Accessing the Vagus Nerve Through Social Interaction

How Face to Face Social Communication Impacts Our Physiology & Our Physical and Mental Health

We’re wired for connection. Our survival is dependent on it. This “wiring” starts in our earliest existence and develops through our attachment experiences.  

According to the CDC, social isolation and loneliness can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, depression, anxiety, suicidality, self-harm, dementia, and early death.  But why?

What happens in our bodies when we chat, laugh, and make eye contact with people we know, like, love, or don’t even know but don’t feel threatened by?

In this post, I’ll address:

• The ways the vagus nerve allows us to feel safe and engage socially with others.

• Social communication deficits that occur when there is vagal nerve dysfunction.

• How another’s facial expression and tone of voice impact our sense of safety (or our sense of threat) through the vagus.

• How social interaction (with “safe” people) takes us out of fight or flight.

• The impacts of social distancing and now screen media on our vagus. 

SAFETY

Though we don't face animal predators or an enemy tribe like your ancestors, we still experience threats.  It may be a family conflict, a toxic workplace, the evening news, a political or social media post, a honking driver, or the tone of someone’s voice. The threat may be recalling what we said or didn’t say or imagining we'll lose our thoughts in a presentation. It may be the endless chatter of what we have to do. If we experience early life adversity or abuse, the threat may be a type of person or even people in general. It may be a smell or a sound related to an event we don't consciously remember.  For those with complex chronic illnesses, random, frightening, and confusing symptoms can lead some of us to experience our bodies as a threat.  

Other threats our body perceives that our thinking brain may not be considering are microbes (candida, mold, viruses including COVID-19, Lyme, etc) and/or toxins from microbes.  There are also the toxins we can accumulate from the outside (such as metal, chemical, and mold toxins) or a soup of all our toxic exposures.  We come into the world with a level of toxicity, and we have a threshold that, when reached, alarms our body. How quickly this happens, if at all, depends on the amount of exposure and how robust our inherent ability to detoxify is.

THE BRAKE

Think of the vagus as the brake to decrease our physiologic reaction to stress. And know that we can fine-tune that brake and have it working so well that it mitigates our body’s response - even before we realize we’re under stress. It makes us exceedingly resilient and quickly return to a calm state. If that weren’t enough, an ability to self-regulate allows us (without conscious intent) to bring calm to those around us. 

SOCIAL COMMUNICATION

We receive input about the safety of others and our environment through our eyes and ears. Without conscious thought, this information is influenced by the vagus. The vagus sends information to our organ systems and head and neck muscles.

Many individuals with autism are dealing with inflammation and toxicity, as are most people with brain-related symptoms. Toxicity is a constant “threat.” When we’re in danger, our body mobilizes to defend us, not to prepare us to hang out with friends. Those with autism often have severe sensitivities to loud noises and bright lights, as well as severe deficits in social communication as evidenced by lack of eye contact, the way they speak, and even the way they hold their head. These sensory issues and deficits in social communication are all influenced by cranial nerves, which come out of the brain stem and are influenced by the vagus nerve. If you’ve ever had depression or even the flu, it may have been hard to look at or listen to others. “Get out of my face” may have been what your body communicated. This physiological stress response - which I’ll get to - involves immobilization - a shutting down or withdrawing, as opposed to the well-known flight or fight response.