The Nuance

The Breath Is a Back Door to Your Vagus Nerve

‘Respiratory discipline’ can activate your most potent anti-stress system

Markham Heid
Elemental
Published in
4 min readJun 23, 2021

--

Photo: Lorenzo Fattò Offidani/Unsplash

Your body reacts to stress in a number of well-mapped ways. Heart rate and blood pressure speed up, muscles tense, digestion slows, and breathing becomes clipped and rapid.

--

--

Markham Heid
Elemental

I’m a frequent contributor at TIME, the New York Times, and other media orgs. I write mostly about health and science. I like long walks and the Grateful Dead.