‘So … is that a sex thing?” asks the delivery man, eyeing the punitive-looking device throbbing ominously about my throat. “I’m stimulating my vagus nerve,” I breeze.
There is a silence. “So … it is a sex thing?” I am learning that combining the verb stimulate with any word beginning with a V provokes certain assumptions in the listener.
Yet arousing the vagus nerve is where it’s at, both in wellness and fashion terms—it’s the new brat summer as far as self-care is concerned. Social media stalwarts are #obsessed, with more than 185 million TikTok views for #vagusnerve and about 166,000 posts on Instagram.
Advice on methods for “toning” or “resetting” said nerve include humming, deep breathing, meditation, ice baths, ear massage, sundry eye movements and lying on one’s back clutching ice packs to the chest. Meanwhile, fans are invited to purchase vagus nerve-exciting massage oil, pillow mists and even vibrating jewellery. Forget cordyceps consumption, sound bath immersion or bovine colostrum quaffing, the hottest middle-class dinner party brag of 2025 will be vagus, baby. And the phrase “getting on your nerves” is all set to acquire a new, neuromodulation-based meaning.
So what is the vagus nerve and why should we seek to stimulate it? I direct this question at Povilas Sabaliauskas, 36, a biomedical engineer and the London-based Lithuanian co-founder and CEO of Pulsetto, a toning device that appears most convenient in terms of simplicity and portability. Rival tech can be sported in the ear, attached to the wrist or clutched to the chest in the manner of a cherished tamagotchi. However, I harbour a vague memory that the neck is where it’s at V nerve-wise. Right, Mr. Sabaliauskas?
“Correct,” he confirms. “The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body, extending from the brainstem through the neck, chest and abdomen, and connecting to various organs including the heart, lungs and digestive tract. The neck is one of the optimal locations for its stimulation because the nerve runs close to the skin here.” Longevity cultists such as the American venture capitalist Bryan Johnson and the fitness guru Ben Greenfield are advocates.
Some vagus vanguardists compare the nerve to a tree, the branches of which reach out to almost every organ system in the body. Sabaliauskas prefers to call it “a highway of information” and a critical part of the parasympathetic nervous system. “Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) delivers gentle electrical impulses to this nerve, activating your parasympathetic nervous system—your body’s natural calm mode. This helps shift you from a ‘fight or flight’ to ‘rest and digest’ state, acting as your body’s built-in reset button for balance and relaxation.”
It is at this point that the ghost of my late father, a world leader in epilepsy, hovers near, lamenting: “If only you’d paid attention to your dear old dad.”
“Wait!” I cry. “Did this technology originate with seizure treatment?”
“It did indeed,” confirms Sabaliauskas, whose background is in the implantable VNS industry.
VNS was introduced in the late 1980s as a treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy. Since then there have been more than 20,000 research papers exploring its applications across legions of conditions. What began as a state-of-the-art clinical intervention, now available on the NHS, has evolved into a wellness therapy said to improve heart rate variability, reduce inflammation and manage stress.
Evidence suggests that VNS can help those who suffer from diabetes, inflammatory autoimmune conditions such as Crohn’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis, post-traumatic stress disorder and treatment-resistant depression. So many of us are engaged in a relentless quest to be happier, healthier and better rested that four minutes’ neck tingling a couple of times a day seems a small price to pay for sleep, sanity and a salubrious gut—once, of course, you’ve paid the less than small price of £544 for the Pulsetto itself. And although the downloadable app you use to control it is free for the basic version, which offers five programme choices—stress, anxiety, sleep, burnout and pain — you can opt to pay a further £99.99 a year for three more programmes, as well as 1,200 positive affirmations (1,200 too many in my book).
Still, I want in, if only for pure fashionability. It’s a cinch to set up and get stimulating, the dog in her collar, me in mine. The Pulsetto isn’t big on instructions, which suits me fine as I don’t read them. I also dispense with its breathing exercises, respiration being for wimps.
I go for the burnout option, because in the pre-Yule period in which stimming becomes my solace, this is where I’m at: germ-ridden, slogging until the small hours, with sheer exhaustion alone keeping me on the right side of lunacy. I am instructed to do a six-minute session at intensity 5, and that—if still overwhelmed after 45 minutes—I can do this again, multiple times a day.
Exciting this area is akin to having someone drum their fingers speedily over one’s throat, not entirely flattering to the middle-aged neck. Still, within a couple of days I’m revving six minutes up to eight, the Pulsetto’s nerve-tweaking intensity up to 9—and enjoying the results. Not only does the pink light match my blusher, I find myself overworked but not in a fretful way; any stress seems to hover distantly, like a pain that’s been dulled by morphine.
A week in and a friend suggests I engage in VNS while deploying a Rampant Rabbit for ultimate stimulation. I consider asking Pulsetto’s query service whether this would blow my mind (and/or other organs). Instead I inquire whether the conductive gel I have dispensed with is necessary. I’m told it is. “Without it you may not achieve the desired effects.” Have I been imagining my chillaxed demeanour?
I press on, three times a day when I remember (my mobile reminding me when I don’t). The manufacturers claim that Pulsetto reduces stress by 64.5 per cent within ten days. However, I seem to become more unhinged — actively anxious, which I usually lack the energy for. My sleep is disturbed and I bite off my nails (something I haven’t done for a decade). To be fair, it’s five days before Christmas, I’m still working up a storm and have rabid PMT. I also realise I’ve been scrimping on the gel again, applying it to only one side of my neck when pulses are received on both. Is there a programme for rule resistance?
A month on, am I benefiting? Honestly, I have no idea. If my father’s ghost could stage a comeback and give its verdict, I’d be grateful. But I imagine it would intone, “A placebo effect is still an effect,” mention something about said solutions being side-effect free, then vanish.
Instead, I ask Pulsetto’s co-creator where VNS-ing might lead. “The potential is extraordinary,” Sabaliauskas says. “Imagine devices that adapt to your unique needs—helping you stay calm under stress, sharpen focus during demanding tasks or speeding up recovery after exercise. As bioelectric medicine evolves, we’re likely to see these techniques complement, or in some cases replace, pharmaceuticals, with fewer side-effects and more targeted benefits.”
I’m not giving up my happy pills just yet, but I will keep stimulating—with a little more focus and a lot more lube. I’m not looking to extend my lifespan; however, expanding my sanity span really does sound appealing. Should my marbles roll back into place, I promise to report back.
Hannah Betts is a writer at The Times of London. Her Substack is hannahbetts.substack.com
