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Do you feel constantly on edge, even in spaces that are meant to help you relax?
Is your mind racing while your body feels utterly exhausted?
Do you struggle to properly switch off, no matter how much rest you get?
If that sounds familiar, you’re not broken, and you’re certainly not alone. But you may be living with a dysregulated nervous system.
It’s becoming increasingly common. We’ve never had more convenience, connection or information at our fingertips, yet many of us are living under near-constant pressure. Pressure to optimise our health, productivity and relationships. Pressure to perform online, stay visible, stay relevant, stay ahead. Add in financial stress, poor sleep, endless notifications and very little genuine downtime, and the nervous system rarely gets the message that it’s safe to stand down. Instead, it remains stuck in high alert, even when there’s no immediate threat.
This is where understanding the nervous system, and specifically the vagus nerve, comes in handy.
In simple terms, your nervous system is your body’s safety and communication network. Made up of the brain, spinal cord and a vast web of nerves, it’s constantly scanning your internal and external world, asking one key question: Am I safe, or am I under threat?
The answer shapes everything from your heart rate and breathing to digestion, focus and sleep.
When pressure mounts, the nervous system shifts into action mode (better known as fight or flight). This response is designed to help us cope with challenges, but problems arise when it becomes our default setting, rather than something we move in and out of.
The reassuring part? Regulating this system doesn’t require a dramatic reset or a one-way ticket to Bali. In fact, our nervous system responds best to small, consistent signals of safety, and that’s where the vagus nerve comes in.
By learning how to gently tune this nerve, we can support the body to recover from stress more efficiently, without striving for constant (and frankly unrealistic) calm. Below, two leading neuroscientists explain how and why it’s worth paying attention.
Whilst you’re here, we’ve got more advice on managing your stress levels in our guides to the best self help books, self care ideas, and our Editor’s top wellness tips, plus our articles on the soft January trend, the Scandi wellness hacks currently trending, and how one writer got on when she practiced five minutes of meditation every morning for a month.
Vagus Nerve Tuning is the Simple Nervous System Regulation Hack That Could Drastically Reduce Your Stress Levels – Your Guide
What is vagus nerve tuning?
Before we think about tuning our vagus nerve, we first need to make sense of what it actually is. The longest cranial nerve in the body, it starts out in the brainstem, where it begins its journey down through the neck, chest and abdomen, connecting to major organs like the heart, lungs, liver, stomach and intestines.
It’s job? To provide a pathway of connection between the brain and the body, in order to regulate essential functions such as heart rate and digestion.
When we talk about tuning our vagus nerve, we’re doing something akin to tuning the brake system in a car, says Dr Navaz Habib, Author of Activate Your Vagus Nerve and Vagal Health Advisor to yōjō.
“Tuning your car’s brake system ensures you can slow down and stop when approaching a traffic light, stop sign or in an emergency situation,” he says. In the body, this translates to being able to recover from the activation of our sympathetic nervous system – the fight or flight state, which we enter when we encounter a stressor.
Dr Habib explains that the sympathetic nervous system, like the accelerator in a car, drives us forward in order to deal with the stressor in the acute moment. But once the immediate threat is over, we need to be able to slow down that acceleration, using the vagus nerve. “Tuning the vagus nerve ensures the signals to slow down, rest, digest and recover are sent to the body,” he says.
It’s simpler than it sounds, too. “Tuning the vagus nerve involves taking moments of calm and self-care, both short and long,” says Dr Habib, who suggests practices like breath work, nasal humming, chanting and singing. Other, more technical options include “eye movement exercises, temperature therapy, and even electrical vagus nerve stimulation,” he says.
What are the benefits of vagus nerve tuning?
You may not consciously notice when your vagus nerve is out of tune, especially if you’ve lived that way all your life. But, as Dr Habib explains, your body will be noticing, as it becomes less able to deal with the effects of stress.
A quick reminder: some degree of stress is normal, unavoidable and actually, quite healthy. The problem occurs when it becomes chronic, overwhelming, or when we don’t have the means to manage the negative effects it has on our internal processes. “Without an effective system to manage the negative effects, our bodies become stuck in fight or flight, which keeps inflammation high,” explains Dr Habib.
Inflammation, in short bursts, is no bad thing, as it helps us to heal from injury or infection. But, when chronic, research shows it to be linked to the development of cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune and neurodegenerative disorders.
That’s why regularly tuning our vagus nerve is so important. By equipping us with the signals to move from fight or flight to rest and digest, a tuned vagus nerve “lowers stress levels, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate,” says Dr Tara Swart, neuroscientist and Author of The Signs.
