Sick of being sick with driving anxiety? A study gives hope that you may one day be able to think yourself well, provided you have an OK vagal tone going forward.
A what?
The vagal tone is an index based on heart rate and breathing gauged for the vagus nerve, which runs from your brain to various organs. One of those organs is your heart and one of the vagus nerve’s prime responsibilities is signaling the heart to slow down when all is calm, safe and serene.
Those with high vagal tones are typically healthier and happier while low values have been linked to things like heart attacks and inflammation.
The study, published Psychological Science, checked out the vagal tones of the study’s subjects, some of whom added feel-good meditation into their daily schedules.
An article in The Economist discusses the results:
“…Vagal tone increased significantly in people who meditated, and hardly at all in those who did not. Among meditators, those who started the experiment with the highest vagal-tone scores reported the biggest increases in positive emotions. Meditators who started with particularly low scores showed virtually no such boost.
Taken as a whole, these findings suggest high vagal tone makes it easier to generate positive emotions and that this, in turn, drives vagal tone still higher. That is both literally and metaphorically a positive feedback loop. Which is good news for the emotionally positive, but bad for the emotionally negative, for it implies that those who most need a psychosomatic boost are incapable of generating one.”
Even if you’re not one of the “emotionally positive” at the moment, you can always work to develop a more positive outlook and attitude. Meditation is always a good place to start, either to improve your vagal tone or even your overall life.
Read full Economist article: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21567876-you-can-it-helps-think-well-yourself-first-place-think-yourself?fsrc=rss%7Csct
Check out the study: http://www.unc.edu/peplab/publications/Kok%20et%20al_psycscience_inPress.pdf
