What’s the Deal with the Vagus Nerve?

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Have you ever been scrolling through social media and seen someone mention “stimulating their vagus nerve” as part of their wellness routine? Maybe they were cold plunging, deep breathing, or humming into the void and you thought… what on earth is the vagus nerve and why is everyone suddenly obsessed with it?

You're not alone in wondering.

This curious little nerve, well, not so little actually, has become a buzzword in the world of mental health, gut health, and stress relief. But despite its growing popularity, many people still don’t quite know what it is, where it lives in the body, or why it matters so much.

The truth is, the vagus nerve plays a starring role in your day-to-day wellbeing. From how you digest your lunch to how you recover from stress, it quietly helps regulate your physical and emotional balance, often behind the scenes.

In this article, we’ll explore what the vagus nerve actually is, what it does for your body and mind, the science behind it, and how you can support it naturally in your everyday life. Whether you’re already into nervous system regulation or just curious about that strange flutter in your chest when you get startled, this might just explain a few things.

What Is the Vagus Nerve?

Let’s clear something up, the vagus nerve isn’t a wellness trend someone just made up on TikTok. It’s one of the most important nerves in the human body, and it’s been quietly doing its job since the beginning of time.

So, what is it?

The vagus nerve (pronounced vay-gus) is the 10th cranial nerve, and it’s part of your parasympathetic nervous system, often referred to as the "rest and digest" side of your body’s automatic responses. Unlike most nerves that stick to one area, the vagus is a bit of an explorer. In fact, the name “vagus” comes from the Latin word for “wandering.” And that’s exactly what it does.

It starts in the brainstem, travels down the neck, and weaves its way through your heart, lungs, digestive system, liver, spleen, and even into parts of your face and ears. It’s like a motorway of information between your brain and your body, constantly sending and receiving messages to help keep everything running smoothly.

This nerve doesn’t just do one job. It does many, which is why it’s gaining so much attention in the health world. Think of it as a behind-the-scenes conductor, helping your body find balance, recover from stress, and feel safe.

And while we’re only just beginning to understand the full scope of what it’s capable of, one thing’s clear: the vagus nerve plays a powerful role in both physical health and emotional wellbeing and we’ll get into exactly how, in the next few sections.

A Quick History: When Did We Discover the Vagus Nerve?

The vagus nerve might feel like a new discovery in the world of wellness, but it’s actually been on our radar for centuries.

One of the first people to describe the vagus nerve in any detail was the ancient Roman physician Galen, back in the 2nd century AD. He performed early dissections and noticed that this “wandering” nerve connected the brain to various parts of the body, though at the time, the full picture was still a mystery.

Fast forward to the 19th century, and scientists began to dig deeper. With better tools and more knowledge of human anatomy, researchers were able to trace the vagus nerve’s long, meandering route through the body. They started to realise it wasn’t just passing through, it was actually influencing key systems, from heart rate to digestion and even voice control.

In the 20th century, the vagus nerve became even more interesting to scientists studying things like autonomic nervous system regulation, stress, and inflammation. And in more recent years, neurologists and psychologists have begun to explore how it connects the brain to our emotions, gut, and immune system.

One of the most influential theories to emerge in modern times is Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges in the 1990s. This theory proposed that the vagus nerve is central to our sense of safety, connection, and emotional regulation, which helped explain why vagus nerve stimulation could impact anxiety, trauma responses, and even social bonding.

So, while the vagus nerve may be trending now, it’s actually been a vital player in our biology for a very long time. It just took science a few centuries to catch up with what the body already knew.

Where Is It and What Does It Do?

If you could trace the vagus nerve inside your body, you’d be following one of the longest and most wide-reaching nerves in your entire nervous system. It begins at the brainstem, right at the base of the brain and then travels down each side of the neck, weaving its way through the chest, heart, lungs, and all the way down to the digestive organs.

And that’s just the start.

The vagus nerve doesn’t just connect, it communicates. It carries messages from the brain to the body, and more surprisingly, from the body back to the brain. In fact, around 80% of the signals travel upward from the body, meaning your gut, heart, and lungs are constantly feeding your brain information about what’s going on internally.

So what exactly does it do?

Here are some of its main roles:

Regulates your heart rate – helping it slow down when you’re resting or recovering

Supports digestion – by activating stomach acid, bile, and gut motility

Controls your breathing – adjusting your breath rate in response to stress or calm

Reduces inflammation – via the “cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway”

Helps with speech and swallowing – through its branches to the vocal cords and throat

Relays sensory information – like that feeling of a lump in your throat or butterflies in your stomach

Basically, the vagus nerve helps your body relax, repair, and feel safe. It’s constantly working in the background to bring you back into balance, especially after moments of stress, fear, or illness. That’s why it’s often referred to as the "brake pedal" of your nervous system.

Physical and Mental Health Superpower

If there’s one nerve that deserves a superhero cape, it’s the vagus nerve. While it might not have the flashiness of the heart or brain, it plays a quiet, powerful role in keeping both in check.

