Improving Performance Through Vagus Nerve Resilience

The Stress Response Gap

Let me set the scene for you.

Let's say you're sitting in the conference room for a team meeting. Your manager suggests a change you can make to a project you're working on.

Rather than seeing it as helpful, you receive this feedback as a total personal attack. Your heart starts racing and you immediately become defensive. Obviously he's just trying to make you look bad in the meeting, right?

Let’s now take a step back as the observers. We'll assume the manager's delivery was actually very professional. We’ll also assume that his comments were truly intended to be helpful. Now let’s look at the response to the manager’s comments. This type of behavior highlights a person’s inability to process constructive input due to their internal state. But why is this happening? Let’s take a look at how developing resilience leads to sustainable performance in high-stakes environments.

The Science Behind the Reaction

Your autonomic nervous system handles bodily functions you do not consciously think about, such as digestion. The autonomic nervous system has two main branches. These branches are called the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest) and the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight).

Your vagus nerve originates in the brainstem and branches widely to the throat, heart, lungs, and digestive tract. It is largely responsible for your parasympathetic nervous system response. Those who struggle with anxiety often struggle to activate their parasympathetic nervous system in response to difficult situations.

Vagal tone is a measure of how effectively your vagus nerve is functioning. People with low vagal tone have a harder time returning to a calm state after a stressor because their parasympathetic nervous system is less efficient. These individuals are often very reactive to negative stimuli. Someone with a high vagal tone also feels stress, but they are able to respond, self-soothe, and quickly recover from stressors. Someone with low vagal tone is prone to ruminate over difficult situations or events for much longer.

We can all agree that stress isn’t going anywhere. It is an unavoidable part of our modern life. Though we can’t eliminate stress, we can improve the way we respond to it by improving our vagal tone. Having a high vagal tone has more benefits to it than just the ability to quickly recover from stress. Let’s see how high vagal tone impacts performance.

The Performance Benefit

In fast-paced environments, executive function plays a critical role in performance. Executive function happens in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Research from the National Library of Medicine shows executive function makes it possible to do things such as play with ideas, stay focused, and solve unexpected problems. These functions are highly important when tasks become complex or non-routine.

When vagal tone is low you are more prone to being reactive, misinterpreting stimuli, and have a limited ability to adapt to changing situations.

Having a high vagal tone provides you with a performance advantage because not only do you recover from high levels of stress quickly, you also think and respond to situations, rather than react. This is why there was a negative response to the manager’s comments earlier. When someone is reactive to situations and doesn’t take a few moments to properly assess what is happening, they make mountains out of molehills. Just like that old saying suggests, small problems become big ones and problems appear where none previously existed.

As we learned from one of our recent articles, The Beta Wave Trap, working for long periods in a high-alert state (fight-or-flight mode) can significantly reduce performance. It leads to tunnel vision, overthinking, and poor decision-making. The ability to self-regulate (high vagal tone) during times of stress enables you to tap back into a calmer state.

Vagal tone is measured by heart rate variability (HRV). New data has shown there is a high correlation between HRV and cognitive function. Research from Frontiers states that a decrease in HRV, which is low vagal tone, indicates a lack of ability to respond flexibly to changing demands. This reduces the range of possible options one can utilize and thus limits the individuals’ ability to generate appropriate responses. In short:

Low Vagal Tone = Low Ability to Solve Problems

Furthermore, the research also found high vagal tone to indicate a boost in performance in the following areas:

Processing speed

Memory and accuracy

Planning and decision making

Cognitive flexibility

What does this mean for you or your team?

This means high vagal tone is absolutely essential. The skills and capabilities mentioned above are especially useful in the tech field where prioritizing tasks, managing multiple stakeholders, and troubleshooting unique errors is common. Having a team with high vagal tone means the ability to:

Quickly pivot when client requirements change

Troubleshoot under pressure

Manage multiple projects with competing deadlines

The Bottom Line

Mastering your internal state is the key to high performance. By improving vagal tone, you will prevent burnout, reduce reactivity, and sharpen executive functions like decision-making and cognitive flexibility. Let’s stop overreacting to feedback and start troubleshooting with accuracy. Resilience is the key to lasting professional success.

I work with individuals and teams to build resiliency using science-backed techniques. If you want to build a resilient workforce or boost your own personal performance meet with me for a 15-minute discovery call. I will answer all your questions and show you one simple technique you can start using right away to improve vagal tone.

About the Author

Kharron Alderman is the founder of Rejuvenated Mind, a performance consultancy that helps fintech leaders and high-stakes teams optimize their most valuable asset: their nervous system. As the author of Mental Alchemy, Kharron specializes in using science-backed protocols to eliminate decision fatigue, prevent burnout, and protect executive function during rapid scaling.