How to calm down when everything is horrible

Photo by Alina Grubnyak

If you’re feeling like you’re struggling a little more than usual right now, you’re not alone. 

As of writing this article, a lot of us are feeling burnt out from about a year of masking up, social distancing, and avoiding social gatherings. 

Fortunately, there’s actually a physiological shortcut to calming down when you’re feeling anxious or angry. 

It’s called the vagus nerve.

The vagus nerve helps bring your body back to homeostasis after it’s freaked out. 

The nerve runs throughout your body and controls a ton of body functions, like digestion, blood vessel dilation/contraction, heart rate, breathing, and more. 

So, when you activate your vagus nerve, you get your digestion to speed up and your heart rate to slow down.

The good news is that there are some neat (and possibly surprising) shortcuts to stimulating your vagus nerve! Here are some below:


Breathing exercises:

• Belly breaths: Put one hand on your belly and the other hand on your chest. Take a deep breath such that your belly moves out farther than your chest does. Take a few breaths like this. Once you feel accustomed to it, you can take your hands off your chest and belly and just take a few belly breaths whenever you’re feeling stressed.
  

• Box breaths: Breathe in as much as you comfortably can into your belly for 4 slow counts. Then, hold your breath for another slow 4 counts. Exhale slowly for 4 counts. Hold your breath for another slow 4 counts. Repeat as long as you’d like.
  

• Rectangle breaths: Okay, I totally made up that term, but the technique itself is real. The rationale for this one is that your vagus nerve gets stimulated when you exhale for longer than you inhale. So, inhale for a slow count of 6, exhale for a slow count of 8, and then repeat as you’d like.

If you have a few minutes:

• Splash your face with some water: One cool physiological phenomenon is called the dive reflex. All mammals have it. When your nostrils and face get wet and cold while you hold your breath, your vagus nerve gets stimulated to help your body conserve energy (it’s to prepare you to hold your breath as long as possible underwater).

  So, you can take advantage of that reflex and throw some cool water on your face when possible to calm down quickly, even if you’re freaking out. Since this does slow down your heart rate and blood pressure relatively quickly, please be careful with this one if you have any health conditions that would make that a problem, like postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or anorexia.
  

• Sing loudly(ish… don’t want you to hurt your voice) or gargle water: Your vagus nerve runs along your vocal cords, so if you stimulate your vocal cords, you stimulate your vagus nerve. Talking and humming works, too, but singing and gargling probably help a little more because they stimulate your vocal cords a bit more intensely.
  

• Laugh: This stimulates the vocal cords, but if you’re laughing authentically at something you find funny, you’re probably getting an extra boost of feel-good chemicals, too. So, if you have the time, it can help to read or watch something funny. If you don’t have time, though, even the mere action of laughing stimulates your vagus nerve, even if you don’t find anything funny.

More options to calm yourself down in public:

• Massage your hands: Any kind of pleasant physical touch stimulates your vagus nerve. It’s especially effective if you can massage somewhere on your body where your vagus nerve is located, like the back of your neck. But if you’re stressed out in the middle of a meeting and don’t want anyone to know, it’s still quite helpful to massage your hands under a table or massage the top of your thighs if they’re obscured from view.
  

• Smile slightly: This is one of those few cases where you actually can “fake it ‘til you make it.” Your vagus nerve runs through your face, and smiling with your lips, even a little, can stimulate it directly. So if you’re feeling nervous in public, a slight smile can help you feel calmer, and can have the bonus effect of making you seem more friendly and approachable, if that’s something you’re going for. 

Want to try something stronger?

• Use a tVNS device: If the above vagus nerve stimulation doesn’t work well enough for your level of anxiety, that’s okay! They actually make devices that stimulate your vagus nerve using electricity-- you clip it onto a specific part of your ear (your tragus) and it’s totally painless. And as long as you don’t have any contraindications, it’s totally harmless, aside from some occasional skin irritation if you have sensitive skin.

  The downside is that it can be expensive, but you don’t need a prescription for it or anything, and you can order one online. If it’s out of your budget, you can also jerry-rig a tVNS device out of a TENS unit and instructions that you can find on the internet.
  

• Try CBD oil if that’s your jam and if it’s legal where you are: CBD oil may bring to mind the image of hippies lying around, half-lucidly binging on snacks and effortfully stringing together barely-sensical sentences, but the reality is far from that. The typical “stoner” stereotype comes from the effects of THC, a chemical found in non-medical marijuana that elicits the negative things we associate with marijuana: the munchies, slower reaction speeds, lowered cognitive functioning, and more.

  Fortunately, CBD oil generally contains either no THC or tiny enough quantities of THC that it should have no negative impact on your cognitive or physical functioning. Lots of recent research supports CBD oil as a tool for soothing anxiety and reducing depression, and even positively affecting learning and energy in some studies. There’s also a good deal of recent research supporting CBD’s positive impact on chronic pain and even certain chronic diseases.
  

• Meditate: I saved this one for last because chances are, you’ve already heard about the benefits of meditating. In case you want a reminder, though, it’s incredible at reducing stress and pain, and it improves memory and learning. It even improves your ability to persist during difficult circumstances.

  That all may seem great, but something I often hear from people is that meditating just “doesn’t work” for them. Unfortunately, there are many guided meditations out there that aren’t trauma-informed, and some can actually stress you out even more. While that’s not necessarily inherently bad, it can turn off a lot of newer meditators, especially if they’re turning to meditation for relaxation.

  There’s an upside, though. There are nearly infinite different ways to meditate, and there are tons of different apps and websites to help. So if every meditation you’ve tried so far gets you riled up, don’t worry-- you’re in good company. There are plenty of options, so if you keep trying to find something, chances are that you’ll land on something that actually helps you calm down.

If you try one of these and you’re not feeling 100% better, that’s totally normal! 

Often, it takes a few of these as well as some time and some processing of your feelings to calm down. 

I think these tools are best used as methods for taking the edge off, and not necessarily as cure-all’s. 

If you’re looking for longer-term or more thorough solutions to anxiety, finding a therapist can be a huge help if you don’t have one yet. 

If you end up trying out any of these, let me know how it goes!