We’re going to take a deep dive into how the vagus nerve can help reduce pain and control inflammation. Joining us is Dr. Navaz Habib. He is a functional medicine practitioner, author and speaker who empowers his clients to dig a little bit deeper and find the answers to what’s holding back their health. His office, Health Upgraded, works with entrepreneurs, executives and professional athletes who want to take their health to a new level, allowing them to contribute and serve more people. Having gone through his own personal experiences with poor health and weight struggles, Dr. Habib is well-equipped to implement personalized recommendations for each of his clients in identifying the root causes of health imbalances and addressing them naturally. His patients experience optimal health the way their bodies were meant to feel and function. On this episode, Dr. Habib is going to take us into the structure, the physiology and the function of the vagus nerve.

To help you out with this episode, he’s included a great little cheat sheet called Activating Your Vagus Nerve. Inside this cheat sheet, he takes you on a journey of what you can do daily, weekly and monthly to activate your vagus nerve. This is great if you’re someone who struggles with chronic pain or inflammation. It’s also a great cheat sheet to provide your patients. If you’re a practitioner, this is something you want to get your hands on. To download this cheat sheet, all you have to do is text the word 148Download to the number 44222 or you can type in the URL IntegrativePainScienceInstitute.com/148download. I’ll send that right to your inbox for free. This episode is filled with take-home strategies that you can start to use either in your practice or for your personal health. If you’re an anatomy geek like me, it’s so much fun to talk about these topics and explore or revisit what the vagus nerve does and how it’s important in helping you with that parasympathetic response. Let’s begin and let’s meet Dr. Navaz Habib.

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We’re talking about Integrative Health Programs for mental wellbeing. Joining us is Dr. David Tomasi. He’s a psychotherapist, researcher and philosopher, as well the author of the bestselling book called Medical Philosophy and the co-author of a paper called Positive Patient Response to a Structured Exercise Program Delivered in Inpatient Psychiatry, which was published in 2019 in the Journal of Global Advances in Health and Medicine. It was also the most read research item from the University of Vermont. He’s a member of several National and International Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Tomasi works in the Inpatient Psychiatry Unit at UVM Medical Center, teaches at the University of Vermont and the Community College of Vermont. We’ll discuss how the combination of psychotherapy, nutrition and exercise together can help patients in an inpatient psychiatric facility. This is an important topic because approximately 50% of those with chronic pain also struggle with anxiety and depression, about 10% also struggled with PTSD and this episode, as well as podcasts in general, really dives into how we can integrate strategies, integrate different types of therapies and approaches to help people living with chronic pain. Let’s begin and let’s meet Dr. David Tomasi.

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We’re going to be talking about the co-occurrence of chronic pain in PTSD. In the general population, chronic pain and PTSD co-occur in about 10% of the cases. When we look at our population of veterans, 50% to 80% of those are PTSD also have chronic pain. This is an important topic with regard to the care of our veterans as well as for the practitioners who treat them. Joining us to discuss ACT chronic pain and PTSD is Dr. Matt Herbert. Matt is a research psychologist at the San Diego VA and an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego. His research interests include the study of the biopsychosocial factors related to pain perception and pain disability, as well as my infamous base approaches to pain management. Matt will discuss Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, chronic pain and PTSD, as well as his landmark paper, which can be found in Pain Medicine in 2019 called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Chronic Pain: Does Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Influence Treatment Outcomes?. Let’s begin and meet Dr. Matt Herbert.

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