You might not have made a connection between the vagus nerve and constipation, but this post explains what you need to know.
The vagus nerve is a super highway of information between your brain and your gut. What goes on in vagus does NOT stay in vagus! In this blog post I’ll explain what the vagus nerve does, how it affects your digestion and crucially what you can do to support it.
Let’s start with the basics..
What is the vagus nerve?
The vagus nerve is a key communication channel that helps your digestive tract receive messages from your brain. Additionally, it helps your brain understand what’s going on with nutrient absorption, bacteria, energy balance (including our hunger and fullness signals), and immune reactions in the gut.
And you might think your brain is in control, but it’s thought around 90% of the traffic in the vagus nerve is upwards to the brain from the stomach, liver, and intestines.
So actually only around 10% of traffic is coming from the top down this nerve pathway.
Your nervous system recap
Let me just quickly explain a bit about the nervous system to give you some context. There are three nervous systems that are operating all day and night without your conscious control. These are the:
- Sympathetic nervous system – the fight or flight response
- Parasympathetic nervous system – controlling our rest and digest state
- Enteric nervous system – This is stimulated by the vagus nerve, but our digestion has its own nervous system. It controls your digestive blood flow, mucus secretions and local hormones. It’s capable of operating even without the brain!
All these systems are connected, and have a different role.
Parasympathetic nervous system – your rest and digest mode
The vagus nerve is part of your parasympathetic nervous system which is our calming ‘Rest or Digest’ state. This helps to relax blood vessels, allows blood to flow to the digestive tract. It also helps us produce saliva and stomach acid.
We can’t control this unfortunately, we can’t choose to turn our stomach acid on or off! Other similar functions we can’t control include our blood pressure, dilation of blood vessels and digestive motility.
If you are always rushing around, and feeling chronically stressed it could affect your constipation.
Triggering your ‘fight or flight’ mode all the time means you won’t have full functioning of this parasympathetic state, which includes digestive motility.
This makes sense, your body will not prioritise digestion when faced with a mortal threat! However, it also means your production of stomach acid, gut motility and general digestive health will be reduced.
In a fight or flight state the gut hears the message – ‘Stop what you’re doing’, which can lead to constipation as your gut motility slows down. Or it might hear the message ‘Do that quicker, we need to get on to something more important!’ which could lead to reduced breakdown of food, triggering bloating and gas.
What does the vagus nerve actually do?
It’s named after the word vagrant, as in wanderer or vagrant because it stretches out into our torsos (nothing to do with Las Vagas!)
The nerve touches all our digestive organs, as well as heart rate and breathing. It’s involved in controlling many of your digestive functions, which if not functioning well, can affect constipation. For example, your vagus nerve has an effect on:
- downward movement in the gut, including peristalsis (movement of the food through the gut) which can lead to slow motility. If you have a slow gut transit time you may end up with constipation as the stool dries out the longer it’s been in your large intestine.
- release of bile from the gallbladder to help digest fats. Bile is antimicrobial, but also can stimulate gut motility so if you’re not releasing bile effectively it could be reducing the speed of gut transit.
- production of digestive juices from saliva to stomach acid which helps breakdown our food.
Does your vagus nerve slow down gut motility?
Studies in animals seem to show that triggering the vagus nerve can improve constipation. There was a study on rats who were treated with anti-diarrhoea medication to mimic opioid induced constipation.
Researchers found the rats had more bowel movements when their vagus nerve was stimulated. Rats who didn’t have their vagus nerve stimulated remained constipated.
The rodents were fitted with a contraption to stimulate the vagus nerve through their ear. To provide a control group there was another group of rats who had the stimulation machine on, but the vagus nerve was severed. Rats which had their vagus nerve cut didn’t see any benefit to the stimulation.
So, whilst this is just a rodent study, it shows that stimulating the nerve could help with sluggish bowel.
Exercises for the vagus nerve and constipation
You can support your vagus nerve with simple activities that are mostly all easy to try.
These need to be done regularly to stimulate the muscles around the throat and the vagus nerve. You won’t just be better after doing this once, it’s a long term goal.
I think it’s worth adding these kinds of things into your daily routines because these are free, risk free and can support better nervous system health.
