For the last 30 days I’ve been zapping my left ear with electricity. Did it hurt? Sometimes.
Was it worth it?
Totally!
I’m a big fan of biohacking and Bryan Johnson is one of the best known people in the industry. While I don’t agree with some of his practices (and the cult-like approach), I do appreciate him doing so much testing on himself.
Especially since some of his tests backfire (like the infamous rapamycin one).
In his Netflix documentary, one device in particular caught my attention. It was a small neuromodulator that you attach to the tragus of your left ear. (It’s that little part that sticks out on the opposite side of the earlobe.)
By pulsing into that point with low-current electricity, it stimulates your vagus nerve.
What is the vagus nerve?
The vagus nerve is like a communication highway between your brain and your body. It helps control things like your heart rate, digestion, mood, and how calm or stressed you feel. That makes it one of the most important nerves in your body.
It starts in your brain and travels all the way down your neck into your chest and stomach. It’s part of your parasympathetic nervous system, which helps calm your body down after stress. That’s why it’s often called the “rest and digest” nerve. But the importance is in what it does.
This nerve controls a lot of automatic things your body does. Things like slowing the heart rate, helping with food digestion, and even controlling the breathing.
It also sends signals from your body back to your brain, helping your brain know how your body is doing.
Why shock it?
Sending some gentle electric pulses to it, is like a gentle signal that tells your nervous system to relax. This pulse activates the “rest and digest” system, which helps lower stress, slow your heart rate, and bring your body into a more balanced state.
The electric pulse works by exciting the nerve just enough to trigger activity in certain brain areas linked to calmness and focus. It’s not painful at most settings. Just feels like a light tingling. Over time, with regular use, this stimulation can help train your nervous system to respond better to stress, improve your heart rate variability (HRV), and even boost your mood or sleep.
Like a gentle reminder to your body to chill out and work more smoothly. In our rapid, over-stressed environment this couldn’t have been more necessary.
My main goal: HRV
HRV stands for heart rate variability. It’s a little delay (in miliseconds) between your heartbeats.
A higher HRV usually means your body is flexible and good at handling stress. It can switch easily between being active and being relaxed.
A lower HRV might mean your body is more stressed, tired, or not recovering well. If you drink alcohol or abuse other substances, the HRV usually drops significantly the next day. Another way of knowing what’s not good for you.
My HRV
My average nightly HRV hovers around 95ms. It’s on the higher end of people my age, but I want to improve it to be over 120 constantly. It’s best to measure it over the course of the night, as during the day the data can be pretty noisy.
Deep breathing exercises can push me temporarily into the 220+ ms zone, but the idea is to have a higher baseline, not just peaks sometimes.
You can use the Apple Watch „mindfullness” app to stimulate it through breathing. Just launch the breating meditation for at least 3 minutes and follow along. If you do it consistently, your HRV will also raise.
I do both this, and the Nurosym device stimulation.
Athletes, people tracking their mental health, and even doctors use HRV to understand how well the body is coping. It’s also one of the primary metrics the Whoop Band is using to calculate your recovery.
One month of shocks
I’ve been using the Nurasym device for about a month now. It’s fairly simple, you pick the duration (in minutes) and the “power” level. I usually do 2 x 30 minute sessions.
As for power, it differs. The idea is to slightly increase the output before starting, to feel a slight tingling. You don’t want to set it too high, as then it’s really not much fun. Pretty uncomfortable bordering on painful.
It also changes day to day. On some days I feel the tingling at 31/45 power. On others 23 is completely enough.
I started with a gradual increase in both time and power. The first week was mostly about 15 minutes at 15 power, but I barely felt anything. Getting to that “almost uncomfortable” threshold finally changed things.
Outcomes
My nightly HRV has incrased by about 12% in that month. I also get about 15% more deep and REM sleep at night. Can’t say if I feel objectively calmer because of that, but there may be something to it as well.
Higher HRV improved recovery, which boosted my other fitness gains in the month. I exercise less with better effects now.
As you can see I had a decrease in HRV due to too many workouts since the start of the year. Starting this therapy reversed the trend completely.
Should you get one?
There are multiple devices on the market. I went with Nurasym, as it seems to be the most widely reviewed out there. And sure, most testimonials sound a bit “forced”, but that’s normal nowadays in ecommerce.
At $600 it’s not a cheap device by any means. Especially given how simple it really is. If your HRV/performance increase feel worth $600, I’d go for it right away though.
Calming you down can also help with anxiety and other mental states, although I wouldn’t count on a miracle. Just some form of improvement. In my case it was mostly the HRV, better sleep and slightly better workout outcomes.
And those things alone make the investment worth it. Especially since it’s a one time payment. Yeah – no subscription to zap your ear every day. Whew! We’re really in a crazy world with everything being a subscription. Even your matress. I’m still reluctant on EightSleep because of that.
Which one to get?
There may be some cheaper devices on the market. Given how it’s just about a certain frequency electric current, I think going for some cheaper ones can also work. Just make sure they don’t exceed the pain threshold.
Some of these effects can also be achieved through a simple breathing exercise. Inhaling deep through the nose and exhaling slowly through the mouth. The breathing effects however take months to compound. With the ear-zapping I got a tangilble result after just two weeks.
I’ll keep you posted how high I can take my HRV with it.
You can also watch a video of my HRV improvements here:
