Insights

Vagal tone describes how responsive the vagus nerve is, particularly in regulating heart rate and stress responses, and how effectively the nervous system can return to balance after activation.

In simple terms, vagal tone reflects how easily your body can calm itself after stress.

The vagus nerve is the main nerve of the parasympathetic nervous system — the branch responsible for rest, digestion, recovery, and repair. Vagal tone reflects how strongly, and how flexibly, this system can influence the body to maintain internal balance, also known as homeostasis.

At a physiological level, vagal tone affects heart rate, breathing, digestion, inflammation, and emotional regulation. When vagal tone is high, the body can respond to stress and return to baseline efficiently. When it’s low, the nervous system is more likely to remain in a heightened state of activation.

The vagus nerve acts as a two-way communication pathway between the brain and the body, continuously carrying information about internal conditions and environmental demands. Vagal tone tells us how well that communication supports regulation.

In research and clinical settings, vagal tone is most often discussed in relation to stress resilience, emotional regulation, and cardiovascular health.

Why ‘tone’?

In physiology, ‘tone’ refers to baseline activity.

Muscle tone, for example, describes a muscle’s constant, low-level readiness to contract and relax. A muscle with healthy tone is responsive, not tense or rigid.

Vagal tone follows the same principle. It describes the ongoing influence of the vagus nerve at rest, and how easily that influence can increase or decrease as conditions change.

High vagal tone doesn’t mean the vagus nerve is constantly active. It means the nervous system has a strong capacity for regulation — the ability to slow things down when needed, and to release that influence when action is required.

How vagal tone works

One of the most important features of vagal tone is known as the vagal brake.

The vagus nerve contains fast, myelinated fibres that connect directly to the heart’s pacemaker (the sinoatrial node). These fibres act as a brake on heart rate.

When vagal influence is high, the brake is applied, slowing the heart and supporting calm, restorative states. When reduced, the brake is released, allowing heart rate to rise and support attention, movement, or mobilization.

This braking and releasing happens continuously. A well-functioning vagal brake allows the body to respond to changing demands without becoming stuck in a prolonged stress response.

How vagal tone is measured

Vagal tone isn’t measured directly. Instead, it’s inferred from patterns in heart rate — most commonly through respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA).

RSA refers to the breath-by-breath changes in heart rate that occur naturally as you breathe. Heart rate increases slightly during inhalation and slows during exhalation.

The size of this breath-linked change in heart rate reflects how strongly the vagus nerve is influencing the heart.

• Higher RSA is associated with stronger cardiac vagal tone
• Lower RSA suggests reduced vagal regulation

RSA is widely used in research as a marker of autonomic flexibility: the nervous system’s ability to adapt to stress and return to baseline.

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) and vagal tone

Vagal tone is shaped by repeated signals to the nervous system, particularly signals that support parasympathetic activity and recovery.

Both invasive and non-invasive forms of VNS influence vagal activity, often reflected as increases in heart rate variability and improvements in autonomic balance. By directly stimulating vagal pathways, VNS can engage the same regulatory circuits involved in slowing heart rate, reducing inflammation, and supporting recovery.

Far from forcing relaxation, regular VNS changes how efficiently the nervous system can apply and release vagal influence over time, which is a core feature of healthy vagal tone.

Why vagal tone matters

Vagal tone is widely considered a physiological marker of stress vulnerability and resilience.

Lower vagal tone is associated with poorer emotional regulation, chronic low-grade inflammation, cardiovascular disease, depression, and stress-related disorders.

Higher vagal tone supports emotional stability, physiological calm, and the processes involved in growth, restoration, and repair.

‍

If you’re wellness aware, you’ve probably heard of the vagus nerve. And, if you’re smart enough to be skeptical of praises and promises in the wellness space, you’re probably looking to know more about the “body’s calm switch” and why this one nerve can do so much.

What is it? Where is it in the body? What information does it carry? How does it help the body to regulate?

Simple answers to these questions will help you better understand the vagus nerve’s influence on stress, digestion, inflammation, mood, and social connection. It will become clear why this particular nerve is becoming more prominent for well-being and why vagus nerve-based therapies and interventions often produce broad effects, rather than isolated symptom changes.

