How to Speak Your Truth&Have a more Resonant voice: Vagus Nerve Stimulation Exercise - a podcast by Dr. Melissa West

Vagus Nerve

In this video I am going to show you how to use a massage ball similar to Jill Miller’s courageous ball to stimulate your vagus nerve so that it is easier for you to speak your truth with a full and resonant voice.Hi I’m Melissa from Yoga with Melissa. One of the most amazing things I have learned in the past year is the power of the vagus nerve. It is part of our autonomic nervous system that supports our response to stress. Basically we used to believe that there were only 2 sides of our nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system: fight or flight and the parasympathetic nervous system the rest and digest.

Stephen Porgest came along with polyvagal theory and suggested that actually, there are 2 parasympathetic branches. There is a dorsal sympathetic branch that is more primal which puts us into freeze, allows us to feel less pain and makes our memories become blurred. However there is also the ventral vagus branch. This branch allows us to feel safe and connected. In short, when we feel safe, we connect with others and when we connect with others we feel safe. This is all pretty important when it comes to speaking your truth and having a more resonant voice.This connective tissue release or self massage is part of a longer video in a series of videos in my membership community designed to Activate the Vagus Nerve for Safety Connection and Resilience so if you are interested in more I will leave links for members as well as a link to learn more about my membership community. The classes are super fun, have a lot of neck release, breathing, sounding and are designed to increase your safety, connection and resilience.

One more thing, I learned this video from Jill Miller so I will leave a link to her video because she is super in depth on anatomy if that is your jam.Jill Miller’s Vagus Nerve Calming Massage 

Link to Full Video of Intermediate Yoga for Ventral Vagus ActivationLink to Become a Member

Further episodes of Yoga Lifestyle with Melissa

Further podcasts by Dr. Melissa West

Website of Dr. Melissa West