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Exercises: can anyone explain this phenomenon? — 8 Comments

  1. No idea why the eye movements help but lots of people have a pronounced connection between their GI tract and their brain. It’s so common that it’s a cliche. The most extreme manifestation is experiencing a really disturbing sight followed immediately by ‘tossing their cookies’…

  2. Whatever gets you through the night. One person’s gobbledygook may be a lady behind an apple’s cure. If it works, it works. Placebos work. And I have found that a few homeopathic medicines work. Its a mystery.

  3. It’s not rocket science (although there are certainly an infinitude more discoveries to be made about the weird and wonderful things going on inside our bodies).

    Google Gut-Brain Connection, Enteric Nervous System, and Vagus Nerve.

    In particular read the Wikipedia article on the path the vagus nerve takes through your neck.

    This public service announcement brought to you by Consolidated TrumpBots of Hong Kong and the Letter K.

  4. I grew up with Meniere’s disease which is an inner ear condition causing attacks of vertigo and nausea, much like motion sickness. When in my early thirties it became severe enough to be evaluated by a specialist at a teaching hospital. It ties in with your experience that the diagnosis involved placing electrodes around my eyes to record eye movements while warm then cold water was run into my ear canals to induce the vertigo and, of course, the nausea. Until that point I hadn’t associated eye movements with the vertigo and nausea.

  5. Why does this exercise with the head and neck work. Simple really when you recall that even though, when it comes to the nervous system, we are all wired in a similar fashion we are not all wired in the exact same fashion…. and that…

    Thigh bone connected to the hip bone
    Hip bone connected to the back bone
    Back bone connected to the shoulder bone
    Shoulder bone connected to the neck bone
    Neck bone connected to the head bone
    Now hear the word of the Lord.

  6. Re: gut-brain connection… I think there’s more serotonin in the GI than in the brain. The GI system is so interesting and I think we’re on the verge of learning a lot about it and possible interactions with the CNS, so the connection you’re observing probably is based on an undiscovered set of facts.

    Eye movements – my Pilates instructor uses them in our exercises. I’m not sure how ‘pure’ Pilates it is since she teaches yoga, but there IS something to it. I have no idea what, but there’s a notable difference when we incorporate the eye movements as opposed to when we don’t.

    I went to a relaxation / meditation class this week and we did a couple of eye movement only exercises. They left me feeling ‘different’.

    One issue is that such things are very New Age-y, so internet research is difficult. There’s a lot of research on exercise and yoga, so I would think within a couple of years we should get *some* info.

  7. Yes, there is an obvious connection between gut peristaltic and activity of nervus vagus, which can be seriously activated by some head movements due to close proximity of different branches of this nerve to neck anatomy (vertebra and muscles involved in head movement). And this is not “yoga-like” exercises: this is yoga itself, at least a small portion of it.

  8. Eye movements can also stimulate nervus vagus and are used for this effect in some schools of Yoga and Zen.

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