Let’s take a quick wander around what has been called “The Wanderer”.

The vagus nerve and its connections

The vagus nerve — 10th cranial nerve — is the longest of the cranial nerves and the primary component of the parasympathetic nervous system. Its name comes from the Latin vagus, meaning “wandering,” reflecting its path from the brainstem through the neck, chest, and abdomen, connecting your brain to your heart, lungs, gut, liver, spleen, and kidneys.

It was first described in the second century by Galen of Pergamon, a prominent Roman physician. He recognized the vagus nerve’s importance for vitality and linked it to life force.

Despite being talked about as a single nerve, the vagus nerve is actually a pair of nerves running down the sides of your body. And despite being spoken of as a motor nerve, the vagus nerve is mostly sensory.

Roughly 80% of its nerve fibres are afferent, carrying sensory information from the body to the brain. The other 20% send signals from the brain to the organs.

This makes the vagus nerve less of a command system and more of an information superhighway coordinating multiple systems to help maintain homeostasis — the body’s internal balance, especially when it comes to stress, recovery, digestion, and feeling safe.

It is involved in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, digestion, immunity, mood, speech, and even taste.

In practical terms, the vagus nerve helps your body do three key things:

Calm down after stress

The vagus nerve is a core part of the parasympathetic “rest-and-digest” system. It counterbalances the fight-or-flight response and helps bring the body back into balance once a challenge has passed.

One of its roles is acting as a “vagal brake” on the heart, gently slowing the heart rate and supporting a state of calm, flexible alertness rather than constant tension.

It’s also a major pathway in the microbiome–brain–gut axis, enabling gut activity and microbial signals to influence mood, cognition, and emotional regulation.

This helps explain why chronic stress often shows up as digestive issues — and why improving nervous system regulation can change how the body responds to stress overall.

Manage inflammation

The vagus nerve helps keep inflammation in check.

Through a built-in inflammatory reflex, it can signal the immune system to reduce excessive inflammatory responses, helping protect the body from chronic, stress-related inflammation.

When inflammation rises in the body, afferent vagal fibers signal the brain. In response, efferent vagal pathways help dial down excessive immune activity through a mechanism called the cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway — CAP for short.

CAP is a loop involving the vagus nerve and acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter.

1. Your body detects inflammation and lets your brain know by sending signals up the vagus nerve.
2. The brain sends a signal back down the vagus nerve, calling for the release of acetylcholine.
3. Acetylcholine, once released, finds immune cells called macrophages and attaches to specific receptors on the cells.
4. The cells stop releasing inflammatory chemicals.

It may seem like immune suppression, but this regulatory process is essential for long-term resilience because it prevents overreactive immune responses.

Feel safe

The polyvagal theory suggests that for mammals, being social is a biological necessity for regulating our bodies and surviving. We use social cues (like a soothing voice or a smile) to tell each other's nervous systems that we are safe, which turns off the defensive, inflammatory systems. And the vagus nerve is central to this sociality.

Through its connections with muscles of the face, throat, and ears, the vagus nerve helps regulate facial expression, vocal tone, listening, and speech.

This, according to the theory, is why a sense of calm, and its opposite, can spread around a room.

Balance is key

The vagus nerve isn’t really a switch you flip. That has been a handy analogy, but it doesn’t explain how complex and nuanced the vagus nerve’s work is.

It’s more like a learning pathway, continuously updating the brain about internal states and shaping how the body responds to stress, connection, recovery, and challenge.

Lasting calm emerges when regulatory systems are trained, consistently and gently, to identify threats, recognize safety, and adapt quickly but never too much of one and not enough of the others. Homeostasis is the final and most vital goal.

And that’s why working with the vagus nerve tends to change more than one thing at a time.

‍

Your body is running a thousand background processes right now — pumping blood, digesting food, healing microscopic damage, and adjusting hormones — all without you thinking about it.

That’s the autonomic nervous system (ANS) at work: the silent regulator connecting your brain and spinal cord to every organ, tissue, and cell.

It keeps you alive — and in balance — without ever asking for your attention.

What is the ANS?

The ANS is your body’s autopilot.

