Puffing your cheeks while breathing slowly can relax your jaw and feel pleasant — but it's not the same as the 'diving reflex,' which does trigger a real vagal response, and which needs cold on the face, not just pressure.

noli's read

There is a real, documented reflex connecting the face to the vagus nerve: the trigeminocardiac reflex (used clinically, e.g., in neurosurgery, and related to the 'diving reflex' that slows the heart) — stimulating the trigeminal nerve (facial sensation) can trigger a vagal bradycardia response. But that reflex is typically triggered by cold water on the face plus breath-holding, not simply puffing your cheeks with warm air under muscular pressure. The video takes a real mechanism (the trigeminal-vagal connection exists) and applies it to a gesture (cheek pressure) that hasn't been studied as a trigger for that reflex — that's extrapolation, not evidence. It's plausible the exercise relaxes the jaw and face locally, and that slowing your breathing alongside it adds a generic calming effect already documented elsewhere, but the specific claim of a 'signal sent through the vagus nerve pathway' via cheek pressure has no direct support. Verdict: unproven — the trigeminal-vagal connection is real in other contexts, but not demonstrated for this specific gesture.

the sources

No named source held this one up — that absence is part of the verdict.