The Vagus Nerve: God's Hidden System for Peace

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Have you ever wondered why singing worship songs or praying aloud makes you feel physically better? There's a fascinating neurological reason behind it, and it's all part of God's incredible design for your well-being.

The vagus nerve—running from your brainstem through your face, vocal cords, heart, lungs, and digestive system—is your body's built-in peace activator. Research shows that singing and praying aloud are two of the most powerful ways to stimulate this nerve, releasing calm throughout your entire being. It's biological proof of what scripture has always taught: expressing worship isn't just spiritually beneficial—it physically transforms your body.

When Paul and Silas were imprisoned in Acts 16, they didn't just silently hope for rescue. They sang hymns, literally activating God's designed pathways for peace in their darkest moment. Their breakthrough wasn't just spiritual; it was neurological. Similarly, when you're battling anxiety or negative thought patterns, staying silent gives those thoughts power. Breaking the silence through declaration, worship, and prayer disrupts the enemy's grip and releases God's peace into your physical body.

For those called to create, there's even more good news. Studies show that just 45 minutes of creative activity significantly lowers stress hormones—even in people who don't consider themselves artists. When you create, you're not just expressing yourself; you're tapping into the image of God within you, activating divine pathways for healing and wholeness.

Ready to experience the full power of God's design for your well-being? Start by using your voice. Pray aloud, worship with abandon, and speak God's promises over your life. Your creativity isn't just a gift—it's medicine for your spirit, soul, and body. Subscribe to the Thriving Christian Artist podcast to discover more ways to align with God's design for your creative calling.

References:

• Porges, S.W. (2010). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
• Zaccaro, A., et al. (2018). How Breath-Control Can Change Your Life: A Systematic Review on Psycho-Physiological Correlates of Slow Breathing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
• Newberg, A., et al. (2006). Neural correlates of glossolalia (praying in tongues): The measurement of regional cerebral blood flow during glossolalia. University of Pennsylvania study; also cited in How God Changes Your Brain (2009).
• Francis, L.J., & Robbins, M. (2003). Personality and glossolalia: A study among Pentecostal ministers. Journal of Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
• Kaimal, G., Ray, K., & Muniz, J. (2016). Reduction of Cortisol Levels and Participants’ Responses Following Art Making. Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art Therapy Association.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So what if I told you that God designed your worship,
your prayers, even yourcreativity, to be used by Him to
have the power to heal not justyour spirit but your body and
mind too?
You know science is finallycatching up to what the Bible
has taught us all along thatwhen you lift your voice and
sing and align your heart withGod's Word, something incredible

(00:20):
happens in your whole being.
Today, we're diving into thispowerful connection between
faith, neuroscience andcreativity today on the Thriving
Christian Artist podcast.
Welcome to the ThrivingChristian Artist, the podcast
where we hope you connect withGod to bust through the
roadblocks that have held youback for years, create the work
you love and really live thelife.

(00:42):
You know God created you tolive as an artist in his kingdom
.
I'm Matt Tommey, your host.
Let's get started.
Well, hey there, my friend, soglad that you're with me on the
podcast today.
You know today is going to be,I hope, packed with
encouragement for you, as we'retalking about how God
specifically designed a spirit,soul and body to thrive as the

(01:04):
people that he's called us to be.
You know I love neuroscienceand I love the connection
between that and renewing ourmind and just living the way
that God created us to live, andone of the most fascinating
things that I'm finding out inmy own journey is that it
happens this whole renewing yourmind thing and really thriving.
It happens through somethingthat we call the vagus nerve.

(01:27):
Now, don't be too scared ifyou're not scientific I'm going
to explain all this, but by someresearch is a lot smarter than
I am.
But this vagus nerve actuallyis something that runs through
your brainstem, down throughyour face, your vocal cords,
your heart, your lungs and evenyour digestive system, and it's
a part of what they call theparasympathetic nervous system,

(01:48):
which is what allows your bodyto kind of calm down and recover
when anything's going on, youknow, in your life.
So super, super important.
Here's what the amazing takeawayis for us.
It's amazing that researchactually shows two of the best
ways to stimulate this nerve inyour body is and also, when you
do that, it releases peace andbalance in your body Right.

