Vagus Nerve and Trauma: A Therapist’s Guide

Brittany Ferri PHD,OTR/L
Occupational Therapist, Writer
December 22, 2025

When someone is part of or witnesses a distressing, difficult event, they typically develop a specific psychological response. It is normal to have such a reaction, called a trauma response, for a short period of time. However, if they are not properly managed, trauma responses can cause long-term changes in someone’s mental function and emotions. This can lead to lasting changes in the nervous system, especially if they are not managed properly.

Individuals dealing with the after-effects of trauma are likely to experience symptoms of vagus nerve dysfunction, including hyperarousal, chronic fatigue, difficulty regulating emotions, and hypersensitivity to threats of any magnitude. This can drastically impact someone’s quality of life and ability to function.

Due to the close relationship between trauma and the vagus nerve, it is important that individuals living with trauma are aware of treatment options to help manage symptoms of vagus nerve dysfunction. In this article, we will dive into exactly how trauma affects the vagus nerve and the ways you can minimize its impact on your life.

How Does Trauma Affect the Vagus Nerve?

The vagus nerve is one of many nervous system components that work to regulate the body. This means the vagus nerve is essential in helping us properly respond to our surroundings during times of high stress. Just the same, it also works to bring us back down to a calm state after any threats have passed. 

If someone has experienced trauma, their body’s vagus nerve will temporarily be in distress, making it difficult to go from one state to another. This is normal for a short period of time as the body readjusts and processes the traumatic event. However, some people experience this type of dysregulation for months or even years. In the event the vagus nerve is disrupted for this long, vagus nerve dysfunction can prove very limiting to someone’s quality of life.

As a result, it is common for people with vagus nerve trauma to have increased anxiety, demonstrate hypervigilance and hyperarousal, avoid thoughts or other reminders of traumatic event(s), and become overly distressed at the thought of their trauma. This may lead to difficulty sleeping, startling easily, having difficulty settling down, and constantly being overly cautious or aware of their surroundings. Many people are most familiar with these symptoms, as they are commonly associated with health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and adjustment disorder.

Individuals with vagus nerve trauma leading to dysfunction may also experience signs and symptoms on the other side of the spectrum. This may lead to presentations such as difficulty focusing, slowed ability to process information (also called brain fog), chronic fatigue, and emotional numbness. People with this type of vagus nerve dysfunction also tend to feel disconnected from their surroundings, which can impact their relationships and overall ability to engage in daily activities.

Vagus Nerve Trauma Symptoms

There is a range of emotional and physical symptoms that someone may experience if they have sustained trauma that impacted their vagus nerve. These vagus nerve trauma symptoms include:

Digestive symptoms

Reduced vagus nerve activity has been linked to digestive conditions as well as gastrointestinal symptoms that lead to discomfort and difficulty eating. Many people with vagus nerve dysfunction experience symptoms such as bloating, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. These are characteristic of conditions such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s disease, gastroenteritis, and more. It’s also possible for vagus nerve dysfunction to cause difficulty swallowing, which impairs digestive abilities in the upper gastrointestinal tract earlier in the eating process.

Voice and respiratory changes

Due to the pathway of the vagus nerve on the side of each neck, this nervous system structure understandably has a lot of influence on oral motor structures such as the throat and vocal cords. This influence also extends to the respiratory system. In some instances, decreased vagus nerve activity is known to cause a hoarse voice, shortness of breath, chronic cough, and sometimes even loss of voice.

Blood pressure changes

We’ve mentioned that the vagus nerve controls many vital signs, including blood pressure. Therefore, vagus nerve dysfunction has been linked to low blood pressure, heart rate irregularities (either faster or slower than normal), dizziness and lightheadedness, and fainting episodes. Since many of these symptoms are interrelated (especially low blood pressure and fainting episodes), individuals with vagus nerve dysfunction can experience them in combination with one another.

Other symptoms

In addition, vagus nerve dysfunction can lead to muscle pain, generalized muscle weakness, excessive sweating, and chronic fatigue. Muscle pain and weakness may also result from some of the emotional symptoms we will discuss in the next section, as muscular tension is commonly correlated with emotional discomfort.

Mood changes

When the vagus nerve is overactivated or too weak to switch the nervous system between modes, it is common for someone to experience mood changes, including depression and anxiety. They may also be more irritable than usual and have difficulty responding to stress and managing strong emotions. Cognitive changes are also common in those who have vagus nerve difficulties, leading to hypervigilance, insomnia, and other changes in alertness.

Vagus Nerve Trauma in Different Populations

As with many health concerns, trauma can present differently for everyone. Factors such as environment, social support, community resources, genetics, past experiences, age, and more all impact our responses to trauma.

