovery.
I have reduced my anxiety dramatically over the past 20 years (method worked well immediately). My method is every night, before I go to bed, I yell with a *semi-high* pitched tone into a bath towel or paper towels - similar to a loud "aaaaahhhhh". The back pressure in my throat created by the bath towel partially blocking the air flow helps with the anti-anxiety effect and it reduces damage to vocal cords. Using a high pitch or medium high pitch tone is *very* important because it prevents damage to vocal cords. Raspy-type, low pitch, yelling will damage your vocal cords, and you do not need that low pitch / low frequency to create the anti-anxiety effect. The day after doing this I am much more calm and relaxed with a lower heart rate. I am sure this is caused by stimulation of my vagus nerve which runs through the neck near the vocal cords. Go on youtube and find videos of vocal warm ups that singers do and search for videos on how they reduce vocal cord damage by not doing raspy/low tone singing. Again, the raspy or low frequency tone singing is *not* needed for the anti-anxiety effect. Imagine saying "aaaaahhhhh" with a loud voice into a big wad of paper towels. The same effect can be noticed if a person speaks a significant amount at a party or bar where they need to speak loudly due to the noise. They will notice that they are less anxious the next day. This is what I noticed and how I developed the technique. Doing it at night, just before I go to bed (within an hour or so before bed) seems to work best.
Brilliant thank you for your share
actually it is an "aaaaahhhhh!" with lots of back pressure from the paper towels (reducing the air flow) because I notice now that "eeeeeee" is more raspy and harder to control
Thanks for confirming that as this does make sense from a TCM perspective. The Aaaah or Aaaaaaaw sound helps to stabilise the heart meridian, settling anxiety by calming the spirit.
but one key point is that it is a medium to high pitch aaaaaaaahhhh!! because that won't hurt vocal cords, a raspy or lower pitch aaaaahhh! can make you slightly or more than slightly hoarse the next day. While high pitch won't.
doing it at night, just before I go to bed (within 30 minutes to an hour or so) seems to work the best
Beautiful!
I have a little to add to vocalization.. Everything is frequency and vibration. Humming, singing, etc sends that not only through the vagus nerve, also through the body and the biofield. And if you're hitting the frequencies that are out of sorts within you you can retune yourself.
Sounds almost like instinct - deep inside, our nervous system is still an animal.
As to food and environment - we can hardly escape the polluted world of today. Nothing is 'clean' anymore. Our health system will suffer unwillingly, as we cannot avoid these poisons. My system got deranged first by a bad doctor who scolded me 'for not taking care of myself' and caused me to doubt what I was doing - followed by a hurricane - one cannot escape that! Yes I took meds for a while but then realized I was poisoning myself.
The article surprised me with the humming and singing, something that I was forbidden to do as a child, and that I love! Now that I am alone, I hum and sing very often! Yesterday night I found a site with old folk songs and sang out loud. What a joy! and now it turns out to be healthy. There is no coincicence!
And right in the next paragraph an explanation why people tell me they feel relieved and uplifted when being with me.
And I feel uplifted being with my animals, walking in the woods.
This is truly an eye-opening article! thank you so much. Tried to give you 5 hearts but can't.
Great article! I would add we were created with all of this. God knew what man would do and has given us the tools. We can change our thoughts by renewing our mind with Scripture. The fears of this world are a lack of trusting the only God who can help.
I’m quite worried about this stuff tbh. These are very spiritually potent techniques which I learned from devoted monks. I’m not sure people realise the full implications.
Breath control and cold immersion isnt simply a ‘health thing’..
In fact many of us discovered that our health collapsed after about a decade of doing such practises. Some couldn’t cope with cold again ever since. Researching at the time I found a whole lot of science research showing that cold immersion exhausts the body after about a decade. This fitted my own experience accurately.
In recent years trying to find that research, even going directly to the Universities who published it, I cant find the papers any more at all. Now why would all that vanish ? It had been helpful to me in my recovery.
As with all things there is a down side to these practises and people need to weigh it up. I could write quite a long list of downsides as well as upsides. I do hope people read around these subjects before taking the plunge as it were.
Good points, @Yeowoman. It is good to understand what a practice does or how it helps.