(02:11):
Two of the best ways to do thatare actually singing and
praying out loud.
I'm like I love it, I love it,I love it.
In fact, I had a friend of mineyears ago who was going through
some lung issues and some vocalissues and even some cancer
issues with all that.
And the doctor told him he said, one of the best things that

(02:31):
you can do to actually heal yourbody during this time and heal
your lungs was guess what?
To sing sing the song thatGod's put in you.
Oh, I love it, I love it, Ilove it, I love it.
Dr Stephen Porges, who developedthe polyvagal theory, actually
explains that the vagus nervecontrols the muscles in your
face, your vocal cords, yourheart and your lungs.

(02:53):
And so the cool thing is thatwhen you lift your voice to the
Lord in prayer or in worship orin praise, you're not just
expressing your love for him,your faith, you're literally
activating God's built-in systemin your body to release peace
and release joy and releasebalance in your life.
And I don't know about you, butto me that is just so

(03:15):
incredible.
I love it when science confirmsthe things that we already know
.
In the kingdom of God from hisword, it just is like bringing
more and more faith to my lifeand my heart to walk in the
kingdom of God from his word.
It just is like bringing moreand more faith to my my life and
my heart to walk in the thingsthat God's told us.
Now listen, of course, all ofthis is no surprise to us, right
?
Because God told us long beforescience ever figured this out.

(03:37):
He told us, like in Psalm 39,14, one 39, 14, it says I will
praise you for I'm fearfully andwonderfully made.
Now that word praise you mayknow, like from the seven Hebrew
words for praise is actuallyYadah in Hebrew, which means to
throw out your hands in worshipand in Thanksgiving.
In other words, it's sort ofthis expressive, vocal

(04:00):
embodiment of worship.
Right, it's not just happeningin your head, it's happening
with your whole body.
I'm reminded in Acts 16, youknow, when Paul and Silas were
in the jail, right, they'rebeaten up, chained up in a dark
prison.
What did they start doing?
Did they just start thinkingabout they would hope that God
would rescue them?
Did they just start journalingabout it?
No, they actually, out of theirmouth, began to sing and pray.

(04:23):
They sang hymns to God.
Right, they didn't just sitthere, they didn't just think
good thoughts, they didn't justhope that things would change,
they actually lifted their voice.
And I believe that not onlybrought spiritual breakthrough
and peace to them, but itbrought physical peace and
breakthrough to them as well intheir bodies.
I love it in Philippians 4, 6,and 7.

(04:44):
It tells us don't be anxiousfor anything, but in every
situation, by prayer andpetition, with thanksgiving,
what, present your request toGod.
Now, what happens when you dothat?
What happens when you presentthrough prayers and petitions
and thanksgiving, what happenswhen you present those to God?
The peace of God will guardyour heart and mind.

(05:05):
In other words, when you speakout your prayers, when you bring
these prayers and petitionsbefore the Lord with a thankful
heart, what happens?
Peace is the thing that showsup, peace is the fruit.
Now it's even more interesting,you know, as somebody who
believes in the baptism of theHoly Spirit and believes in
praying in the Spirit, prayingin tongues.

