Anxiety Isn’t All in Your Head: Understanding the Vagus Nerve
The wellness world loves to talk about the vagus nerve right now, but the truth is, this isn’t new information. Long before neuroscience caught up, people understood that breath, rhythm, connection, and movement were how humans regulated stress and emotion.
Polyvagal theory gives modern language to that ancient knowing. It helps explain how anxiety lives in the body, why talk alone doesn’t always help, and how small, embodied shifts can change how safe you feel day to day. Let’s dive into learning about the vagus nerve and how it can actually apply to your daily life to support anxiety and overwhelm.
What is the Vagus Nerve?
The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It runs from the brainstem down through the face, throat, heart, lungs, and digestive system—basically touching many of the places we feel stress most intensely. Which makes sense right?
It’s a major part of the parasympathetic nervous system, the part responsible for slowing things down, helping us rest, digest, and recover. When the vagus nerve is supported, your body has an easier time settling after stress. When it’s not, anxiety can feel constant, reactive, or exhausting (Porges, 2011).
Anxiety Isn’t Just About Changing Thought Patterns
One of the most clarifying things people learn in therapy is that anxiety isn’t primarily a cognitive issue, bur rather a state of the nervous system.
Polyvagal Theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, helps explain this by showing how our bodies automatically scan for cues of safety or threat. When safety is felt, we can connect, rest, and regulate. When it’s not, the body shifts into protection mode, even unconsciously.
This is why logic alone doesn’t always help. You can know you’re “fine” and still feel anxious. Maybe you’ve tried to repeat to yourself “I’m safe, I’m okay.” in stressful situations to no or little avail. It’s not that your brain isn’t strong enough to understand these messages, it’s that you might need some physical comforting too or instead.
The Two Branches of the Vagus Nerve
Polyvagal Theory also describes the vagus nerve as having two branches, each connected to different survival responses.
The dorsal vagal branch is older and slower. It’s associated with shutdown responses, like: numbness, collapse, exhaustion, dissociation. This state often shows up when stress feels overwhelming or when escape doesn’t feel possible.
The ventral vagal branch is newer and more flexible. It supports calm presence, emotional regulation, curiosity, and connection. This is the state where we feel most like ourselves.
In therapy we don’t try to force the ventral vagal state, but instead help your system learn, slowly and safely, that it’s possible to return there.
Connection for Regulation
One of the most important parts of Polyvagal Theory is the idea of the social engagement system. This system links the vagus nerve with facial expression, vocal tone, listening, and eye contact.
It explains why a calm voice can help your body relax, why safe relationships are so healing, and why isolation can make anxiety worse. Despite your impulses, regulation can actually be often more helpful in connection rather than in isolation. This isn’t new information. Humans have always regulated each other through rhythm, presence, and relationship. If your current relationship bring about high stress rather than regulation, therapy can help you develop this relationship and physical reaction.
Polyvagal Theory and Ancestral Wisdom
Although Polyvagal Theory uses modern neuroscience language, it didn’t invent these ideas. Somatic therapies are a return to ancestral knowledge (not a new trend on TikTok or Instagram) that understood emotional health as embodied .
Yoga & the Chakra System
Yogic traditions have long worked with breath, sound, and movement to support emotional balance. The heart and throat chakras (connected with love, expression, and truth) align closely with vagal pathways through the chest, neck, and face. Chanting, humming, slow breathing, and gentle postures all stimulate areas tied to regulation.
These practices were designed to support connection between body, breath, and awareness—which inherently also helps calm anxiety and other mental health concerns.
Traditional Chinese Medicine & the Meridians
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has always viewed emotional and physical health as inseparable. In TCM, there is the concept of meridians which are an invisible network of pathways throughout the body that carry vital energy (Qi). Meridians connect organs, tissues, and functions, acting like an “energetic highway” system crucial for health, with blockages leading to illness . Treating these blockages or disruption in the flow can restore balance.
Polyvagal Theory gives scientific language to what these systems already knew: the body knows how to return to balance when it’s supported rather than pushed (Gessel, 2023).
Somatic Therapy
Many people understand their anxiety intellectually but still feel stuck in it. That’s because insight alone doesn’t always reach the nervous system. In fact, often we can use intellectualizing as a way to (unintentionally) distance ourselves from the discomfort of anxiety and pain. It fits our feelings in this little contained box of words and understanding, rather than letting us process things through actually feeling them.
Somatic approaches work from the bottom up. They focus on sensation, breath, movement, and felt experience—helping the body learn that safety is possible now, not just in theory. As Nityda Gessel (2023) writes, embodied practices help rebuild trust with the body, especially for those whose nervous systems learned to stay on guard.
Ways to Support Your Vagus Nerve
You don’t need to do everything on this list. One or two practices done consistently is more than enough. I really encourage you to experiment, try out a few things a few times and see how you feel. If you feel really misaligned with the practice, try something else.
You might try:
Slow breathing with longer exhales
Humming, singing, or chanting
Gentle yoga or stretching
Warm eye contact or safe social connection
Rhythmic walking or swaying
Cold water on your face
Placing a comforting hand on your chest or belly
Spending time outdoors (bonus if you’re barefoot)
Laughter or play
If Slowing Down Feels Hard
For some people, calming practices feel uncomfortable or even activating. That doesn’t mean you’re failing at these new practices. It usually means your nervous system learned that slowing down wasn’t always safe.
If anxiety, shutdown, or emotional overwhelm feel familiar, nervous-system-informed therapy can help you build more capacity for calm, connection, and resilience—while building understanding of your lived experience.
I work with adults using a holistic, body-informed approach that honors both modern psychology and ancestral wisdom.
If you’re curious about therapy, I invite you to reach out to schedule a consultation call.
References
Gessel, N. (2023). Embodied self awakening: Somatic practices for trauma healing and spiritual evolution. North Atlantic Books.
McEwen, B. S. (2017). Neurobiological and systemic effects of chronic stress. Chronic Stress, 1, 1–11.
Porges, S. W. (2011). The polyvagal theory: Neurophysiological foundations of emotions, attachment, communication, and self-regulation. W. W. Norton & Company.
Porges, S. W., & Dana, D. (2018). Clinical applications of the polyvagal theory. W. W. Norton & Company.
Van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score. Viking.