Let’s start with mental health. The vagus nerve is a key player in the parasympathetic nervous system, the part of your body that helps you rest, digest, and recover. When it’s working well, it helps regulate your mood, calm the mind after stress, and even support a sense of connection and safety with others.

Some research suggests that vagal tone, a measure of how well your vagus nerve functions, is linked to levels of resilience, emotional regulation, and even social engagement. In other words, a healthy vagus nerve may help you bounce back more easily from emotional upsets and feel more at ease in the world around you.

Now for the physical side.

The vagus nerve:

• Helps regulate blood pressure and heart rate, keeping your cardiovascular system stable

• Supports digestion by controlling stomach enzymes and movement through the intestines

• Plays a role in immune function, helping the body control inflammation

• Assists with sleep, by promoting calm and lowering stress hormones

• May even help reduce pain, through its influence on pain perception and stress responses

It’s no wonder then that vagus nerve stimulation is being explored as a treatment for conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, IBS, and even epilepsy.

In a world where many of us are stuck in a constant state of “go-go-go,” supporting the vagus nerve offers a natural way to return the body to a calmer, more balanced state. It’s like a reset button, not just for your nervous system, but for your whole being.

What Else Does It Do?

So we know the vagus nerve helps with things like digestion, heart rate, and stress recovery, but that’s really just the beginning. This nerve is involved in far more than most people realise, with effects that ripple through areas of the body you wouldn’t immediately expect.

Here are a few of its lesser-known roles:

Your Voice and Speech

Ever noticed your voice shake when you’re nervous? That’s not just anxiety, it’s the vagus nerve. It controls the muscles in your larynx (voice box), which affects both your ability to speak and the tone of your voice. This is why deep breathing or humming (which engages these muscles) can help calm you down, it’s gently activating your vagus nerve.

Your Brain and Emotions

The vagus nerve is being studied for its influence on brain function, particularly in areas linked to mood and memory. Because it carries information from the gut to the brain, it plays a major role in the gut-brain connection, which researchers are now linking to mental health, cognitive decline, and even neuroplasticity (your brain’s ability to adapt and change).

Your Inflammatory Response

One of the vagus nerve’s most powerful (but lesser-known) abilities is its control over inflammation. Through something called the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, it can reduce the release of pro-inflammatory molecules. This could have huge implications for chronic conditions where inflammation plays a key role, like rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and even autoimmune disease.

Your Body’s Internal “Check-In” System

Because the vagus nerve collects signals from so many organs, it essentially acts as a real-time reporting system, telling your brain what's happening inside your body. That feeling of being "off" before you even know why? It could be your vagus nerve flagging something your conscious mind hasn't caught up to yet.

Nausea and Fainting

Ever felt queasy or lightheaded in a stressful situation? That could be a vasovagal response, a reflex where the vagus nerve overreacts, slowing the heart rate and dropping blood pressure. It’s your body’s way of trying to reset, but it can feel pretty dramatic when it happens.

The takeaway? The vagus nerve isn’t just a stress regulator. It’s a multi-tasking, body-balancing super-nerve with connections to nearly every system in the body. And when it’s out of sync, it can show up in surprising ways, from digestive issues and inflammation to emotional sensitivity and voice changes.

How to Support and Calm Your Vagus Nerve

One of the most empowering things about the vagus nerve is that we can actually influence it, gently and naturally. Unlike many parts of the nervous system that seem entirely out of our control, the vagus nerve responds well to specific techniques that signal safety, calm, and connection.

These aren’t just wellness trends, they’re backed by science, and many of them are simple enough to start today.

1. Deep, Diaphragmatic Breathing

Slow, intentional breathing, especially when the breath reaches your belly, activates the vagus nerve and sends a signal to your brain: you’re safe. Try inhaling for a count of four, holding for four, and exhaling slowly for six to eight counts. Repeat for a few minutes.

2. Humming, Singing, and Chanting

The vagus nerve connects to your vocal cords and the muscles at the back of your throat. Activities like humming, chanting (hello, “om”), singing, or even slow gargling can provide gentle stimulation and help shift your body into a relaxed state.

3. Cold Exposure

Brief exposure to cold, such as splashing cold water on your face or ending your shower with a few seconds of cold, can activate the vagus nerve and improve vagal tone over time. Start small and gradually build up if you’re new to cold therapy.

4. Meditation and Mindfulness

Mindfulness practices reduce stress and help regulate the nervous system. The more regularly you practice, the easier it becomes for your vagus nerve to bring your body back to a calm, grounded state when needed.

5. Focus on Gut Health

Because of its strong connection to the gut, supporting your microbiome supports your vagus nerve too. Whole foods, fibre-rich meals, fermented foods (if tolerated), and quality probiotics can all contribute to better gut-brain communication.

6. Gentle Movement

Yoga, tai chi, or even a slow, mindful walk outdoors can help tone the vagus nerve. These activities combine movement, breath, and present-moment awareness, the perfect combination for calming the nervous system.

