Ever feel like you’re switching between being a live wire and super flat? Yeah, me too.
I dealt with chronic stress for many years due to trauma, a sensitive disposition, bullying, and learned experiences from my very anxious parents and extended family. I rarely felt safe, and things got so bad that for many years, I was stuck. Either in sympathetic overdrive, where I just felt anxious and wired all the time, or in dorsal vagal shutdown—stuck in freeze mode, where I was drained and flat.
Though I didn’t even know those terms back then, I just knew that I’d either be rushing around with shaky hands and a racing heart, focused on the future and feeling constant anxiety, or feeling flat and completely wiped out, unable to even get off the couch. It was an exhausting see-saw, and I wanted off.
What I know now, that I didn’t know then, is that the vagus nerve—the longest cranial nerve—is the main controller of the rest-and-digest state, helping you relax and feel balanced. At the time, mine was not working super well. But I learned that when your vagus nerve is strong and healthy, it can make a big difference in how calm and well you feel.
The best part? There are easy things you can do to improve vagal tone, which can help increase your resilience to stress and feel more balanced!
Today, we’re doing a deep dive into all things vagus nerve: what it is, what it does, and how we can improve vagal tone to feel better, stress less, and live more.
What Is the Vagus Nerve?
The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve. The name “vagus” actually comes from the Latin word vagus, which means “wandering” or “wanderer.”
This is super fitting because the vagus nerve literally wanders all over your body. It starts in your brainstem and travels down through your neck, branching out to connect to your heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, and other major organs
As the vagus nerve is a critical part of your autonomic nervous system, so let’s cover that briefly:
Your autonomic nervous system has two main branches:
- Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) — the classic “fight or flight” mode.
- It’s activated when you’re stressed, anxious, in danger, or even just overwhelmed.
- It ramps up your heart rate, increases blood pressure, slows digestion, heightens alertness—all so you’re ready to face a threat.
- Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS) — the “rest and digest” mode.
- This is your body’s calm-down system.
- It slows your heart rate, lowers blood pressure, supports digestion, and helps you relax, recover, and restore energy.
The vagus nerve is the driving force behind the parasympathetic nervous system. It’s the main nerve responsible for turning on that rest-and-digest response.
You can think of it as your body’s “stress brake.” The vagus nerve counteracts the sympathetic nervous system’s acceleration. When your body experiences stress, it’s the job of your sympathetic nervous system to speed things up (faster heart rate, quicker breathing, etc.). It’s the vagus nerve that provides a counterbalance by slowing all of these functions back down once the threat has passed.
It’s also a bit like a sophisticated security system—constantly monitoring both the internal and external environment for signs of safety or danger. Your vagus nerve actually sends about 80% of information from the body to the brain, and only about 20% from the brain to the body. It’s gathering intel on whether you should be in a state of alert or if you can relax.
This is why vagal tone is so important—good vagal tone means your brake system works effectively to help you recover from stress.
How Chronic Stress Impairs Vagal Tone
When you’re chronically stressed—whether that’s from work, money, relationships—your body leans hard into the sympathetic nervous system (that fight-or-flight mode).
The problem is that over time, the vagus never loses its ability to “switch gears”, which in science parlance is called low vagal tone. This means that your vagus nerve isn’t as responsive or efficient at activating the parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) system.
Basically:
Chronic stress = foot on the gas pedal, no brake.
What Happens When Vagal Function Is Weak?
When your vagal tone is low, your body struggles to hit the brakes after stress.
That means:
- Your heart rate stays elevated longer.
- Stress hormones like cortisol keep pumping.
- You feel anxious, wired, or “on edge” even when the threat (big meeting, tough convo, unexpected email) is long gone.
It’s like getting caught in a stress loop—your body and brain aren’t getting the signal to calm down. This leads to something called Sympathetic Dominance, where without vagal braking, you get stuck in a sympathetic fight-or-flight state. This can lead to anxiety, racing thoughts, plus sleep and digestive problems.
However, others fall into Dorsal Vagal Shutdown, where they collapse into a dorsal vagal freeze state, with symptoms like brain fog, dissociation, and a feeling of wanting to give up.
Some people, like me, experience erratic switching, bouncing between these states unpredictably, making it difficult to maintain equilibrium.
Signs of Vagal Dysfunction: When the Stress-Relief System Isn’t Working Right
The vagus nerve helps regulate your body’s stress response, so when it’s not functioning well, it can show up in three key areas:
1. Physical Symptoms:
- Digestive Issues: Trouble with bloating, constipation, or slow digestion.
- Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Problems: Low vagal tone = low HRV, which means your heart rate doesn’t adjust well after stress.
