The Great Nerve Quotes

“Deep breathing is one way you can voluntarily stimulate your own vagus nerve. Try it now. Take a deep diaphragmatic breath by imagining you are inflating the lower portion of your lungs near your belly button like a balloon, followed by a gradual exhalation as you pull in your belly button. Aim to inhale through your nose this way for a count of three, then exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of 7. .......You are on your way to enhancing the quality of your life.”
― Kevin J. Tracey, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Beyond the conditions already studied (rheumatoid arthritis”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Our host”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Five of us gathered around the conference table in my office. We each donated a few tubes of blood”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“To begin with”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) units are portable”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“auricular maps in a widely cited Chinese medical journal cemented him as a global leader in ear acupuncture. TaVNS is based on the idea that we can safely and cheaply hack the ear to stimulate vagus nerve networks. In 2001”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“After several years”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“What social media influencers”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Each year”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Prior to receiving his implanted vagus nerve stimulator”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“You might be surprised to learn that hundreds of thousands of people today already live with a surgically embedded vagus nerve stimulator (VNS)”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Although not every instance of dysregulation is as extreme as what happened to Janice”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) controls the natural variation in your heart rate that occurs during your breathing cycle. When you inhale”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“The baroreceptor reflex maintains blood pressure. This reflex starts with baroreceptors”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“With new technologies”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“High vagal tone indicates a strong parasympathetic influence”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“In science and medicine”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“The electrode”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Because dissecting human cadavers was illegal in Galen’s time and place”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes

“Lucia Galvani told her husband Luigi that the frogs’ legs prepared for the meal seemed alive on the copper-wire…. The ensuing century’s analysis resolved this aspect of the spirits of the anima into transient electrical potentials travelling the fibres of the nervous system. They were no longer “spirit,” but were become a physical event describable under energy. — Charles Sherrington”
― Kevin J. Tracey MD, The Great Nerve: The New Science of the Vagus Nerve and How to Harness Its Healing Reflexes