Vagus Nerve - Part 3
Why Your Vagus Nerve Matters
Part 3: Why This Matters Now (And Why It’s So Often Missed)
You can’t out-supplement or out-diet a dysregulated nervous system.
If you’ve been doing all the right things, cleaning up your food, supporting your gut, meditating when you can, but you’re still not feeling the way you hoped, there’s a reason for that.
This is something I see all the time. People doing everything “right” on paper, but still feeling inflamed, anxious, exhausted, or stuck. That’s because there’s a critical piece that’s often missing in even the most thoughtful wellness plans: the nervous system.
More specifically, a regulated, supported vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve is the messenger that tells your body whether it’s safe to rest, digest, and heal—or whether it needs to stay in protective mode. And if that messenger is confused, overwhelmed, or not functioning well, everything else, like your food, your supplements, your routines, has to work so much harder to make a difference.
The modern world is not built for regulation
Most of us are living in environments that constantly trigger the stress response. The modern world is loud, fast, overbooked, and constantly stimulating. Just trying to keep up can make our nervous systems feel like they’re under threat, even if we’re physically safe.
Some of the biggest stressors are things we barely notice anymore:
Constant notifications and screen time
Sensory overload (lights, noise, traffic, crowds)
Chronic busyness and lack of downtime
Disconnection from nature, movement, and community
Long-held emotional stress or unprocessed trauma
These factors create what I call a nervous system mismatch—your ancient biology trying to function in a modern world that never really lets you rest. Your vagus nerve takes the brunt of this. Over time, it loses the flexibility and responsiveness it needs to help you shift into calm and healing.
So even when you’re doing helpful things, your body might still be holding onto stress patterns that prevent those tools from fully landing.
Why this gets missed, even in holistic spaces
Nervous system dysregulation is invisible. You can’t measure it with a simple blood test. It doesn’t show up clearly on a scan. It doesn’t have one diagnosis or one protocol.
It shows up in patterns.
It shows up in how you feel in your body.
It shows up when you’ve “tried everything” and nothing is sticking.
Even in functional and holistic medicine, vagus nerve support is often seen as a “bonus tool,” not a core pillar of healing. I’m definitely guilty of this. Low vagal nerve tone can be hard to spot and assess. But, this is foundational.
A well-regulated nervous system doesn’t just feel better emotionally, it allows every other system in the body to function more efficiently.
Here’s what I often see when nervous system support is missing:
Supplements that help for a while, then stop working
Digestive protocols that don’t fully resolve the issue
Flare-ups that happen “out of nowhere”
Anxiety or panic that returns despite mindset work
A healing journey that feels harder than it needs to be
When the vagus nerve is supported and your nervous system feels safe, everything else has a stronger foundation to build on. They all work together, but the nervous system has to be online for that teamwork to really happen.
This is the missing piece that changes everything
Your body has been doing its best with the signals it’s been given, and now, you get to offer it a new set of signals. Ones that say, “You’re safe. You can soften. You don’t have to be on high alert anymore.”
And that’s exactly what we’ll explore next.
In Part 4, you’ll learn simple, supportive ways to help your vagus nerve come back into balance—without overhauling your life. Just small, nourishing steps that work with your body to bring you back into connection, calm, and healing.
If you have any questions, jump to our private Facebook Group or the Ask Lisa page :)