stress reduction using vagus nerve stimulation by yelling or talking loudly

[scott789]

I use a very effective technique to reduce my stress. Basically I yell in a way that does not injure my vocal chords but most likely stimulates the vagus nerve which results in reduced stress levels. I yell into folded paper towels that cover my mouth which also creates a small amount of back pressure. I find it to be more effective if I leave a small gap between my mouth and paper towels so that air escapes a little easier and therefore it is easier to yell and create vocal chord vibrations.

Another technique is talking at a loud party or in a loud bar but a person would have to talk for about one half hour in a normal conversation to get the effect. I first noticed this technique when I felt less stress on the days after I had talked at a loud party.

It is somewhat well known that vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) with an electric device reduces anxiety. As an example, here is an statement from a research paper:


> It is conceivable that altering the flow of this information with VNS could have
> therapeutic potential in anxiety disorders (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder,
> panic disorder) or irritable bowel syndrome.

You can do a google search on "VNS vagus nerve stimulation anxiety". There is a surgical procedure that implants a VNS device but the technique I do is non-invasive.

I don't know the exact mechanism but it is somehow related to VNS. I am much more relaxed the next day if I do this every night. I do it in my car while parked in an area where no one will hear - usually there is some moving traffic nearby which drowns out my yelling and people can't hear it unless they are right next to my car (sometimes I do it while cars pass by so that the other car drowns out the the yell). The muffling of the paper towels or cloth also limits any one from hearing it. I will yell about 30-50 long AAAHH's over a 30 minute period. I generally try to make the AAAAHH sound as long as possible by conserving air flow - making the sound for 6-10 seconds long per breath. I will do them in groups of 3-4 with 2-6 minutes between each group. I usually do it at night so that people can't see me - usually about 2 hours before I go to bed.

If I skip a night, my stress level will increase a small amount next day and if I skip 2 nights, my stress level during the day will increase further still. But it might take skipping 2-4 days before my stress level is at an unacceptable level. Though, even after skipping 2-4 days, my a stress level will be much less than it was before I started doing this 10 years ago.

The way to avoid being hoarse the next day is to use a smooth, loud, medium to low frequency AAAAHHH sound with no raspyness or intense vibration of the vocal cords. Almost like you were singing a long smooth AAAAAHHHH note. In the beginning I had this hoarseness problem. Using a smooth, non-raspyness AAAAAHH sound will or should never cause hoarseness the next day. Using paper towels or a cloth to cause a little bit of back pressure increases effectiveness.

This method slightly matches vagus nerve stimulation techniques, one of which is to hold your breath while bearing down with your abdominal muscles - though the effectiveness of this technique may be short lived.

The surgical implantation device sends an electric pulse of a specific frequency to the vagus nerve which is similar to my technique of the vocal cords stimulating the vagus nerve with a pulse having some frequency. There is a new electrical VNS that is external to the body (i.e. no surgical implantation) and uses a small plastic part that is clipped to the ear and has a cord and small electronic device attached to it - do a google on "tvns cerbomed" or "transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation".

Researchers find VNS therapy useful for epilepsy, depression and even potentially for Autism.

[brittany09]

That's interesting! Never heard of this before. Thanks for the post,I'll give it a whirl.

[Meagan]

Caught my attention..I have ibs and panic disorder

[scott789]

I think a good name for my technique is "opera therapy"

[scott789]

Has anyone tried my method described in an earlier post that reduces stress? The method is based on multiple controlled, smooth yells or talking loudly for an extended period of time (for example in a loud bar for 30 minutes). Another example is singing low notes similar to opera.

I want to stress how effective my technique is. I've been doing it virtually every evening for 10 years and the reduction in stress is huge and has a long lasting effect (days) - no other technique works nearly as well. When I was stressed out, no amount of mental rationalizing or meditating or breathing exercises would work. There have been no side effects, my voice sounds the same and there have been no negative affects to my vocal chords. The key is to talk loudly or yell smoothly - not harshly and without raspiness.

The simplest way to try my technique is to yell or sing medium to low toned notes in the confines of your car in the late evening - but read the details in my earlier post so as to not create any hoarseness the next day. Specifically smooth, non-raspiness and 8 second long (i.e. slow) AAAAAAHH's work fine and use a few paper towels or a cloth to create a little back pressure. But not too much back pressure because you still need air flow to vibrate your vocal chords. One issue is finding a place to do it - I sometimes drive to the dark areas of a big parking lot or on the side of the road near other parked cars (don't just park on the side of any road, you want to be near other parked cars so that your car isn't accidentally rear ended). Usually there is moving car traffic nearby so that the traffic can drown out the noise. I do this in the late evening when it is dark and the paper towel and cloth reduce most of the noise so that people outside can not hear unless they are right next to my car. I usually do about 30-50 of the 8 second AAAAAAAAH's spread out over 30 minutes.

