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Craniosacral therapy for the Vagus Nerve: working with Trauma, improving Neurological, Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Digestive function
- Niyati Nath
- Mar 25
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 20
Our central nervous system (CNS) is the command centre of the human mind and body. Our physiological and mental well-being is facilitated and maintained by a functional and adaptable CNS. Cranial nerve X, the vagus nerve is an integral part of the CNS – it is largely responsible for mediating neurological and physiological function. The vagus nerve is, in fact, central to every aspect of our lives.
It controls cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive function. It regulates our response to stress and prepares our bodies to respond to danger. It facilitates states of deep relaxation, social connection and intimacy. It is now established that a host of physiological and mental disorders, including many that were previously considered chronic and incurable, are caused by dysfunction of the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve plays a crucial role in the gut-brain axis. Information from the digestive system is transmitted to the brain via the vagus nerve. Gut health influences brain function through the vagus nerve and dysfunction of the vagus nerve disrupts the gut-brain axis.
Vagus nerve stimulation (which uses a device to stimulate the vagus nerve with electrical impulses) is used as therapeutic tool to manage neurological conditions like epilepsy, depression, migraine, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and ischemic stroke.
Vagal tone is linked to mood regulation, stress response and cognitive function and low vagal tone has an adverse effect on these functions. It is said that patients who are on the Autism spectrum have poor vagal tone which contributes to their nervous system dysregulation and digestive and neurological issues.
Dysfunction of the vagus nerve can result in a wide range of disorders encompassing cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory and other functions performed by the many organs and structures that the vagus nerve enervates. This includes gastrointestinal issues like acid reflux, abdominal pain and bloating, gastroparesis, IBS, dysphagia (difficulty swallowing), appetite and weight loss, nausea and vomiting, cardiovascular issues like changes in heart rate and blood pressure, fainting spells, vasovagal syncope, palpitations, respiratory issues relating to the vocal chords and breathing, mental health issues like anxiety, depression and chronic fatigue, chronic pain, headaches, inflammatory conditions, autoimmune disorders and many more. Since Craniosacral therapy works directly with the vagus nerve, it can help to alleviate all these conditions.
The vagus nerve is a part of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) – this is the part of the CNS that works automatically, without a person’s conscious effort. The ANS regulates involuntary physiological processes such as heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, digestion and sexual arousal. It does this by directly controlling the organs, muscles and glands that are involved in these processes.
The ANS has two parts – the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The SNS acts as the body’s accelerator, accelerating heartbeat and breathing rate and moving blood to the muscles to facilitate rapid movement. The PNS acts as the body’s brake on arousal, slowing the heart and breathing rate and moving blood towards the stomach for digestion. The SNS is responsible for arousal, including the well-known “fight or flight response”. The PNS promotes self-preserving activities like feeding, sheltering, wound-healing and mating – it is responsible for the “rest and digest” response. The SNS and the PNS are reciprocal systems, working together in balance, to manage the body’s expenditure and conservation of energy.
Dr. Stephen Porges formulated the path-breaking Polyvagal Theory which explains how the human body perceives and responds to cues of danger and specifically how the vagus nerve mediates our response. According to Polyvagal Theory, the ANS regulates three fundamental physiological states. When we feel threatened, we first turn towards social engagement. We listen and speak, we communicate or negotiate with the attacker, we ask for help or comfort from those around us. As mammals, we have evolved to survive in groups and our nervous systems co-regulate with those around us. Social engagement is our primary method of regulating our nervous systems - we are hard-wired to co-regulate as we are designed to live together in groups like most mammals. If this doesn’t work, we resort to an older method of survival – fight or flight. We try to fight the attacker or to escape by running away to a safe place. If we can’t get away or if we are trapped in the situation, the perceived threat moves from “dangerous” to “life-threatening” and we fall back on our most primitive response, in evolutionary terms – the freeze response. The organism tries to preserve itself by shutting down and collapsing - going into tonic immobility where the muscles stop moving and the body remains still. The metabolic rate drops, awareness is shut down and the organism may no longer register physical pain as the body releases natural pain-killers that bring a sense of calm in the face of anticipated death. This is the most ancient technique of survival, in evolutionary terms. It is colloquially referred to as the reptilian brain taking over – when a reptile is in danger it usually stops moving and plays dead and often this tricks the attacker into moving away and leaving it alone, to survive another day.
