Stimulation of the vagus nerve is becoming an area that many people are interested in for their mental wellbeing. While searching on the web, we came across this study which concludes: “Stimulation of the tragus activates the cerebral afferents of the vagal pathway and combined with our review of the literature suggest that taVNS is a promising form of VNS (vagal nerve stimulation).
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29361441
Why does stimulating the vagus nerve help improve mental health? The vagus nerve runs from your brain through your neck and chest to your abdomen. This nerve is the longest nerve of the autonomic nervous system and is one of the most important nerves in the body. The vagus nerve helps to regulate heart rate and blood pressure, along with digestion and other things. It also helps stimulate serotonin which is a beneficial neurotransmitter which improves mood.
You can stimulate the vagus nerve with Cranio-Electro Stimulation (CES). You apply the earclips to the left ear. Clip one earclip on the back of the earlobe and clip the other earclip on the tragus of the same ear. - So blue or red earclip on outside of ear and yellow or black on the tragus depending on the color of your earclips. Dave Siever believes that because the stimulation is AC, it doesn’t matter which earclip goes where. He also believes that when using CES you are already inadvertently stimulating the vagus nerve.
This is easy for you to do with either the DAVID Delight Pro, DAVID ALERT Pro, or the Oasis Pro devices. You could also use the MET probes in the MET Probe kit or the stick-on electrodes in our MET kits by placing them in the neck area.
A variety of frequencies have been used with similar results. Start with alpha sessions. The frequencies of the sessions are listed in the Operator Manuals. If you are using one of our devices with both Audio-Visual Entrainment (AVE) and Cranio-Electro Stimulation (CES) you must use CES to get stimulation.