The Sweet Spot

[MatthieuFrederickW]

I recently happened across this comment on Quora:

"You don't actually need any force to render yourself or another person unconscious. All you have to do is to apply very gentle pressure to the side of the neck a little below the angle of the jaw or even to lovingly stroke this place ( where you can easily feel a pulse) in a downward direction. If you maintain this light pressure on someone else's neck, they will remain unconscious ( and possibly die as their heart would slow down and stop). If you did the same to yourself, you will pass out in a matter of seconds, but as you do, your hand will come off the pressure point and you will recover instantly. Ever felt woozy or dizzy momentarily when you are shaving your face below the jaw with a downward stroke, you are causing yourself to faint. Now, why does it happen that way? There is a part of a nerve there which is called the vagus nerve with a pressure sensitive part there. If the pressure rises there, when you press above it, the vagus nerve orders the heart to slow down. A slow heart cannot push blood up into the brain, the brain suffers oxygen deficiency , and therefore, cannot function. Fatalities have occurred as a result of sustained pressure being applied during erotic recreation. Try not to prove me wrong."

Could this be the actual sweet spot to losing consciousness, or this area needs to also be compressed along with the carotids? It Doesn't really make sense that there's a lot of failed attempts if it's really that simple, with just light pressure on the sides of the neck below angle of mandible(vagus nerve), to lose consciousness. Who knows…

 

[UltimateTrip]

Here is an interesting article titled "Death by Stimulation of the Left Vagus Nerve in a Case of Neck Grasping in a Healthy Young Man".

 

[JesiBel]

By placing the ligature under the jaw (more or less at the height of the Hyoid Bone), it is possible to compress the vagus nerve (in addition to the jugular veins and carotid arteries).

"Vagus nerve compression may produce instantaneous cardiac arrest with cessation of blood flow to the brain and resultant loss of consciousness.
This event would produce unconsciousness in less than the time period of 11 seconds of carotid artery occlusion (although the brain continues to survive for several minutes thereafter despite cessation of heart beat)."

As is often seen in some hanging videos when the rope starts compressing their necks, they very quickly become unconscious.

Several mechanisms can work together in death by hanging:

1) Obstruction to carotid arterial flow
2) Obstruction of jugular venous return
3) Vagal inhibition/stimulation
4) Airway occlusion

Cervical part of vagus nerve

"After leaving the skull through the jugular foramen, the vagus nerve descends in the neck. It is covered by the carotid sheath and goes through the neck together with the internal carotid artery and the internal jugular vein. Further, it travels between the common carotid artery and the internal jugular vein, going posteriorly to the mentioned blood vessels."