If you do not want to do that then go to a loud bar or similar loud place and have at least a 30 minute conversation with your friend or whoever. The stress reduction is most noticeable the next day and doing this technique continuously every night is best though you can skip a few days here and there. You will notice that on the days after skipping the technique, your stress will rise slightly but it will not be as bad compared to before starting the technique. I suppose someone could do it 2-3 times per week if they just want a small reduction in stress. But the technique has to be continued indefinitely.

Most likely this works because it is stimulating the vagus nerve which runs from the brain through the neck to the abdomen and is a main feature of the central nervous system. The vagus nerve runs somewhat near the vocal chords but I am not sure how close.

Do a google search on "vagus nerve stimulation anxiety" and you will find multiple scientific papers that show that vagus nerve stimulation reduces anxiety. There are electronic devices that can be surgically implanted near the vagus nerve (google Cyberonics Inc) that will stimulate it but there is no need for that - my "opera" technique works perfectly well - I call it opera therapy.

One paper on this was done by the Medical University of South Carolina and reported in 2008 - you can find it by googling "vagus nerve stimulation anxiety"

If there is anyone who tries it, please report back if they find it to work well or not.

[scott789]

Here is the 2008 news article that described the Vagus Nerve Stimulation. But note that I am not advocating the surgery option! I advocate the "opera therapy" technique described in my earlier post.
----------------------------------
Vagus Nerve Stimulation Alleviates Chronic Anxiety in Pilot Study

Patients who received therapy showed long-term improvements
CHARLESTON -- Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and three other universities announced the results of a four-year pilot study, which tested the long-term response to Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) TherapyTM as an add-on treatment in patients with treatment-resistant anxiety disorders. The study, led by Mark S. George, M.D., MUSC Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and Neurosciences, appeared in the 2nd issue of peer-reviewed Brain Stimulation.

"Despite the availability of many treatments for anxiety disorders, only a minority of patients experience treatment-response, especially with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)," George said. "Data suggests VNS Therapy might be a potential long-term treatment for anxiety disorders. We are encouraged to see the unique benefits of VNS therapy for patients with treatment-resistant anxiety disorders."

The FDA approved VNS Therapy in 2005 as an adjunctive long-term treatment for chronic or recurrent depression for patients (18 years of age or older) who are experiencing a major depressive episode and have not had an adequate reaction to four or more antidepressant treatments. It is the only device ever studied and approved for treatment-resistant depression. VNS Therapy is delivered from a small pacemaker-like device implanted in the chest area that sends mild pulses to the brain via the vagus nerve in the neck.

The study, which focused on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder, demonstrated VNS Therapy was well tolerated by a small group of participants. In addition, patients who responded to VNS Therapy continued to experience significant improvements.
----------------------------------------
Here is a write up in WebMD:

Pacemakers -- for Anxiety
Anxiety -- the Nerve

By Mark Moran
WebMD Feature

Sept. 24, 2001 -- Gray Scott, of Florence, S.C., has been treated for anxiety for nine years, from the time she was diagnosed with an eating disorder at age 15. Since then, she has tried a variety of medications and psychotherapy, with variable results.

"When the symptoms are alleviated, it becomes tolerable," she tells WebMD. "At their worst, I have felt very desperate."
Scott is not alone. Anxiety disorders -- including phobias, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder -- affect more than 23 million Americans. Although treatment with a combination of drugs and therapy is very often successful, some patients go from drug to drug, and therapy to therapy, with no relief.

"Most people think of anxiety disorders as not terribly devastating, and easily treatable with drugs," says psychiatrist Mark George, MD, director of the brain stimulation laboratory at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. "But there is a substantial core of people for whom drugs don't work and for whom there are no good alternatives."

That may change, however, if a new surgical treatment called vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS, proves successful.

On May 18, Scott became one of the first anxiety patients to receive the experimental treatment. On that day, surgeons at the Medical College of South Carolina implanted a device in her chest, similar to a heart pacemaker, and wired it to electrically stimulate the vagus nerve in her neck.

Named for the Latin word meaning "wandering," the vagus nerve meanders from the colon, past the intestines, heart, and lungs, and comes together at the diaphragm, where it runs as a thick cable past the esophagus and into the brain.

George calls the nerve "an information superhighway to the brain." Contrary to long-held wisdom, the traffic on that highway is mostly going north -- from the body to the brain, not vice versa, he says.

"Most people have thought of it as the way the brain controls the heart and the guts," George explains. "In fact, most of the information is actually going in the other direction. The vagus nerve is really the brain's way of interpreting what is happening in the heart and the guts."

That suggests an intriguing theoretical reason why VNS might work well for people with anxiety, he says.

"Emotions are not brain events, but the brain's interpretation of bodily events," George says. "When you feel scared, it's really your brain sensing that your heart rate is going up."

So by stimulating the vagus nerve, George and others hope to influence the exchange of information between body and brain, and thereby relieve the symptoms of anxiety.

Whether this works remains to be seen. Today, the device implanted in Scott's chest activates every five minutes, stimulating her vagus nerve with a small electrical current for a period of five seconds. When it activates while she is talking, her voice suddenly becomes mildly hoarse.

