The vagus nerve – why it's important and how resetting it can help reduce stress and anxiety

It plays a vital role in your digestion, heart rate and breathing. It keeps tabs on your organs and is crucial to your stress response and your mood. And “resetting” it with a few simple exercises can help you feel calmer and more at ease. 

You probably haven’t given your vagus nerve a second thought. Perhaps you’ve never even heard of it. But this part of your nervous system is what connects your brain stem to your body and it performs a multitude of vital functions.

It’s the longest of the cranial nerves, travelling all the way from your brain stem to your colon, and is involved in involuntary processes such as breathing, heartbeat, blood pressure, swallowing, circulation and digestion.