How Vagal Tone Helps Menopausal symtoms

Interesting research on how Vagal Tone helps Ease Menopausal symptoms through yoga breathing...

'The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve, meandering from brain to the colon, and the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Vagal tone and improved perimenopausal wellbeing through yoga breathing
Diaphragmatic breathing or ‘slow abdominal breathing’ has been shown to:
• tap into the ability of the vagus nerve to combat the cortisol-producing stress
response of fight-or-flight. Cortisol is linked to vaso-motor processes. Vasomotor symptoms (VMS; eg, hot flashes and night sweats) are the primary symptoms of menopause. VMS affect more than 80% of women in menopause and are the menopause symptoms for which most women seek treatment (Cramer et al 2012)
• improve heart rate variability (HRV), which is the measurement of variations within beat-to-beat intervals (Wang et al 2010, Hamasaki 2020). High blood pressure and irregular heartbeat patterns are a common symptom during menopause and postmenopause years. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia also can reflect aspects of autonomic function. It is controlled entirely by the vagus nerve, since vagus nerve outputs to the sinoatrial node primarily occur only during exhalation. Greater vagus nerve traffic will therefore produce greater amplitudes of RSA, so that many scientists equate RSA with “cardiac vagal tone,” or parasympathetic influence on the heart. Longer exhalations and slower respiration are thought to increase RSA amplitude.
• Respiratory rhythms affect the central nervous system, both directly and indirectly (see Bordoni et al, 2018)
• The vagal system interacts closely with the inflammatory system. The pioneering research of Russian scientist Vaschillo showed that HRV biofeedback restores autonomic function that is suppressed when people are exposed experimentally to inflammatory cytokines: the autonomic effects of inflammation are modulated, producing resilience (cited in Lehrer et al, 2010)
• Brain responses to messages from afferent vagal nerves in yoga breathing produce both a decrease in worry and an increase in alertness. “... voluntary control of breath patterns can affect ANS functions via vagal afferents to brainstem nuclei (nucleus tractus solitarius, parabrachial nucleus, locus coeruleus)...Our neurophysiologic model postulates that vagal afferents activate hypothalamic vigilance areas and enhance and enhance attention and alertness, whereas pathways through the thalamus quiet frontal cortical activity and reduce anxious worrying” (Brown and Gerbarg, 2005a,b, p. 713).'

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