2. Emotional/Psychological Signs:
- Anxiety: Difficulty calming down after stress, staying “on edge.”
- Shutdown Responses: Symptoms like brain fog, dissociation, and a feeling of wanting to give up.
3. Behavioral Patterns:
- Difficulty Relaxing: Trouble winding down after stress, with a heightened state of alertness.
- Social Withdrawal: Avoiding social situations due to discomfort or feeling disconnected.
In short: If your vagus nerve isn’t working well, it can mess with your digestion, emotions, and behavior. Recognizing these signs is the first step toward getting your stress-relief system back on track.
Science-Based Benefits of Healthy Vagal Tone
There are a ton of benefits to improving your vagal tone:
- Improved Stress Recovery: Faster parasympathetic activation (quicker transition from fight-or-flight to rest-and-digest), reduced cortisol recovery time after stress, faster heart rate normalization, and improved metabolic efficiency.
- Better Emotional Regulation: Improved prefrontal cortex function, reduced amygdala reactivity, enhanced interoception (your ability to sense and interpret bodily signals), and better social engagement capacity.
- Enhanced Immune Function: Improved cellular immunity, balanced immune response, reduced susceptibility to illness, and better inflammatory regulation. It even has a positive impact on your microbiome!
- Improved Sleep Quality: Better parasympathetic dominance helps you fall and stay asleep. You’ll experience better sleep architecture (more restorative stages), improved sleep latency (falling asleep faster), better sleep continuity, and stronger circadian rhythm support.
These benefits create a positive feedback loop: better vagal tone improves stress recovery, which reduces chronic stress, which further improves vagal tone. This is why practices that target vagal function can have such wide-ranging benefits for overall health and well-being.
How to Strengthen Vagal Tone
There are tons of different and super accessible techniques to improve vagal tone:
Breathing Techniques for Vagal Stimulation
- Extended Exhale Breathing: Aim for exhales twice as long as inhales (e.g., 4-count inhale, 8-count exhale). This activates the parasympathetic system through the vagus nerve.
- Diaphragmatic Breathing: Deep belly breathing that fully engages the diaphragm stimulates the vagus nerve where it passes through the diaphragm.
- Coherent Breathing: Breathing at approximately 5-6 breaths per minute (about 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out) has been shown to optimally stimulate vagal tone.
- Resistance Breathing: Adding slight resistance to your exhale (through pursed lips or humming) enhances vagal activation.
Simple Physical Practices
- Cold Exposure: Brief cold water exposure (cold showers, splashing cold water on face) stimulates the vagus nerve through temperature receptors.
- Humming/Singing/Chanting: The vibrations stimulate the vagus nerve as it passes through the vocal cords and throat.
- Gargling: Activates the muscles in the back of the throat that are connected to the vagus nerve.
- Gentle Ear Massage: The vagus nerve has branches that extend to the outer ear; gentle massage can stimulate these branches.
- Yoga Poses: Forward folds, child’s pose, and gentle twists can stimulate vagal tone.
Accessible Mindfulness Approaches
- Body Scan Practices: Systematically bringing awareness to different parts of the body helps activate the parasympathetic system.
- Loving-Kindness Meditation: Generating feelings of compassion and connection activates the ventral vagal complex.
- Sensory Grounding: Using the five senses to connect with the present moment helps signal safety to the nervous system.
- Self-Compassion Pauses: Brief moments of self-kindness throughout the day can shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic dominance.
Lifestyle Changes
- Social Connection: Positive, safe social interactions stimulate the ventral vagal pathway.
- Laughter: Deep, genuine laughter engages the diaphragm and vagus nerve.
- Physical Touch: Hugs, massages, and gentle touch activate the vagus nerve.
A Compassionate Lens for Healing Your Nervous System
It’s Not Your Fault:
Your stress responses aren’t weaknesses—they’re adaptive survival strategies your body learned to keep you safe. You’re not broken or to blame.
Your Nervous System Can Change:
Thanks to neuroplasticity, your vagal tone can improve. Even if you’ve experienced past trauma or chronic stress, your nervous system is always capable of rewiring and healing.
Healing Takes Time (and Kindness):
Building vagal resilience doesn’t happen overnight. It requires patience and self-compassion—small, consistent steps rather than self-criticism.
Balancing Awareness:
You can honor how your stress responses protected you and recognize when it’s time to create new, healthier patterns. Both truths can exist at once.
Resilience Reminder
Your vagus nerve plays a HUGE role in how well you handle stress, how quickly you recover, and how balanced you feel overall. Chronic stress weakens your vagal tone, leaving you stuck in survival mode. But you can strengthen and support your vagus nerve with small, accessible daily practices—and the benefits ripple through every part of your health!
Ditch Stress 
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