By Chloe Hill

Take a deep breath. Seriously. Deep controlled breathing is a simple way to promote calm and relaxation.

When you breathe using your diaphragm, your diaphragm stimulates the vagus nerve which is the longest cranial nerve in the body extending from the brainstem to the abdomen by way of the heart, esophagus and lungs. The vagus nerve works in conjunction with the parasympathetic nervous system which, along with the sympathetic nervous system is a branch of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nervous system operates involuntarily within our bodies to regulate functions such as heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate and pupillary response.

The sympathetic nervous system initiates the fight or flight response and is considered to be the accelerator, for example, speeding the heart rate and breathing.

The parasympathetic nervous system initiates a “rest and digest” or “feed and breed” response and counteracts the sympathetic nervous system by calming and decelerating our system, for example, slowing the heart rate and breathing, lowering blood pressure and relaxing the muscles. Electrical stimulation also called Vagus Nerve Stimulation or VNS is sometimes used to treat people suffering from depression and epilepsy.

When you use deep, controlled diaphragmatic breathing you are naturally stimulating the vagus nerve which promotes the relaxation response.

We’ve designed The TruRest to promote this type of breathing so that you can relax on an airplane, in a café, or wherever you need some peace of mind.