Children and Adolescents

Since they do not yet have the skills to process trauma, youth are known to have varying trauma responses. Young children often lack the ability to communicate their feelings in the way that older children and adults do. Children and even adolescents may have difficulty interacting with friends, lose interest in activities they once enjoyed, and suffer from nightmares after traumatic experiences. 

Children may also become more attached to their parents as opposed to growing more independent over time. It can be difficult to properly pinpoint trauma responses in younger age groups because some of these signs can mimic typical development, especially for adolescents and teenagers, such as mood swings and isolative behaviors. However, it is important to address trauma signs so they do not negatively influence a child’s emotional health and maturation.

Older Adults

Many parts of the body change as a person ages. Older adults naturally experience difficulty sleeping, slowed metabolism, a weakened immune system, less precise sensory processing (notably affecting vision and hearing), and more. The nervous system, including the vagus nerve, is another part of the body that changes during this time of life. 

In addition, the brain is slower to communicate with various parts of the body, which can lead to lower vagal tone. As we know, decreased vagal tone places the body in a state of stress and makes us vulnerable to inflammation and a host of other health concerns. Slowed vagus nerve function also makes it much more difficult for someone to respond to (and recover from) trauma. This means older adults are particularly at risk of living with the effects of complicated and unaddressed trauma during this phase of life.

You will notice that many of these signs of aging intersect with symptoms of vagus nerve dysfunction. Therefore, it is common for older adults to simply attribute the symptoms of health conditions to the aging process. This means they may be more reluctant to mention them to their doctor or another healthcare professional, making it more difficult to get proper treatment and manage the effects of vagus nerve dysfunction.

Trauma Survivors and Veterans

When people hear the word ‘trauma,’ they often think of veterans. This is because there are a great deal of veterans and active-duty military members who are living with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Due to spending prolonged periods in high-stress situations, veterans with PTSD can experience vagus nerve dysfunction. This leads their body’s nervous system to have difficulty switching from an activated to a state of rest, which is crucial to achieve balanced physical and emotional health.

Some veterans sustain physical trauma to their brain (called a traumatic brain injury). These injuries – along with other conditions such as chronic pain, arthritis, and substance use disorders – further damage structures such as the vagus nerve. This imbalance can lead to additional health concerns such as cognitive changes, emotion dysregulation, sleep disturbances, hypervigilance, and more.

Treatment and Therapies for Vagus Nerve Trauma

There are various effective ways to manage vagus nerve dysfunction that has resulted from vagus nerve trauma. We will explain a range of these techniques, each of which can be done from the comfort of your own home and without assistance from a medical provider.

It is important to review the instructions for each carefully and try several before making a decision about which are best for you. If you’d like, you can write down how you feel before and after each technique so you can remember its effect on you. This will help you make a plan for moving forward.

SoundSory

How it can help: SoundSory is a music-based home program that naturally stimulates the vagus nerve through engaging exercises and activities that engage many of the body’s senses at once. SoundSory is known to improve mood, emotional stability, and can assist with a range of PTSD symptoms. Unlike some of the other techniques we will list in coming sections, SoundSory has a strong basis of evidence that proves its effectiveness. It is grounded in science and developed by experts in the field, making it one of the leading choices for managing vagus nerve dysfunction.

How it works:

1. Watch SoundSory videos for your 3-4 daily exercises.
2. Put on the SoundSory headphones and start listening to the included music.
3. While you continue listening to the music, do each of the day’s exercises as many times as you can in 25 minutes. You can follow modifications or simply dance to the music if you have difficulty.
4. When done, listen to the music while resting for 5 minutes.
5. Repeat these 30-minute sessions once per day for a total of 5 to 7 days each week. Don’t do more than one session per day.
6. Once you have completed 20 sessions, take a 3-week break.
7. After your 3-week break, begin another 20 sessions in order to complete the program.

Yoga

How it can help: There are various yoga poses that serve different purposes. However, yoga as a whole is known to pair deep, belly breathing together with gentle stretches that stimulate and relax the entire body. These aspects of yoga all stimulate the vagus nerve, improve circulation, and balance vital signs such as blood pressure and heart rate.

How it works:

1. In order to do one of the central yoga poses (downward dog), first stand on a yoga mat or carpeted/padded surface with your feet flat on the ground.
2. Bend your body at the waist and try to reach the floor in front of you. Slowly inch your hands forward until they are several feet in front of you. Make sure you keep your feet flat on the floor and your lower body mostly still while you do this.
3. Once your hands are as far forward as you can comfortably go, be sure your stomach is tucked in and your back is mostly flat.
4. Hold this post for 30 seconds, or less if you can’t hold it for that long.
5. Take deep breaths as you stay in this pose, by breathing slowly in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. There is no need to count your breaths; simply focus on keeping your body in the right position.

Massage

How it can help: Massaging anywhere in the body is known to be relaxing for its ability to ease muscle tension, improve circulation, and even out the body’s vital signs. Gently massaging behind the ears is particularly helpful for stimulating the vagus nerve, which further contributes to this technique’s ability to balance vital signs. 