Not every breathing technique works for everyone. But a longer out-breath — ideally six seconds or more, and humming are broadly beneficial, given that you are more in the sympathetic dominance, stress or you do it to rebalance.
Humming creates movement of tiny hairs inside the paranasal sinuses and this generates nitric oxide (NO), a vasodilator that improves circulation and increases nutrient delivery to tissues (which is head in this case). Nitric oxide is also produced naturally by shear pressure as blood moves through the endothelium. Still, research suggests we produce less of it as we age (much, much less after 50), which is part of why blood vessels and capillaries narrow over time. Chronic stress compounds this by causing vasoconstriction and contributing to high blood pressure.
NO belongs to a group called gasotransmitters. These are signalling gases with wide-ranging roles in the body. I consider it part of what Chinese medicine calls Qi: an umbrella for communication at every level of the body's system. There is a substantial body of research on nitric oxide (+ humming too) available on PubMed if you want to go deeper.
One more mechanism worth knowing: humming, gargling, and singing activate the glossopharyngeal nerve. This is a cranial nerve sitting alongside the vagus nerve. Stimulating it modulates vagal tone. So something as simple as humming is working on your nervous system at the same time as your sinuses.
On cold water exposure - I'm not against it, but I am against it being applied without context.
The principle is sound, it seems. A short, controlled stress of one to two minutes can build resilience and stimulate the system. But in my clinical experience, cold exposure works well only when the person is already well enough to handle it. If you have an underactive thyroid, tend to have cold hands, cold feet, or show a thick white tongue coating, cold water will make things worse, not better. The same logic applies to green smoothies or cooling foods in winter (yoghurt, for instance). It's the same mismatch.
In Chinese medicine, we work with patterns. A method that is genuinely helpful for one person can actively harm another. Food, exercise, breathing, cold exposure , all of it has to be read against signs and symptoms, constitution, medical history, and lifestyle. The tool is not the treatment.It has to be chosen well wrt to what a person presents with.
Just as an added point, it was always worth noting that while Wim Hoff and family promoted veganism alongside cold immersion and breathwork, he was never vegan himself and nor were the priest and monks who traditionally practised it. In addition studies of his twin brother showed that they seem to have more brown fat naturally than the average person .. making it a good deal easier to cope with the practise. This may explain why he has done better with it than some other folks have. It is *always worth reading around.
Thank you for some great, sane rational information. Yes the humming and vocalization are, for me, a peaceful practice.
take a look at my comment below about humming
Bhramari meditation is basically a humming and vocalizing a sound like a bee, that vibrates the lips, tongue and vagus nerve. It is SOOO easy to do and very beneficial. Jonathan and Andi Goldman have published a book titles "The Humming Effect." The comments below regarding wind instruments speak of the same body-vagus nerve stimulation. This is a great article. Thanks, Unbecoming! 🙏🎵
Great article, I learned a lot, especially about the Vagus nerve being a feedback mechanism and the 3 main states and the subconscious activation of them.
Did you write an article about the GLP-1 drugs? It suppresses the feedback from the Vagus nerve, from what I understand. I know many people on it and they lose a lot of weight, mainly because they lose interest in food. They also report brain fog and other concentration issues, and gastric distress. It seems like a very unsound thing to do but I’d like to know more.
Dr Brian Grimm wrote a powerful review of glp
Thank you!
You said: "SSRIs increase serotonin availability within hours, but therapeutic effects, when they occur, take weeks. The timeline doesn’t fit the theory."
Exactly. That fact is explained by something I read in a great book years ago. It said that the anti-depressive effect comes AFTER the chronically high levels serotonin burn out the serotonin receptors, meaning that it's the effective disappearance of serotonin that makes it work.
It also explains why SSRIs produce their famous sexual side-effect. Fascinating explanation which I've put into a post, here:
"Serotonin Isn't the Happy Hormone"
https://theunexpectedworld.substack.com/p/serotonin-isnt-the-happy-hormone?r=49p5on
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Saved and bookmarked your article. Fascinating and potentially hugely helpful.
Dr. Mandell: Just hum!
https://youtube.com/shorts/ludtLM_9UCo