(05:26):
I think this even takes thisunderstanding of how the vagus
nerve and our nervous systemrespond.
There's a neuroscientist,actually Dr Andrew Newberg, and
he did a study on brains and thebrains of believers.
Actually, he did a study onbrains and the brains of

(05:46):
believers, actually, and whenthey were scanned while they
were praying in tongues, hefound that the frontal lobe of
their brain, that is, you know,the part of the brain that
controls your language andself-awareness and all that kind
of thing.
It actually quieted down whenthey were praying in the spirit.
The interesting thing is aboutthat, I think, that these
participants that he wasstudying it said that they felt

(06:07):
a deep peace and spiritualconnection.
And another study around thissame topic found that people who
regularly pray in the spiritexperience lower stress and
greater emotional well-being.
Now, again, this is something weknow from God's word, right 1
Corinthians 14 talks about, forif I pray in a tongue, my spirit

(06:27):
prays right and myunderstanding is unfruitful.
In other words, you may notunderstand what's going on in
your cognitive brain.
The Bible says in those sameverses he who speaks in a tongue
what he who speaks in a tongueedifies himself.
So when you pray in the spirit,you're actually building
yourself up again spiritually,emotionally and physically.

(06:51):
Now I just want to keepbuilding on this today because
again I'm trying to bring to youthe fact that when you engage
in the spiritual practices thatwe have been practicing as
Christians for hundreds and evena couple of thousand years,
these things don't just havespiritual impact.
They have physical impact on us, but guess what?

(07:13):
They also have spiritual impactin a big way, because one of
the enemy's main strategies andI know, this has happened in my
life and probably in yours aswell.
One of his main strategies is tokeep us stuck in our own head.
He loves to try to trap us incycles of fear and anxiety and
worry and those sort of you know, tormenting, exhausting

(07:38):
internal movies that kind offeel like they're playing on
repeat over and over and overand over again.
Why does he do that?
Well, here's the deal as longas you and I stay silent and
everything is kept on the inside, he absolutely has the power to
keep you bound up.
But guess what?
The second that you begin toopen your mouth, when you pray,

(07:59):
when you sing, when you declarethe word of God out loud, guess
what?
Boom, it breaks the grip of theenemy over your life.
It disrupts the lies that he'strying to sow in your life and
it releases the peace and thepower and the presence of God
into your life.
And isn't it interesting?
I think you know the Bible saysthe enemy is the prince of the

(08:20):
power of the air.
But when we speak our words out,right, the spoken word of God,
when we speak it out into theair, they carry not just
positive intentions for us, notjust good thoughts.
No, they carry the authorityand the life and the light of
God.
You know Proverbs 18, 21,.
You've heard me say it a lot oftimes power of life and death

(08:42):
are where In the tongue.
So get this in your heart rightnow.
Your words are not justextraneous little things that
don't matter.
Your words are not just noise.
They are spiritual weapons,real spiritual weapons that
God's given us, especially whenthey contain the living, active
and powerful word of God, whichit only has the power to defeat

(09:06):
the enemy and to bring realchange.
Again, we're not just talkingabout positive thinking, we're
not just talking about new agescientific mumbo jumbo.
We're talking about combiningthe word of God with the natural
processes that God's alreadyput into our body to not only
defeat the enemy but also bringbreakthrough and change and
peace and joy and fulfillment toour heart.

(09:29):
So listen, when you're just, youknow I deal with the same
things you deal with.
So when you're in a situationwhere fear and anxiety is
starting to creep in and rise upin your heart, and when the
enemy's, you know, shootingthose fiery darts at you about
who you're called to be and whatyou're called to do, and he
starts whispering those lies,darts at you about who you're
called to be and what you'recalled to do, and he starts
whispering those lies.
Don't just sit there, don'tjust go down the rabbit hole,

(09:49):
don't just get all stuck up inyour head.
That's it.
Listen, that's exactly where hewants you.
You've got to learn to trainyourself to open your mouth.
Begin to worship, begin to pray.
Begin to pray in the spirit,begin to declare the promises of
God, the word of God.
That's how you push back thedarkness.
That's how you know.

