The Wandering Nerve

Its Latin name, vagus, means wandering.

And wander it does.

The vagus nerve travels from the brainstem through the neck and into the chest and abdomen, communicating with the heart, lungs and digestive system along the way.

It is one of the great pathways through which body and brain remain in conversation.

And much of the information travelling along it moves upwards, from body towards brain.

That is worth considering.

We are accustomed to imagining the mind as command centre and the body as obedient machinery beneath it.

But the body is constantly speaking back.

The flutter in the belly.

The heart quickening.

The breath catching.

The long involuntary exhale when something finally feels safe enough to release.

The vagus nerve forms an important part of the parasympathetic nervous system and participates in processes including digestion, heart-rate regulation and recovery following stress.

Practices involving slow breathing, singing, humming, meditation and movement may influence this system, which perhaps explains why some of them create such a tangible bodily shift.

But the vagus nerve need not become another wellness project.

There is something more interesting in its old name.

The wandering nerve.

A thread travelling through the inner landscape of the body, carrying news between gut, heart, lungs and brain.

We speak of instinct and gut feeling as though they belong only to poetry.

Yet the body and brain are in continual conversation.

Perhaps intuition begins, at least in part, with becoming quiet enough to hear what has already arrived.G ⁣