By Noah J

｜

Published on October 7, 2026

Medically reviewed by Dr. Saloni Kabra, B.H.M.S.

I’m 41, I run an operations team of eleven, and for six years my body has not once believed the day was over.

I’m good at the job. That’s the part people don’t understand.

I make decisions all day on about sixty percent of the information I’d like to have, and I make them fast, and most of them are right. Seven hours of calls back to back, an on-call week one in three, and a list that grows while I’m sitting in the meeting about the list.

That’s not what does it.

What does it is a message that says “have you got five minutes?” with nothing after it.

Six words, no context, and my whole chest goes. Every time. It’s never anything – a supplier question, a holiday form – and it does not matter, because by the time I find out my body has already been through the entire thing.

Eighteen months ago there was a restructure. I kept my job. I sat in a room and told three people on my team that theirs was going, two of whom I’d hired myself.

Nothing stopped the symptoms.

I’ve known what the vagus nerve does since training. I could draw it for you.

I was skeptical you could get at it from the outside, but I picked a device and tried it anyway.

I decided to track in a journal what happened day by day.

Here’s the real story, no fluff, just what I actually experienced.

Day 1-4: The Notification

It showed up in a plain box. I clipped it onto my ear before my first call. It tingled slightly but was not uncomfortable, just… there.

I felt nothing and almost wanted to send it back.

Then at about half nine my director’s name came up with “quick chat later?” and nothing else.

I know exactly what happens next, because it’s happened four hundred times: the drop through the stomach, the hands going.

Then three hours of building the conversation in my head, arguing my side of a case nobody has made against me, while sitting in other meetings and contributing nothing.

I put it on and got on with the morning anyway.

About 20 minutes in, something weird happened.

My jaw wasn’t tight, my hands weren’t buzzing, and I got through the eleven o’clock call actually listening to it.

I wasn’t calm exactly, but I wasn’t building the case either:

It felt like a question I’d get an answer to at two o’clock instead of a verdict I had to survive until then.

It was a supplier thing. It took four minutes.

That’s when I stopped thinking about returning it.

Day 8-12: The Physical Shift

Tuesday was the kind of day the job is actually made of.

A call I had to make by four on a supplier problem where every option was bad, made with half the numbers I wanted, in a fifteen-minute gap between two other meetings. Then eight more hours of pretending that decision wasn’t sitting in my chest.

Twenty minutes with the device in the car before I drove home.

I still thought it was probably the wrong call. But I put it down when I got in, and I ate dinner with my family, and I didn’t go back upstairs at nine to check whether anyone had replied about it.

I did not spiral.

Then Thursday I was on call and the phone went at ten past two in the morning.

That normally costs me the entire night: sorted in twenty minutes, then lying there wired until the alarm, then a day of running on nothing.

Instead?

I dealt with it and I went back to sleep. I have not been able to do that since I got the rota.

Chronic stress can affect sleep and recovery for some people, which may contribute to feeling less recovered over time.

This was finally flipping that switch.

Day 16-22: Digestion and Sleep

I’ve eaten lunch at my desk on a call for six years, and my stomach has made me pay for it. Reflux by mid afternoon, a burn under my ribs that turns up around the fourth meeting, antacids in my laptop bag.

Day nineteen?

I ate away from the desk, and nothing happened afterwards.

Living braced may shut digestion down…

This told my body it was safe.

Sleep was my biggest struggle: asleep by eleven from sheer exhaustion, then awake at four with the whole of the next day already running, every meeting, every decision, in order.

And Sunday afternoons. From about three o’clock on a Sunday I stopped being any use to anyone, because Monday had already started in my body.

I used it an hour before bed.

First night? Asleep in 20 minutes.

Woke at 4 AM but fell back asleep.

After a week, my Oura ring showed it: HRV up, resting heart rate down.

My nervous system is finally relaxing.

Day 30: What Changed

This didn’t fix my job.

I still have weeks that take everything, and the restructure could still come round again.

But:

My body responds to work differently now.

Before, a message with no context and my reaction were the same event, and I’d lose three hours to it before finding out it was nothing.

Now there’s a gap, and most of the time the gap is long enough for me to notice it’s probably nothing.

A "have you got five minutes?" is a question now, not a verdict
I make the call at four and put it down at six instead of carrying it to Sunday
I get my Sunday afternoons back
On-call nights cost me the twenty minutes they should cost, not the whole night

Why Your Body Stays Stuck in Anxious Thoughts (And How This Helps)

You already know the vagus nerve is your body’s “calm down” nerve. Here’s the part that matters if your job runs on adrenaline.