7. Connection and Safety

Perhaps most overlooked: feeling emotionally safe and connected is one of the strongest vagus nerve activators. Eye contact, laughter, time with loved ones, or even a warm pet cuddle can help regulate your system in powerful ways.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, and you don’t need to do everything at once. Start with one or two techniques that feel manageable and pay attention to how your body responds. Often, just a few minutes a day can make a noticeable difference over time.

Can You Feel Your Vagus Nerve?

You can’t exactly poke it or point to it, but many people do report feeling their vagus nerve in action, especially during intense emotional or physical experiences.

Some describe it as:

• A fluttering in the chest

• A tightness in the throat

• A wave of warmth or calm

• A drop in heart rate followed by a sense of stillness

• Or even a jolt of energy zipping through the body in moments of shock

A Personal Note

For me, one of the most striking sensations I’ve noticed happens when I’m about to trip or get a sudden fright. In that split second, I feel what I can only describe as a nerve rushing from my heart to my head, like a bolt of energy, or a kind of inner reflex. Sometimes there’s a bit of pressure or pain with it, but it disappears as quickly as it comes.

At first, I didn’t think much of it, just one of those odd body quirks. But over time, I began to wonder… could this be my vagus nerve responding?

Turns out, it very likely is.

What I may be experiencing is known as a vasovagal response, a reflex involving the vagus nerve that’s triggered by sudden stress or fear. It can slow the heart rate, drop blood pressure, and send a cascade of signals through the body. For some, it even leads to fainting. For others (like me), it’s just an intense jolt that feels like the body’s internal alarm going off and resetting.

Why It Matters

Feeling these responses isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it shows that your nervous system is paying attention, keeping you safe, alert, and responsive to your environment. And the more awareness you develop of your body’s signals, the easier it becomes to work with your vagus nerve, rather than against it.

So yes, while you can’t see it or touch it, you may already be feeling your vagus nerve doing its job, in subtle, fascinating ways.

The Science Behind the Scenes

The vagus nerve might be trending in wellness spaces, but it’s also getting a lot of attention in scientific and medical research and for good reason. Over the last few decades, researchers have been uncovering just how central it is to both mental and physical health.

Mood, Anxiety, and Depression

Several studies have shown that low vagal tone (meaning poor vagus nerve function) is associated with anxiety, depression, and chronic stress. This makes sense when you consider the vagus nerve’s role in calming the body and helping it return to a state of rest.

In fact, vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been approved for treatment-resistant depression and epilepsy in some countries. It involves a small implant that sends gentle electrical signals to the nerve, with many patients reporting significant mood improvement over time.

A 2011 study published in the journal Biological Psychiatry found that non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation could significantly reduce symptoms of major depressive disorder.

The Inflammatory Link

One of the most exciting discoveries in recent years is how the vagus nerve helps control inflammation. Through what’s known as the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, the vagus nerve can literally dial down the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, the molecules responsible for chronic inflammation in the body.

This has led scientists to explore vagus nerve involvement in conditions like:

• Rheumatoid arthritis

• IBS

• Long COVID

• Chronic fatigue syndrome

A 2016 study in Frontiers in Neuroscience highlighted the role of the vagus nerve as a key interface between the nervous and immune systems, capable of regulating inflammation systemically.

Polyvagal Theory: Safety, Connection, and the Nervous System

In the 1990s, neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Porges introduced Polyvagal Theory, which completely reshaped how we understand the vagus nerve’s role in emotional health. His theory proposes that the vagus nerve doesn’t just help us relax, it plays a direct role in how we feel safe, connect with others, and navigate social situations.

It explains why things like eye contact, vocal tone, and body language can feel comforting or threatening and how our bodies can shift into fight, flight, or freeze based on how the vagus nerve is responding.

According to Porges, a well-functioning vagus nerve is foundational for emotional resilience, social bonding, and feeling at ease in the world.

Science is still uncovering more about this incredible nerve, but one thing is clear: the vagus nerve is no longer just a side note in anatomy textbooks, it’s a powerful bridge between the mind, body, and healing.

Final Thoughts – A Nerve Worth Knowing

For something we can’t see, touch, or easily explain, the vagus nerve has an extraordinary influence on our daily lives. It quietly governs so many of the functions we take for granted, helping us digest our food, regulate our emotions, slow our racing hearts, and connect more deeply with the people around us.

It’s the bridge between body and mind, gut and brain, stress and calm. And perhaps most importantly, it’s something we can actively support and strengthen, not with fancy tools or expensive treatments, but through simple, mindful practices like breathing, singing, and slowing down.

In a world that often pulls us toward constant stimulation and stress, understanding how the vagus nerve works offers a gentle reminder: your body wants to feel safe, connected, and at ease. And you have more influence over that process than you might think.

So next time you feel a wave of calm after deep breathing, or sense a strange flutter in your chest during a stressful moment, you might just be tuning into your vagus nerve doing what it does best: bringing you back to balance.