It maintains vital functions like heart rate, breathing, digestion, and immune response — automatically and continuously.

It’s made up of three main branches:

• Sympathetic nervous system – your body’s stress responder (fight-or-flight).
• Parasympathetic nervous system – your recovery and repair mode (rest-and-digest).
• Enteric nervous system – your gut’s independent control center.

The enteric system manages digestion. The other two are constantly balancing each other — one energizing, the other calming — to maintain homeostasis, your internal equilibrium.

The sympathetic nervous system

When things get intense, this system takes charge.

The sympathetic nervous system prepares you for action. It’s the one that saves you from danger, sharpens focus, and floods your body with energy.

Once activated, it:

• Releases adrenaline and other stress hormones.
• Raises heart rate and blood pressure.
• Shifts blood flow to your muscles and brain.
• Reduces blood flow to the gut and skin.

This is the fight-or-flight response: essential for survival, but harmful when it stays switched on too long.

Chronic activation can lead to high blood pressure, inflammation, poor digestion, and fatigue.

The parasympathetic nervous system

Once the danger has passed, the parasympathetic system steps in.

This is the body’s rest-and-digest network: it slows things down so you can repair and replenish.

When active, it:

• Slows heart rate and lowers blood pressure.
• Increases digestion and nutrient absorption.
• Dilates blood vessels, improving circulation to vital organs.
• Balances inflammation, promoting healing.

The star player here is the vagus nerve — the longest cranial nerve in your body. About 75% of its fibers are parasympathetic, connecting your brain to your heart, lungs, and gut. Through this nerve, the parasympathetic system influences everything from mood and immunity to metabolism and sleep.

Sympathetic vs. parasympathetic

Here’s how these two systems work together — and why that balance matters:

When the stress response dominates, as it often does in modern life, your sleep, digestion, and mental clarity begin to suffer.

Why it matters

A well-balanced autonomic nervous system is essential for resilience — your ability to recover from stress and maintain health.

When the fight-or-flight response and the rest-and-digest response work in harmony, your body adapts efficiently to challenges and then returns to calm.

But when stress wins out, inflammation rises and chronic imbalance sets in; the physiological foundation for burnout, anxiety, poor sleep, and chronic disease.

The takeaway

A lot of what keeps you alive happens automatically. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless to influence it.

Through tools like breathwork, movement, biofeedback, and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), you can help your nervous system rediscover equilibrium, the state your body was designed to live in.

The vagus nerve is a key part of the body’s system for calm and regulation. It helps influence heart rate, digestion, immune responses, and how the body adapts to stress. Vagal activity is associated with resilience and recovery.

In today’s fast-paced world, ongoing stress can place extra demand on the nervous system. When the body struggles to shift out of a constant “on” state, this may contribute to challenges such as poor stress regulation, inflammation, or digestive discomfort.

There are clinically studied ways to stimulate the vagus nerve, including non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS). Alongside these, there are also simple, natural practices that may help support vagal activity as part of everyday life.

Embrace the cold

Brief cold exposure can encourage activation of the parasympathetic nervous system. This might include a short cold shower, a dip in cool water, or even splashing cold water on your face. These experiences can prompt the body to shift toward a calmer, rest-and-digest state.

Breathe mindfully

Breathing is one of the few automatic bodily processes you can consciously influence. Slow, deep breathing that engages the diaphragm can help signal the body to relax, supporting heart rate regulation and parasympathetic activity.

Try this

Place one hand on your chest and the other on your stomach.

As you breathe in through your nose, allow your belly to rise while keeping your chest relatively still.

Exhale slowly through your mouth.

This style of diaphragmatic breathing can help support vagal function and encourage a calmer physiological state.

‍

Sing, hum, chant … or gargle

The vagus nerve has branches that connect with the muscles of the throat and vocal cords. Activities such as singing, humming, chanting, or even gargling can create gentle vibrations in this area, which may help stimulate vagal pathways.

Get moving

Physical activity supports the nervous system as well as the muscles. During exercise, the body becomes more alert, while recovery afterward relies on parasympathetic activity to restore balance. Over time, this process can help train the nervous system to move more efficiently between states of activity and rest.

