Want better health, less anxiety, more sleep? You've got a nerve
Who's acquainted with their vagus nerve? If you're on Instagram or TikTok, you'll know that you need to 'reset' the thing to soothe your nervous system and reduce anxiety, and that investing in 'vagus massage oil' or a vibrating bracelet or pressing an ice pack to your chest will do it. All your ills will be cured. Allegedly.
'The vagus nerve [the longest cranial nerve in the body] is one of the most popular nerves in social media today,' the neurosurgeon Kevin Tracey declares. And it deserves to be celebrated. 'Resting and digesting and keeping calm all depend on your vagus nerve, which is the linchpin of the parasympathetic nervous system,' he says.
Tracey is the professor and president of Northwell Health's Feinstein Institutes for
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