"Some days I think it's helping, and some days I don't know," she says. "At first I was expecting something instantaneous, but it doesn't work that way. It can take months to see any results."

Reason for Hope

George says there is reason for hope.

For the last 10 years, VNS has been successful treating patients with epilepsy who do not respond to conventional therapy. Stimulating the vagus nerve appears to reduce the number of daily seizures such people experience by up to 40% -- and some patients become completely seizure-free, George says.

VNS was approved by the FDA for treatment-resistant epilepsy in 1997.

VNS has also shown promise in the treatment of depression. It is approved for this use in Europe and in Canada, but not in the U.S.

In a report published last year in the Journal of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, 30 people with depression, who were not helped by common medications, received VNS. Forty percent of the patients showed some improvement after the treatment, according to the study.

Remarkably, some patients appeared to have no depression at all after the treatment.

"What got me interested was the fact that 20% to 25% of patients were completely well after treatment," says George, a co-author of the study. "Among people with treatment-resistant depression, you rarely see complete remission. These were people who had failed on three or four medications, and two-thirds of the group had had electroconvulsive therapy [ECT, the so-called shock treatment]."

A new study will compare VNS to other treatments for depression, and to no treatment. In the meantime, its apparent success with depression whets his appetite for trying the therapy with other mood disorders, including anxiety.

George says he believes there is even more reason to believe that VNS will be successful in treating anxiety because of the critical interaction between physical responses in the body -- for instance, heart rate and muscle spasms -- and the experience of fear or panic in the brain. That entire interaction occurs through the vagus nerve.

"It makes a lot of sense that you could change that interaction by manipulating the information through stimulation of the vagus," George says.

Because VNS requires surgical implantation, it is far more invasive than other electrical stimulation techniques, such as ECT or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which don't require cutting the body. And it is not cheap: The device and surgery cost approximately $20,000.

Other psychiatrists are intrigued by the success of VNS in depression, but say its practical use as a treatment remains to be seen. Richard Weiner, MD, leads the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Electroconvulsive Therapy.

"It's an invasive technique," Weiner tells WebMD. "You need to have some justification for using it. It's never going to be something people run to do first. The issue is, once you have gone through a trial of medications, at what point do you use this?"

For Gray Scott, participating in George's study was a chance to try a cutting-edge treatment that could prove a permanent solution to the anxiety plaguing her for nearly a decade. If it doesn't work, Scott says she will have the device removed. If it does, she will leave it in indefinitely.

"It's a lot to undergo," she says. "But for people who are becoming desperate because they are not significantly relieved by medication, it's good to know you can actively try something instead of sitting around waiting."

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[Buttercup]

Not tried this but I often feel that when I am anxious being able to go into the middle of nowhere and just scream would help. Unfortunately if I did it in my flat my neighbours would call the police!

[scott789]

Has anyone one tried my "opera therapy" technique to reduce stress and anxiety? It works extremely well.

I've tried posting small snippets I found on the web that back up my claims on the technique. But this website seems to have software that automatically determines that I am quoting from the web and doesn't allow it to be posted.
So let's see if this gets through - below is just a snippet of a news report of one study that I found when I google the terms "anxiety vagus nerve stimulation"

Vagus Nerve Stimulation Alleviates Chronic Anxiety in Pilot Study (2008)
CHARLESTON -- Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and three other universities announced the results of a four-year pilot study, which tested the long-term response to Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) TherapyTM as an add-on treatment in patients with treatment-resistant anxiety disorders. The study, led by Mark S. George, M.D., MUSC Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Radiology and Neurosciences, appeared in the 2nd issue of peer-reviewed Brain Stimulation

[lmgibson87]

This may sound ridiculous but it may actually relate in some way.. I have panic disorder and have never been worse than this year. Almost daily panic attacks and constant stress and exhaustion. I have always loved singing and been very involved in choirs and singing(especially classical music ) and the past year or so I have barely sang at all due to my hectic school schedule and a few other life events. I always thought music was therapeutic but maybe there is a scientific reason behind it, I would be very interested to read more about this !

[scott789]

Try the "opera therapy"! I do it almost every night. When I skip one or a few nights, I start to get more stressed. Read closely all the details - though I measured the time of my AAAAAHHH's and they are less than the 8 seconds that I listed above - maybe it was 5 or 6 seconds. The key is not to strain your voice so that you never get hoarseness the next day. Opera therapy has had no detrimental effect on my voice (other than I sound less stressed the next day) even though I've done it many times over the past 10 years - almost every night. Another key part is to very slightly muffle the air flow so that a little back pressure is created - but don't block the air flow too much - just a small amount. The loudness drops a lot with the muffling but the air flow volume should just drop a little - it's more effective and the benefit is that the sound level is greatly reduced. I do it while parked in my car after dark. Having moving car traffic nearby (one option is to do it when cars pass by) drowns out any noise that escapes my car. Just park in a safe area so that you don't accidently get rear ended.

[scott789]

Hi lmgibson87,

did you ever try my "opera therapy" technique?