Dhru Purohit Show
Struggling With Mystery Symptoms? An Expert Explains Why Your Vagus Nerve May Hold the Key and How to Fix It with Dr. Navaz Habib
27 Jan 2025
This episode is brought to you by Fatty15 and Cozy Earth. When we think about longevity and health, the vagus nerve isn’t always at the top of our minds. However, its function—and the signs of dysfunction in our body—can signal that it’s time to reassess our lifestyle. Prioritizing sleep, rest, and relaxation might be the key to restoring balance. Today’s guest highlights why this is essential and shares practical tips for integrating these practices into our busy lives. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Navaz Habib to explore the power of the vagus nerve and how modern life stressors affect its optimal function. Dr. Habib breaks down the four types of stress we face and how wearable technology can help us self-assess throughout the day. He also delves into sleep architecture and shares strategies for building routines that enhance overall well-being. Tune in to discover simple, actionable steps to reduce stress, optimize your health, and take charge of your well-being today! Dr. Navaz Habib is a functional medicine practitioner, chiropractor, renowned international speaker, and bestselling author dedicated to optimizing health by addressing root causes. As the founder of Health Upgraded, an online functional health clinic, he empowers parents and health seekers to enhance energy, productivity, and overall well-being through vagus nerve optimization. Inspired by his transformation from chronic health issues, Dr. Habib takes a holistic approach to help clients overcome challenges like chronic, uncontrolled inflammation. He is the author of Activate Your Vagus Nerve and Upgrade Your Vagus Nerve, working with clients worldwide to teach strategies that activate their innate parasympathetic healing capacity. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Habib dive into: Top signs that the vagus nerve is not working as it should (00:26) Top triggers that damage the vagus nerve (04:50) How wearables technology can help us self asses (14:13) Breaking down heart rate variability and the healing process (23:21) Respiratory Rate (33:28) Optimal Sleep architecture and cycles (38:33) Doubling down your sleep to improve your vagus Nerve (50:55) The importance of creating routines in the morning and the evening (54:06) Recommendation to protect your vagus nerve (01:03:16) Dr. Habib's practice (01:08:09) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Habib’s Book: Upgrade Your Vagus Nerve Dr. Habib’s Slides: Deciphering Wearable Data For more on Dr. Habib, follow him on Instagram, X/Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and his Website. This episode is brought to you by Fatty15 and Cozy Earth. Fatty15 is offering an additional 15% off its 90-day subscription Starter Kit. Go to fatty15.com/dhru and use code DHRU to replenish your C15 levels for long-term health. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUP. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Dr. Habib, welcome to the podcast. A big part of your mission and what you're here to do today is to help people understand that when their vagus nerve is out of whack, everything in their life becomes tougher. So give us a short reminder of what the vagus nerve is.
And more importantly, or just as importantly, help us understand what are the top signs that our vagus nerve is not working in the way that it should be working.
So as a very simple overview, The vagus nerve is our 10th cranial nerve. We have 12 pairs of cranial nerves that come out of the head and neck area that come out of the brainstem in particular. And they generally send information to and from the head and neck area.
They're the ones that are pulling data as to what's going on in our vision and our hearing and sending info out into what's going on or what we should be seeing or feeling around the face and the head and neck area. The vagus nerve is unique. It's the 10th of those 12 pairs. And it is the only one of these cranial nerves to actually leave the head cavity. It comes out from the brainstem.
It has a few branches within the head and neck area, one to the ear, to the airways, the pharynx and larynx muscles. And then it comes down through the neck and it actually leaves that head and neck area and it sends branches to every single organ in the entire body.
It comes down to the heart, to the lungs and the thorax, which is a chest area, continues down along the esophagus and goes down through the diaphragm, which is the muscle separating the Thorax and the abdomen, the chest and the belly. And then it continues on in the belly to attach to virtually every single organ in the abdominal cavity or all of our abdominal organs.
So the stomach, the intestines, the liver, the spleen indirectly. It has direct connections to nearly every single organ in the body, and that is unique because there's no other nerve like the vagus nerve. It is sending information to those organs, but the vast majority of information that's flowing on the vagus nerve is actually coming up from those organs to the brain.
So it's actually reporting in what's going on with regards to inflammation, with regards to optimal regulatory function, with regards to digestion and detoxification. And it's sending that information up to the brain to tell the brain what's going on. 80% of the information on the vagus nerve is going from the organs up to the brain.
That's different than what we generally initially expected to hear because vagus When we think of the vagus nerve, we think of the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest, digest and recover system, meaning that we're sending this information to tell the body to relax, to slow down. That's not entirely true. Only about 15% of the information on the vagus nerve is brain to body.
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