Bad Breath Halitosis Forum

I have seen people talking about hiatal hernia being a cause of bb and I wanted to share something I read recently in the topic of physical therapy. Now, some people might write this off as pseudoscience and I don't wanna get anyone's hopes up for no reason so judge for yourselves. Ik most of us are willing to try anything.
So, I was recently reading a book called Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve by Stanley Rosenburg. In it, he describes a few self help exercises for restoring function to your ventral vagus nerve and also some conditions which he notes are common in those who experience nervous dysfunction and how improving nerve function can help them. Lucky for some of yall he mentions hiatal hernia and even includes an exercise that he found helps those with it! This was the first time I heard about hiatal hernia but reading the description, I couldn't help wondering if it could be a factor in bb.
So the exercise for hiatal hernia is this:
Place the fingertips of one hand lightly over where your stomach is. You should be able to feel the stomach if you lightly press in. Only feel the top part and don't cause yourself pain. Stop if you feel pain.
Gently push downwards towards your feet until you feel some slight resistance. This may be after about an inch or half an inch.
Hold it there. You don't need to exert force. The exercise is for communicating to your nerves to move your eosophagus to the right position not stretching something inside.
I believe your fingers should be at the top of your stomach.
You might sigh, swallow, yawn, cry wtv. And it should feel easier to breathe afterwards.
There's also another exercise for improving nerve function in general:
Lie down and interlock your fingers. Put your hands behind your head around the occipital region. (Here, with a very gentle touch and knowing what to look for, you can feel muscles moving with the movement of your eyes)
Don't move your head and just using your eyes, look to the right for 30 seconds or until you yawn/sigh then do the same on the left.
So that's it. I know it might not be the fix many of us need but I think it could be helpful and I hope yall benefit something from this if you try it!

Hi @peaceandlove.
I found this post as i was looking for any info and posts on the vagus nerve. I just discovered the vagus nerve today as i was doing research on gut motility. I had never heard of the vagus nerve before. I stumbled across the vagus nerve while I searched up techniques or alternative medications that help with gut motility.
I read about Peristasis (muscle contractions that help digest food and move it across the body) and Gastroparesis (a motility disorder of the stomach where there is a delay in the stomach’s ability to empty into the small intestine…it is often a chronic disorder).
Symptoms of Gastroparesis includes: decreased appetite, nausea, vomitting, reflux, abdominal pain, bloating, fullness, early satiety (feeling full quickly), BAD BREATH, weight loss.
All this eventually lead me to the Vagus nerve.
It is possible that issues with the vagus nerve is causing issues with gut motility, therefore causing food to stay stagnant in our stomachs, and so causing our BB.
When the vagus nerve is inflamed, symptoms include: reflux, bloating, constipation, heart rate fluctuations, anxiety, dizziness, chronic neck/shoulder pain, swallowing difficulties, voice changes (hoarseness), and severe fatigue.

Do you have any more input on how to stimulate the vagus nerve?

What’s also interesting, there’s also breathing exercises to help the vagus nerve. I’ve seen ppl post about breathing exercises to help with BB. Maybe what it’s really helping is the vagus nerve.

Hi. Thank you for your reply! This is actually a topic I'm very interested in and I plan to do more reading when I'm done with my finals as that's what I'm busy with rn. Unfortunately, I haven't done much research into the topic lately. I think you can find some book recommendations from the YouTube channel Neal Hallinan, that's where I first heard of the book I mentioned in my op. Actually, there is a topic I'm equally interested in and that I believe is deeply related: fascia and facial release so I would recommend you look into that.
A lot of what I learned helps with the Vagus Nerve actually helps with fascia, too. For example, the Chinese practice called qi gong. I agree with your theory of Vagus Nerve dysfunction possibly being connected to bb, because I've been able to enjoy a relatively normal life the past month and I believe that can be partly attributed to the fact that I started doing qi gong this April. It relaxes both your Vagus Nerve and your fascia. I would recommend looking into a technique called rolfing, which i hear is also good for fascia release (tho i would vouch for qi gong first). Also, postural restoration.
All these are deeply connected, at least imo. I think the Vagus dysfunction may arise from some sort of trauma, your body goes into dorsal vagal shut down, outwardly your posture and/or health declines as your fascia gets stuck, etc etc. Your fascia can also hold your body in the position it assumed as a result of the state of your nervous system and they have a sort of cyclical effect on each other, as I understand it. For example, a person's diaphragm may be insufficient to pull in air when they're in dorsal vagal shut down, so their body assumes a "forward neck posture" to improve airflow, which puts the branches of the Vagus Nerve at the back of your neck (occipital region) in an unideal position. iirc, this is expounded on in the book I mentioned in the op.
Your mental state is important too ofc. Dorsal vagal shutdown correlates with things like depression and freeze state, your mental state has an effect on your fascia and so on. There's a YouTube channel called Tracy Rodriguez which you might find helpful. Also, an American institution called PRI. And in general, improving your flexibility may help too. But i digress (quite lengthily, sorry lol).
As for the breathing techniques, yes I've also heard these r connected! Again, I really need to do more research on the topic but I think you could start with a book called Breathe by James Nestor. It introduced me to a lot, including more eastern practices: Buddhist and Hindu breathing techniques (I'm at risk of sounding pseoudoscientific here again lol but judge for yourself ofc). Also, look into improving your diaphragmatic breathing, it's honestly surprising and concerning how many of us walk around breathing incorrectly. The diaphragm is connected to the Vagus nerve and along with the lungs, is part of the fascial front line iirc.
While researching these (connected) topics i read a Korean study on using flat mouth splints to improve posture. It's possibly the best study out there on that. Myofascial techniques that help teach people to breathe better are useful too. One myofascial technique that's mentioned in the book called Breathe that i mentioned above and that you've probably heard of, is "mewing". It's said to improve the shape of your airways, which I'm inclined to believe.
To start another tangent, the whole thing with qi gong got me interested in traditional chinese medicine as a whole and i would say the symptoms for something called damp or yang deficit are quite similar to candida overgrowth. I've been using this as a guide on how to deal with my symptoms and things have greatly improved. I looked online, including this site, and there are some success stories involving chinese medicine.
Anyways, im quite a rambler but I hope some of this info is useful to you