How it works: 

1. Place the fingertips of both hands behind your respective ears. (The fingertips of your right hand will go behind your right ear, just in front of your hairline, and vice versa.)
2. Move your fingertips on the surface of the skin in a circular motion.
3. Continue in this position for 30-40 seconds.
4. Now place your fingertips in front of your ears. So the fingertips of your right hand will go in front of your right ear, just above your cheek, and vice versa.
5. Repeat steps 2 and 3.
6. If you find this comfortable, you can complete additional repetitions.

Meditation

How it can help: Meditation helps strengthen the connection between the body and the mind, by allowing both systems to work together to achieve a sense of calm and rest. Meditation not only lowers your heart rate, decreases stress levels, and increases emotion regulation, but this technique also strengthens the vagus nerve by allowing us to switch between a state of stress and a state of relaxation.

How it works: 

1. Find a quiet place where you can sit upright.
2. Get comfortable, and rest the palms of your hands on your upper legs.
3. Close your eyes and sit in that position as you release what is in your mind from existence.
4. Bring your attention to the present moment, letting any thoughts that enter your mind pass through like clouds in the sky.
5. Pay attention to the sensations around you. Going in no particular order, think of what you hear, smell, taste, and touch.
6. Once you have spent some time with each sense, open your eyes and spend your final moments observing what you see around you.
7. When you are done, raise your arms above your head and gently shake them side to side to mark the end of your meditation. (You can choose another movement to replace this if you would like, as long as it is similarly simple.)
8. Slowly stand.

Full ear massage

How it can help: The ears are located in very close proximity to the vagus nerve, so any sort of movement to these organs will help stimulate the vagus nerve nearly immediately. By massaging the entire ear, you can improve blood flow and increase communication between the vagus nerve and the rest of the body. This exercise is both physically and emotionally soothing to the body.

How it works: 

1. Place flat hands with fully extended fingers over your ears so they are fully covered.
2. Apply gentle pressure to your ears as you move your hands up and down.
3. Repeat for 40 to 60 seconds.
4. While keeping your hands over your ears with slight pressure, move your hands side to side.
5. Repeat for 40 to 60 seconds.

Ear pulling

How it can help: Similar to the full ear massage, ear pulling offers a great deal of movement in the cartilage within the ear. The ear is almost entirely made of cartilage, meaning it doesn’t move consciously as other parts of the body do. Therefore, this passive movement is very helpful in improving blood flow and stimulating the vagus nerve, where it travels up the neck. 

1. Look at your ear in the mirror and locate the uppermost section of cartilage, which makes up the top curve of your ear.
2. Use your thumb and index finger to hold the upper cartilage.
3. Gently pull this cartilage up and back.
4. Do this until you lose your grip and your ear goes back to its original position.
5. Repeat this 10 to 15 times.
6. Switch ears and repeat the same steps 10 to 15 times.

Chewing Gum

How it can help: By stimulating and strengthening the jaw muscles, chewing gum offers a gentle massage to the vagus nerve on each side of the neck. This ‘wakes it up’ and encourages it to help calm the body. In addition, the rhythmic motion most people use when chewing gum adds another soothing property to this exercise.

How it works: 

1. Place one or two pieces of gum in your mouth.
2. Chew the gum until it is in the shape of a wad.
3. Continue until the gum loses flavor or as long as you desire.

Gargling

How it can help: The vibrations from gargling both massage and stimulate the vagus nerve. This activates it and generates a calming sensation.

How it works: 

1. Take a mouthful of cold water and hold it in your mouth.
2. Slightly tilt your head back and swish the water around so it touches the front, back, and sides of your mouth.
3. Now swish the water in an exaggerated manner until you hear a muffled vibration.
4. Continue this for 15-30 seconds.
5. When done, spit the water in the sink.

Conclusion

As you can see, the vagus nerve has far-reaching effects on the nervous system. This means that any life event, health condition, or injury that impacts this structure has the potential to majorly impact one’s emotional and cognitive health. Thankfully, there are a range of simple, yet effective vagus nerve stimulation techniques that strengthen this part of the nervous system and alleviate trauma-related symptoms.

Many of these techniques can be done at home with no prior experience or time commitment needed. Many people opt for SoundSory, which is one of the most effective tools for this purpose. SoundSory is a multi-sensory program that uses a combination of music and exercise to stimulate and soothe the vagus nerve. If you would like to learn more about SoundSory, ask your healthcare provider if it is right for you.

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Brittany Ferri PHD,OTR/L

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My areas of expertise include occupational therapy, rehabilitation medicine, telehealth, and mental health. With nearly 10 years of healthcare experience, I am also qualified to write on topics such as exercise, health insurance, nutrition, orthopedics, geriatric care, pediatric therapy, neurology, and health tech.