That, in turn, has important benefits for digestion and inflammation. “Signals sent from the vagus nerve to the immune cells tell the gut to properly break down food and absorb nutrients, enabling the detoxification systems of your liver and kidneys to clear out toxins,” says Dr Habib.
Who will vagus nerve tuning work best for?
Most of us can probably relate on some level to the effects of chronic stress. And as Dr Habib says, all of us could benefit from increasing our resilience to its effects.
However, if you’re struggling with fatigue, sleep disturbance, anxiety, depression, or an inflammatory or autoimmune disorder, then Dr Habib says tuning your vagus nerve is particularly important.
“In my clinical practice, we have helped clients decrease symptoms of conditions including Parkinson’s disease, anxiety, chronic fatigue syndrome, heart palpitations, Atrial fibrillation and even chronic pain,” he says.
The good news is that the majority of vagus nerve practices carry very little risk. That said, if you are receiving medical management for a condition, it’s always best to consult your healthcare provider before trying them out.
Vagus nerve tuning – your expert guide
Now, for the really good bit. How to actually incorporate vagus nerve tuning into your daily routine.
First things first, vagus nerve tuning works best when used regularly, so this isn’t going to be a quick fix. “Ideally, it becomes a way of life,” says Dr Swart, who suggests practising some form of vague nerve tuning several times a day.
Below, the experts share some of their top vagus nerve tuning practices, all of which can (and should) be practised daily.
1. Breathwork
There are a whole host of breath patterns you can try, from deep diaphragmatic breathing to box breathing. Two exercises Dr Swart particularly recommends are the physiological sigh and the half salamander.
Below, she guides us through both exercises.
2. Humming
Humming is a well-used method for vagus nerve tuning, and that’s because the vibrations created stimulate the vagus nerve.
Research has connected the practice with reduced stress, increased heart rate variability and activation of the parasympathetic nervous system.
The idea is to spend five to ten minutes in a comfortable, relaxed position with your eyes closed, noticing the sensations being created by your lips, throat and chest and focusing on how the vibration moves through your body.
3. Temperature therapy
Dr Habib says that both hot and cold therapy can be useful for tuning your vagus nerve, with research from 2022 finding that participants who applied cold water to their faces for just five to 35 seconds after a stressor were able to return to a calm state faster than those who didn’t.
Try turning your shower to cold for thirty to sixty seconds, and breathing slowly through the sudden shock of the temperature change.
Gratitude journaling, walking in nature, yoga, gentle massage and scheduling regular leave from work to spend time with family and friends are all further ways that the experts recommend tuning your vagus nerve.
What about electrical vagus nerve stimulation?
You may have seen adverts popping up on social media for vagus nerve tuning devices. These devices stimulate the auricular part of the vagus nerve through an earpiece, which initiates the body’s rest and digest response.
Often this is paired with an accompanying app which allows you to track the regulation of your nervous system by measuring your heart rate, stress index and the activity of your parasympathetic nervous system.
According to Dr Habib, these tools can be highly effective, but as Dr Swart reminds us, they shouldn’t replace the manual tasks we can do ourselves. “The devices shouldn’t replace the natural activities such as yoga, meditation or journaling, but can be used in conjunction with them,” she says.
Shop MC-UK approved nervous system tools now:
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Apple AirPods Max Wireless Over-Ear Headphones
Though they’re pricey, these are Health Editor Ally Head’s favourite over-ear headphones. With a noise-cancelling setting and another option to let sound in, you can be both aware of your surroundings and totally in the zone – making them the perfect partner for meditation and humming practices.
Yōjō vagus nerve stimulator
If you’re keen to try an electrical vagus nerve stimulation device, this one from Yojo comes recommended by Dr Habib, who is an advisor to the brand. Purchase of the device requires an annual subscription to Yojo’s app, which offers biofeedback and coaching, alongside vagus nerve courses.
How do I reset my vagus nerve?
The idea that we can simply hit reset on our nervous system is an appealing one, but it isn’t quite accurate – nor is it the best way to support your nervous system health long term.
As Dr Navaz Habib, author of Activate Your Vagus Nerve and Vagal Health Advisor to yōjō, explains, a better goal is to build up resilience through consistent training of the vagus nerve.
What we’re looking for is “autonomic agility and flexibility,” he says – “the capacity to meet challenges with sympathetic activation when necessary, then to rebound via on-demand vagus-mediated recovery.”
Instead of searching for a one-time factory reset, he suggests focusing on regular and consistent micro practices such as breathwork, yoga and humming, which you can do at home, daily.
“A reset is a one-time or inconsistent experience which can be helpful, but training to activate autonomic agility through simple daily micropractices is where the real nervous system regulation is built,” he concludes.
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