A healthy and resilient nervous system allows our bodies to move between social engagement, fight, flight and freeze states with relative ease. The SNS and PNS of a healthy CNS balance each other. The vagus nerve plays an important role in facilitating the response to cues of danger and in regulating the nervous system, by allowing it to change its response to the most appropriate of the above for the situation. For instance, when a person can avoid a threat by negotiating or by simply walking away, the person need not have a dorsal vagal shutdown and feel hopelessly depressed.
· Dr. Porges demonstrated how the ventral vagal complex of the vagus nerve gets the PNS to turn on the social engagement system - allowing people to listen to, communicate or negotiate with and connect with each other to resolve a threatening situation. The vagus nerve allows us to be calm, collected and connected in the face of threat.
· If the fight or flight response mitigates the perceived danger, the PNS, controlled by the vagus nerve, turns off the fight or flight reaction set off by the SNS and helps the system to self-regulate, move out of arousal and to feel safe and calm.
· When the perceived danger is not mitigated by either of the social engagement, fight or flight responses, the vagus nerve initiates a dorsal vagal shutdown or “freeze” response.
It is now widely acknowledged that trauma resides in our physiology and is not a disorder of the mind. A traumatised individual experiences the world with a nervous system that has an altered perception of risk and safety. Trauma does not lie in the event, it lies in the nervous system - in the way that the nervous system has responded to the event. Most trauma responses involve immobilisation or an inability to move out of the freeze response in a situation that could be resolved by either of negotiation (social engagement), fight or flight. The nervous system becomes hyper-vigilant, misreading everyday situations as cues of danger and plunging the individual into the trauma vortex. Some traumatised individuals bypass the social engagement system or the fight or flight responses and remain stuck in a state of dorsal vagal shutdown all the time. Their nervous systems are unable to regulate by moving through the various physiological responses.
The Polyvagal theory lies at the heart of the work done by clinicians and therapists in the field of trauma. Most successful interventions for trauma patients involve activating the ventral vagal complex and boosting the function of the vagus nerve so that the nervous system can make the transitions smoothly and present a healthy and coherent response to perceived danger. The individual needs to eventually be able to process the traumatic experience – to reflect on, digest and integrate it.
Craniosacral therapy works directly with the vagus nerve, improving vagal tone and regulating the trauma response mounted by the nervous system, allowing the system to process the traumatic experience. Leading experts in the field of trauma, like the Dutch psychiatrist, researcher and educator, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk specifically recommend Craniosacral therapy as a bodywork that helps trauma victims.
Dr. Peter Levine, the celebrated therapist and developer of Somatic Experiencing, a widely used treatment for trauma, endorses Craniosacral therapy as a valuable tool to help the body to process trauma and to self-regulate after accessing and releasing the trauma stored in the physiology. He has himself received Craniosacral therapy and finds that it has helped him in his own journey of healing from trauma.
Dr. Gabor Mate, a physician and author known for his work on trauma and addiction has, in an interview, acknowledged the benefits of Craniosacral therapy in treating trauma, alongside other therapies like his Compassionate Inquiry, Internal Family Systems and Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing.
Craniosacral therapy is a useful tool in the treatment of trauma as it works directly with the vagus nerve to help the individual to regulate his or her nervous system. Psychotherapy or counselling alone cannot address and retrain the physiological response of the nervous system of a traumatised individual. Craniosacral therapy along with other therapies like psychotherapy, EMDR, EFT, movement therapies like Feldenkrais, art therapy, music therapy and theatre do help severely traumatised patients to integrate their experiences and make a full recovery.
Craniosacral therapy activates the social engagement system and the patient’s dysregulation is reduced as the nervous system co-regulates with the Craniosacral therapist’s nervous system. The Craniosacral therapist is trained to support the resonance between the two nervous systems and to foster co-regulation.
The following are some simple everyday activities and some other body-oriented therapies that activate the vagus nerve and support its function.
Recommended reading: The Body Keeps the Score – Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
To understand trauma in terms of the Polyvagal theory, watch https://youtu.be/uH5JQDAqA8E?si=TgTqq2N1QHxt4zNx
For more information on how Craniosacral therapy treats the following conditions, please refer to my separate blog post on each subject. Vagus nerve function is supported with Craniosacral therapy to treat each of these conditions .
Chronic pain conditions like IBS, migraine, fibromyalgia
Anxiety & depression
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease
The testimonial section contains reports of how Craniosacral therapy has benefitted a child who is on the autism spectrum, an adult who had chronic headaches, a patient who suffered from chronic fatigue and a patient who was treated after a physical assault for head trauma and related symptoms like dizziness and the jitters.
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