Nobody in a job like mine has trouble switching on. That’s most of the reason we got hired.

The problem is the other half of the system — the half that’s supposed to bring you back down once it’s over.

And here’s the thing about this kind of work: it’s never actually over. A shift ends when someone takes the handover. A job with a phone in it doesn’t end at all, it just goes quiet for a bit, and your body knows the difference. So the down half never gets called on. Use one half hard enough for long enough and the other one stops answering.

That’s why the notification sound does what it does. You’re not overreacting to a message. You’re a system that’s been left in the on position for six years, and any push at all tips a body like that straight into full alarm.

Your body stays stuck in fight-or-flight.

Nurosym sends gentle electrical signals through your ear to stimulate the vagus nerve.

It tells your body:

“You’re safe. You can relax now.”

I compared a lot of devices before I picked this one. Over 60 scientific studies back this one up:

Will This Actually Work For You?

You’ll benefit if:

A message that says "have you got five minutes?" costs you the next three hours
You're excellent under pressure and completely unable to come down afterwards
You make calls all day on partial information and then re-make them at four in the morning
You've sat through a restructure, kept your job, and never stopped waiting for the next one
Sunday afternoon stopped belonging to you a long time ago
You fall into bed exhausted and lie there with the whole of tomorrow running in order

Skip it if:

The Practical Stuff

Cost: Around €700. Not cheap, but less than I’ve spent on supplements, apps and sleep aids that never once got me down off a shift.

Research subsidy: Get €70 off if you join their study (takes 2 minutes).

Money-back guarantee: 30 days, which is what made me try it.

How to use: Clip it on your ear and control intensity.

Sessions: 15 minutes to 2 hours.

I do:

Use it while working, reading, and watching TV.

The sensation is gentle tingling.

Not painful.

My Honest Take

Most wellness products have disappointed me and led me to be naturally skeptical.

This one’s different.

It didn’t fix everything.

A bad week is still a bad week and I still check my phone more than I’d like to admit

But for the first time in years…

I’m not constantly fighting my own nervous system.

I get to be a person on my days off.

I sleep after nights, I eat on shift, and I stopped bringing the job home in my body.

30 Days To A Calmer You: Guaranteed Or Refunded

Try Nurosym for 30 days.

If it doesn’t help, you just send it back and get a full refund.

You have nothing to lose except a nervous system that never gets to clock off.

References:

Chalmers, J. A., Quintana, D. S., Abbott, M. J.-A., & Kemp, A. H. (2014). Anxiety disorders are associated with reduced heart rate variability: A meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 5, 80.
Cao, R., Azimi, I., Sarhaddi, F., Niela-Vilen, H., Axelin, A., Liljeberg, P., & Rahmani, A. M. (2022). Accuracy assessment of Oura Ring nocturnal heart rate and heart rate variability in comparison with electrocardiography. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 24(1), e27487.
Borges, U., Laborde, S., & Raab, M. (2019). Influence of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation on cardiac vagal activity: A randomized controlled trial. PLOS ONE, 14(10), e0223848.
Leigh, S.-J., Kaakoush, N. O., Lucassen, P. J., & Walker, F. R. (2023). The impact of acute and chronic stress on gastrointestinal physiology and function: A review. The Journal of Physiology.
Marsland, A. L., Walsh, C., Lockwood, K., & John-Henderson, N. A. (2017). The effects of acute psychological stress on circulating and stimulated inflammatory markers: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 64, 208-219.
Peuker, E. T., & Filler, T. J. (2002). The nerve supply of the human auricle. Clinical Anatomy, 15(1), 35-37.
Redgrave, J., Day, D., Leung, H., Laud, P. J., Ali, A., Lindert, R., & Majid, A. (2018). Safety and tolerability of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation in humans: A systematic review. Brain Stimulation, 11(6), 1225-1238.
Segerstrom, S. C., & Miller, G. E. (2004). Psychological stress and the human immune system: A meta-analytic study of 30 years of inquiry. Psychological Bulletin, 130(4), 601-630.
Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. (1996). Heart rate variability: Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Circulation, 93(5), 1043-1065.
Yap, J. Y. Y., Keatch, C., Lambert, E., Woods, W., Stoddart, P. R., & Kameneva, T. (2020). Critical review of transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation: Challenges for translation to clinical practice. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 14, 284.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Consult with a healthcare provider before starting any new treatment. This site may receive compensation from product links.

Every “Have You Got Five Minutes?” Landed Like a Verdict & I Journalled 30 Days of Wearing a Vagus Nerve Device