6 Ways to Calm Your Mind

News

May 27

With school and sports schedules, deadlines, springtime events like showers, weddings and graduations, and the anticipation of having your routine turned upside down for the long days of summer—not to mention the constant day-to-day buzzing from our phones—this time of year can make a person feel a little frazzled.

To keep calm and carry on as they say, experts weigh in on how to quiet our minds and find some zen.

Stimulate your Vagus nerve

The key to all these approaches we describe, explains Erica Schwartzberg, a relational and somatic-informed psychotherapist at A Good Place Therapy in New York City, is that they all stimulate the Vagus nerve: a key part of the parasympathetic nervous system that communicates between the brain, heart and digestive systems. “Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory explains how our nervous system (in particular, the Vagus nerve) responds to safety or danger, thereby influencing our behavior and emotional state,” says Schwartzberg. Stimulating this nerve, she says, offers relief in anxiety, depression and inflammation, reduces stress and improves sleep.