Trauma Inquiry

Did you know there's a link between the vagus nerve, childhood trauma and over-eating?

In a world without the immediate danger of being eaten by a lion, the human body still responds to stressful situations using the same primitive biology.

The primary way to counter the damage done to the body by recruiting this primitive biology, is to help the social engagement system (ventral vagal complex) come online.

The ventral vagus is a complex of nerve fibres which are unmyelinated when we are born, and are designed to be myelinated in early life through the attachment relationship between mother and infant.

If there are attachment problems, developmental deficits, neglect, abuse, or hospitalisations, the vagus nerve may not be myelinated (or may be incompletely myelinated).

An unmyelinated vagus can cause auditory hypersensitivity, and difficulties hearing the human voice where there is background noise – amongst other symptoms. Difficulties sucking, swallowing or breathing, flat, expressionless face, digestive problems from early in life, high emotional reactivity, with a tendency to swing rapidly, feeling disconnected, are all symptoms of a ventral vagus complex that isn’t working as it should.

If vagal regulation isn’t working as it is biologically intended, your body will attempt to regulate vagal tone through different mechanisms.

One of the primary regulatory mechanisms is ‘ingestion’, because ingestion utilises the same nerves that socialisation does – although it doesn’t have vocalisations, touch or gesture. But ingesting is an attempt by the body to recruit the integrated social engagement system (vagal activity).

Unfortunately, ingesting is not sufficient to rehabilitate the vagus nerve, although it will activate it. To maintain the ventral (myelinated) vagus, it’s necessary for safety cues to trigger the inhibition of defence so that we can seek prolonged social engagement without fear (i.e., interpreted as safe by our body/ unconscious body-mind). When sustained over time, the myelinated vagus maintains the normal, endogenous rhythms of the body, enabling other parts of our nervous system to regulate homeostasis, and provide resiliency, immune support and wellness.