to help you Skip the Small Talk in your everyday life
As people emerge from their quarantine shells and start attending social gatherings again, a lot of us are feeling more socially awkward than usual. That’s totally normal to feel strange after not interacting with people in a social setting for a while!
So I wanted to offer a strategy for coping with social discomfort, whether it’s coming from post-quarantine awkwardness, chronic social anxiety, or something in between.
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!