(10:10):
The Bible says resist the enemyand he'll flee.
That's how you resist the enemyand that's how you start
experiencing breakthrough andcultivating this atmosphere of
breakthrough in your life Again,not just spiritually, but
spirit, soul and body.
Now I just want to take this toone other level for us as
artists, because research showsthat creative activities whether

(10:34):
it's your painting, weaving,dancing, writing you know,
whatever you're doing thosecreative activities have the
power to lower stress levels andbring healing as well, to be
used as a tool by the Lord.
There's a study in art therapy,actually, that found that just
45 minutes of creative worklowers cortisol and the stress

(10:57):
hormone, and even in people whodid not consider themselves
artists.
Why?
Because God gave us creativity,not only as a way to engage him
and encounter his presence andto release his life and life,
but also to bring healing andpeace and joy to us.
You're creating.
Listen, we know this right.
We know that when we create,we're tapping into something

(11:19):
that's much greater thanourselves.
We're tapping into the natureof God and the image of God in
our life.
I mean in Genesis 1, 27,.
He tells us we're tapping intothe nature of God and the image
of God in our life.
I mean in Genesis 1, 27,.
He tells us we're made in hisimage, the image of the ultimate
creative God.
Right In Exodus 31,.
You've heard me say it amillion times.
You know, bezalel was bothfilled with the spirit of God
and skilled in every manner ofworkmanship.

(11:41):
So when you're stepping intothat place of your creative
calling, doing the thing thatGod designed and assigned you to
do on this earth and in thisrealm, when you do that, you are
intentionally aligning withGod's design and assignment for
your life, and that's powerful.
Listen, when you do things whenI do things God's way, whether

(12:04):
it's worshiping or praying ordeclaring or creating or
resisting the enemy or whateverit is, you're stepping into the
flow of the kingdom.
You're stepping into life theway he intended, and when you do
that, and when I do that, weget to reap the fruit of peace
and wholeness and transformation.
Listen, god's not holding thosethings back from you.

(12:26):
You just have not learned howthe kingdom of God is designed
to work in your life.
And when you learn to alignyourself with how God designed
change to happen God designedbreakthrough to happen again
from the inside out, based inhis word, led by his spirit,
that's when you can begin toexperience peace and wholeness
and joy and fulfillment andlasting transformation in your

(12:49):
life.
So listen, I know this was a lottoday, but just as a takeaway,
I want you to realize God hasalready given you the powerful
tools and processes inside ofyou that you need to thrive.
Right your voice, your worship,your prayers, your creativity,
his words and, again, thesespiritual disciplines, this

(13:13):
training yourself right.
They are the weapons that Godhas used and uses in our life.
When we choose to pick up thesword of his word, to lean into
the leadership of his spirit, tospeak it out of our mouth, he's
given us the power toexperience breakthrough.
And so listen when you'refeeling overwhelmed and anxious,

(13:33):
and all this stuff.
Do not, please do not go downthe rabbit hole of isolation.
Lift up your voice right, beginto declare who God's called you
to be, because when you do that, when you lean into his
presence, empowered by hisspirit, that's when your
emotions are going to shift,because you're aligning your

(13:55):
whole entire being, spirit, souland body, inside and outside.
You're aligning it with thepeace and presence of God.
Jesus, I pray right now that youwould use this episode today,
god, to wake us up in the spirit, to realize that we're not just
these people that are sittinghere like a bump on the log

(14:16):
waiting for heaven, but God.
You have invested and installedyour kingdom inside of us as a
divine blueprint for life andliving, and you have given us
physical systems, god, in ourlife, that when we combine those
with the truth of your kingdom,they have the power to release
healing and freedom andbreakthrough, not only in us but

(14:38):
through us, so that we can beambassadors and ministers of
reconciliation and healing inthe lives of others.
God, I pray that by the spirittoday, you would wake us up,
resonate within us and give usgreater faith, or to step into
these incredible processes thatyou've already put inside of us.
We thank you for that, lord, inJesus name.

(14:59):
Amen.
Hey friend, listen.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast today.
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(15:21):
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I love you.
I hope you'll join me again andremember until next time you
were created to thrive.
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(15:44):
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(16:05):
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Thank you.