What Is The Vagus Nerve: The Body’s Way of Helping You Connect With People and Improve Your Health
Humans Need Social Connection
Meditation isn’t enough. You also need connection.
You maybe already figured that out from ordinary life experience. But it’s also scientifically provable. Or so that’s what a new study from Psychological Science claims, adding more information to the growing pile of research that suggests social connectedness improves a person’s well-being.
The Most Recent Study
This latest study involved 65 university staff and faculty members, half of whom were given an hour-long class on meditation and told to think compassionately about others. This exercise included returning to phrases like “May you feel safe, may you feel happy, may you feel healthy, may you live with ease.”
After 61 days of this practice, participants who both meditated and engaged positive feelings of social connection, improved their heart rate variability.
In plain English? Heart rate variables measure the responsive of a specific nerve called the vagus. And here’s the big deal: when the vagus is functioning well, the person’s risk for cardiovascular and other fatal health issues is lowered. Even better, it may also positively impact immunity and glucose levels. In other words, when they felt connected, their bodies functioned better.
To those of us not deeply embedded in science, studies like this might be a small thing. But scientists expect this and similar findings to lead to much more.
Be on the lookout for follow up studies because in addition to obvious health benefits (lowering heart disease risk etc.), the vagus is also in some ways responsible for how people connect with each other. For instance, it connects to nerves that coordinate eye contact, allow us to hear humans talking and impacts emotional expression. It also can prompt the release of oxytocin, a hormone proven important to human bonding in the past.
Researchers suggest that we know about the value of friendship, from a scientific perspective, is only the beginning.
[line]