1. COLD WATER EXPOSURE –
Exposure to acute cold can help to stimulate the vagus nerve. Build up your tolerance slowly. You could try cold water swimming if you want to really go for it, or even just a 30 second cold shower after washing.
2. SLOW DEEP BREATHS
Long exhalations can activate the parasympathetic nervous system, helping us feel calm. Take 5+ slow long exhalations, especially before eating anything. This helps the vagus nerve and constipation by massaging the gut internally, and also reducing stress.
3. MEDITATION
Practice slowing down your busy brain with regular meditation. It’s not about clearing your mind, it’s about being present in the moment. This is an ongoing practice for most people and if it doesn’t come easy at first stick with it.
4. GARGLING
Try for around 2-3x a day everyday for at least 4 weeks. You want to do this with enough force that you make a loud noise, and even start to feel yourself gagging. This will stimulate the muscles at the back of the throat.
5. HUMMING
really loud and strong humming, try this in the car or the shower if you feel embarrassed of making such a loud noise!
6 LAUGHTER
As well as dispelling some of the stress hormones, laughing helps ‘reset’ your breathing, and encourages deep breaths.
7 EXERCISE
Movement can lower fight or flight response and help encourage deep breathing. Exercise also helps to urn off high stress hormones, leaving us more relaxed. Exercise could also help stimulate a bowel movement through muscle stimulation.
Let me know if you’ve had any success with any of these practices for the vagus nerve and constipation, I’d love to hear how you get on with them.
IBS Nutritionist
Hi, I'm Anna Mapson, registered Nutritional Therapist.
I help people with IBS and SIBO get control of unpredictable gut symptoms to find long term relief from painful and embarrassing IBS without restrictive dieting.
I can help you to:
- understand your digestion better, so you recognise your triggers
- eat a well balanced diet, with tasty meals that are simple to prepare
- reintroduce your trigger foods so you can get back to enjoying food again
Find more about my 3 month 1:1 Gut Reset programme.
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Constipation very much. Last six month.
Hi, Ann Pace here. I like what I can see, so far. Could you please let people make the words bigger? At 76 years old it’s very hard to read the small print on the screen.
Twenty years ago I was dx with colorectal CA with subsequent surgeries & a dx of LARS (low anterior resection syndrome). A year ago my blood pressure started dropping spontaneously when standing for long periods of time or whenever I had multiple BM’s. All cardiac tests were negative & I was told I have a vasovagal syndrome. Whenever I take a bite of food or drink anything I have to run to the bathroom. Is there anything I can do to alleviate the situation?
Thank you, Mary-Alice
Hi Mary-Alice, have you tried any different diets or ways of eating? Sorry I can’t give out advice here, but if you’d like to speak to me about working together with me you can book a discovery call here – https://calendly.com/annamapson/30min and we can see whether I might be able to help you. Take care, Anna
What can I do with chronic constipation but don’t like medication.
Hi Wilma
It’s hard to say what to try when I’m not sure what you’ve already done, if you don’t like using laxatives you can potentially try magnesium as an osmotic laxative, but you may need to check with a doctor before starting any new supplement depending on other conditions and medication. Foods that help to soften the stool include fruits, dried fruit, fruit juice, but these can all add to bloating. Kiwi is a good place to start for many people. Would you like to speak to me about working on your diet? I offer a free discovery call so we can see if it’s a good fit – book here – https://calendly.com/annamapson/30min
I have chronic constipation. I use glycerine suppositories. It is just glycerine so there are no drugs involved. My Doctor recommended this to me many years ago. My bowels are sluggish so I use one every second day or so. It works. It’s worth trying.
I would love to talk with you sometime. 25 years ago I had a major GI bleed and they did surgery to fix it however they cut the Vegas nerve as well. I have suffered for year with constipation I was just prescribed Lubirostone but it has not done anything but make my constipation worse. How do you move forward when the Vegas nerve is no longer functioning? I really need some help. My physician is also baffled.