Regular movement is associated with better stress recovery and overall nervous system health.

Socialize and laugh

Social connection plays a meaningful role in nervous system regulation. Spending time with others, sharing positive experiences, and laughing can support parasympathetic activity and are linked to lower stress levels and improved heart rate variability.

Supporting your vagus nerve doesn’t require dramatic lifestyle changes. Small, consistent practices can help create the conditions for better balance and resilience over time.

For those seeking a more targeted approach, non-invasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) is a clinically studied option designed to stimulate the vagus nerve safely and effectively.

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and cognitive exhaustion caused by prolonged stress. It’s marked by depleted energy, reduced motivation, and a sense of detachment from work or life.

Most conversations about burnout circle the same three ideas:

• You’re no longer aligned with your work.
• The cult of productivity won’t let you rest.
• Your mindset needs a reset.

All true — but they miss the real point.

Burnout feels philosophical, even spiritual, but at its core, it’s biological. Down-and-dirty, animal biology. It’s what happens when your body’s survival systems forget how to stand down.

Your stress response was built for short bursts of action. A chase. A threat. A deadline. When those bursts never end, the stress never stops — and your body forgets how to switch off, and it’s “all systems go” all the time.

At first, it’s just overdrive. Then, it becomes dysfunctional.

Cortisol floods your system. Your immune response activates. Low-grade inflammation spreads quietly through your tissues. Your brain reads this chemical chatter as a sign of danger. Even when you’re sitting still, your body’s braced for attack.

That’s burnout: a body in fight-or-flight, running on fumes, trying to save energy for life-saving tasks that never come. Your mood drops, your focus fades, you start conserving — not because you’re weak, but because your body thinks it’s protecting you.

And because the stress keeps coming, the inflammation keeps burning. The stress-inflammation-stress cycle loops and loops.

The good news? Low-grade inflammation is manageable — even reversible — when the nervous system is taught how to regulate again.

That’s what yōjō helps people do.

We use science-backed tools — vagus nerve stimulation, biofeedback, and personal coaching — to restore balance to your nervous system and help it remember how to rest, recover, and reset.

Chronic stress fuels inflammation. Inflammation fuels disease. And before you know it, you're caught in a cycle that wears down your body, ages you faster, and drains your energy. In short, stress is your enemy. The best way to deal with an enemy is to choose only those battles you can win.

There are the big stresses in life and the small stresses. We hardly need to explore the big stresses; we all know them. There’s no winning against them. They just are, and we do our best to accept them. The small stresses, however, we can conquer the minute they kick up a fuss.

These are the less remarkable, less noticeable stresses. Those dozen or so situations and happenings that tense up your mind just a smidge, like a person tightening a guitar string. Just a little at a time. The tardy bus, the broken shoelace, the spilled coffee, the rude coworker, the winding queue, the stolen seat, all piling on top of each other, turning that mind string until it is so tense your entire being develops a distinct, steely twang.

There may be many, and they may sometimes be hard to see, but one West African approach to life can help you thwart these little enemies and stop them from strumming your nerves with their fingers.

It’s called “itutu.” It is a way of seeing minor stresses and worries that takes the sting out of them.

As The School of Life explains in their video, A Philosophy of Calm, itutu “denotes a particular approach to life: unhurried, composed, assured, and unflappable.” Among the Yoruba people, to “have itutu” is to embody coolness — to meet frustration with poise and to remain untouched by the noise of small misfortunes.

This calm isn’t a divine gift; it can be learned. It’s the fruit of knowing, as the Yoruba say, that some things belong to “àṣẹ” — the natural order — and lie beyond our control.

Anger arises when we overestimate our power to change external reality. Itutu arises when we see the limits clearly and choose peace within them.

Modern science would call this emotional regulation, the ability of the prefrontal cortex to modulate limbic reactivity. When you practice the qualities embodied by itutu, you train your nervous system to stay out of fight-or-flight.

Over time, this translates into measurable benefits: lower cortisol, steadier heart rate variability, reduced inflammation, and potentially improved longevity.

Cultivating this mindset makes you resilient. You learn to save your energy for what truly matters, and your calm becomes your default setting.

‍