Hi Heather yes I’d be happy to have a chat with you about this, sorry you’ve had such a tricky time with it all, sounds very difficult. Book in a call via my calendar – www.calendly.com/annamapson/30min
I’m in your boat. Lubiprostone worked for awhile. I was taking it with motegrity. I now take mirilax ever night to no avail. Sometimes I notice if I shock myself with cold water after my shower. Sometimes it produces BM an hour later
My vegus nerve was cut 27 years ago. My life and trying to have bowel movements has become a nightmare. Everything just wants to sit still now. Can you help me please
I have ibs but every night feel very hot and ill (about 3am) Take magnesium and bo about 6am but diarrhoea about 3 times am and feel better. Nights are keeping me awake with feeling like have flu.Diana. cgroebuckatgmail.com
You know how I can tell that you are a nutritionist masquerading as a healthcare professional and that you are NOT a registered dietician? You WOULD have the education in even basic anatomy to be able to actually be able TO SPELL THE NERVE CORRECTLY. Its one thing to accidentally spell it wrong once, but you consistently spell it wrong throughout this post…. V-A-G-U-S not vegus, very concerned for your clients. I
Thank you Andrea for pointing out a few spelling errors in this blog post, I’ve gone through and corrected the few occasions it was incorrect (16th Mar). I’ve never said anywhere I’m a registered dietician, I don’t pretend to be, I’m a registered nutritional therapist. I notice this spelling mistake has triggered very strong emotions in you.
I have IBS and suffer from problems with my Vega nerve-Constipation,fainting, weakness in legs when I have to move bowels,and so hard to do. Do you think I should see a specialist and if so what kind?
Hi Alice
Yes I think you should see a doctor in the first instance to check you out. A gastroenterologist may be able to advise on the constipation. I wish you well in these investigations.
Anna
Havent moved bowels in near two months so sick and ive tried everything isnt there anything i can do at home
I read your comments and it put some clarity in my problem. I would love to hear from you. I am 93(this week) and otherwise in really good shape except for the problem that I wrote about.
Thank you
Hello my name is Adele I have suffered with chronic constipation for nearly 30 tests I’m 63 and my peristaltic movement is none existing and I take very large amounts of laxative every 5 days which make me I’ll headache ear problems and just very unwell I am not always successful and it’s getting harder and I’m worried where it will end I take dulcolax liquid and tabs mostly
Can you help I’m really desperate to find a solution but I’m told by several consultants that there is nothing they can do and I just have Ed to manage Thank you
Hi Adele, would you like to speak to me about all this and see if it’s something I can help with? you can arrange a time to have a call here https://calendly.com/annamapson/30min I hope to speak to you soon
Anna
I too have extreme problems at times and have IBS. I find yoga to be very helpful even if only a few yoga stretches and 10 minutes of meditation
That’s great, a small amount per day is better than trying to do longer but giving up, small steps are effective too! Well done.
I have had hard constipation on and off for the last 15 years, have been to at least 5 gastroenterologist, all of which have been “the best” but no one has helped me. I had a positive report on the Cologuard Test, and was told by my PC, they have my # that I should have called me and her nurse gave me the #. Very tired of all ot them, really do not know which way to turn. I’m 76, have heart disease, 6 stents in me heart, have had cervical and spinal surgeries, broke my left femural with 3 long screws and fell flat on my “sits bones” and had damage to my pudental nerve (fun). Plus my balance is “ify”. Any suggestions.
Thank you
Hi Sharon, have you had a test for intestinal methanogen overgrowth? Sometimes treating the methane producing microbes can affect your gut motility. It sounds like you have a complex set of needs that would be best managed in a 1:1 setting so everything you need can be considered.
Hi, I’m 67 fit and slim, except for my belly because of constipation. I have irritable bowel syndrome and bleed a lot if I strain. Iv had all the tests and have no cancer. The bleeding is due to strain. I try not to take laxatives and enemas however, I take Laxettets chocolate in the morning, it doesn’t always work. I’d love to be able to go to the toilet every day without the drama. I was thinking of seeing a Chinese herbalist in Chinatown Sydney to see if there’s something I can buy to help. I never heard of Vargas nerve until now.
I too suffer with constipation bc of a damaged vagus nerve. I don’t like taking laxatives but my poop gets hard and I have some rectum prolapse. Miralax in my morning coffee doesn’t help and apparently neither does GI motility pills 2 times a day!? I recently tried mct oil in my coffee? Help
Hello Rosemary
You may need some help with your diet to help aid the digestion, and some people can also benefit from seeing a pelvic health physiotherapist to look at muscle control, especially with a prolapse. If you’d like to work with me on your diet and digestion please get in touch to arrange a call about what you need help with. Anna