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Most people understand the importance of a healthy diet, regular exercise, and fresh air for a healthy lifestyle. But evidence suggests that social wellness may be just as vital, if not more so, in supporting both physical and mental health. And your vagus nerve may have more to do with it than you realize.
What Is Social Wellness and Why Does It Matter for Your Health?
Social wellness is the ability to form and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with family members, friends, intimate partners, peers, and others in your community. It measures how well your relationships provide emotional support, meaningful interactions, and the sense of belonging needed for optimal health and well-being.1
Social wellness encompasses the quantity and quality of relationships. Both the number of relationships you have and the quality of those relationships have an impact on both your physical and mental health.
Strong social connections have long been known to increase health and happiness, while social isolation can lead to depression, raise your risk of mental illness and mood disorders, and negatively impact your physical health.
How Social Isolation Harms Your Physical and Mental Health
Loneliness and social isolation increase your risk of poor physical and mental health.
Not having meaningful relationships or social interactions in your life can lead to depression, anxiety, and increased risk of developing mental health or mood disorders, as well as increasing the severity of some medical conditions, such as heart disease and other chronic diseases. In fact, social isolation may rival other behavioral risk factors, such as smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise, in its negative impact on health. 1,2
The Health Benefits of Strong, Meaningful Relationships
Healthy relationships can improve your health and help you live longer in several ways.
Close friendships allow you an outlet to express yourself and vent your emotions, helping you manage stress and anxiousness. A best friend can give you a sense of self-worth and safety.
While healthy social interactions alone can improve health to some extent, when combined with physical activity, they become even more helpful. Some people find exercise more enjoyable and tend to be more consistent when exercising with a friend. The combination of meaningful companionship and consistent physical activity can strengthen your heart function, improve your immune system, and help you cope with chronic diseases.
People with healthy, meaningful relationships tend to have lower rates of depression, better moods, and higher satisfaction with life overall. They tend to be more optimistic and have a better perception of aging.
Close friendships and good peer interactions in younger people can lead to increased resilience in later life, and older adults who live in community centers tend to have better social, emotional, physical, and intellectual health than those who live alone. They have more opportunities to talk and laugh over a meal, exercise together, or simply sit and talk, leading them to feel more in control and more satisfied with life.2
Overall, people who are more socially connected tend to be healthier and live longer than those who live in social isolation.
8 Ways to Improve Your Social Wellness
Understanding how important meaningful relationships are is the first step toward building social connections that can improve your physical and mental well-being.
So, how can you improve your social wellness? 2
- Learn to express your emotions in a healthy way. Having someone to express your emotions to and doing so in a healthy way, without violence or yelling, can help you feel calmer and relieve stress.
- Talk to strangers. Although this may not feel comfortable to everyone, brief conversations with strangers can help you feel connected to others around you in your community, and you may find things you have in common or even make a friend. Strike up a conversation with your neighbor. Smile and ask your barista how their day is going.
- Listen to understand, not to respond. Try to understand where the other person is coming from and what they mean. What do they need from this conversation? How can you help them feel heard and seen? How can you help them resolve this situation?
- Join a social group. Joining religious congregations or social organizations made up of people with common interests and common goals can reduce loneliness and provide a sense of belonging, hope, and connection.
- Find an exercise buddy. Exercising with a friend or a group is a great way to improve your social and physical wellness. Go for a walk with a friend, train for a marathon, take your dog to a dog park, bring your kids to a park with other kids and parents, or join an exercise class. 3
- Prioritize face-to-face activities. Put down your phone, turn off the TV, and eat a meal with your family or friend group. Play cards with your friends or find board games you all enjoy.
- Learn self-soothing techniques, such as deep breathing exercises or tai chi. Self-soothing techniques can improve your responses to stress so you feel calmer, which in turn will help those around you feel more at ease.
- Consider vagus nerve stimulation. Your vagus nerve can help you to regulate your nervous system and feel more comfortable in social situations.
The Vagus Nerve and Social Wellness: How VNS Can Help
The vagus nerve is the longest and most complex nerve in your body. It runs from your brain throughout your body and plays an important role in regulating key systems, including your heart rate, blood pressure, gastrointestinal function, and even your immune system.
Your vagus nerve is responsible for balancing your sympathetic nervous system’s “fight-or-flight” response with your parasympathetic system’s “rest-and-digest” response. When this nerve is out of balance, you may feel anxiousness or stress even when there is no apparent reason, which can make social interactions challenging.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a self-soothing method that uses a small hand-held device that sends gentle energy waves through the skin and soft tissues to stimulate the vagus nerve. New research is exploring the role of vagus nerve stimulation in supporting everyday wellness, stress resilience, and autonomic nervous system balance.5
Truvaga brings this technology into an at-home wellness device, with gentle vagus nerve stimulation in just two minutes. If you find social interactions stressful, vagus nerve stimulation may help. Truvaga devices are safe and effective solutions that may help reduce stress, provide better sleep and lessen edginess, allowing you to enjoy your social interactions and improve your social wellness.
Frequently Asked Questions about Social Wellness and the Vagus Nerve:
Can social wellness actually affect my physical health?
Yes. Research shows that social isolation can rival behavioral risk factors like smoking and poor diet in its negative impact on physical health. Strong social connections have been linked to improved heart function, a stronger immune system, and longer life expectancy.
How do I know if my vagus nerve is “out of balance”?
Signs of vagus nerve imbalance include chronic feelings of unease or stress with no clear cause, difficulty relaxing after stressful events, and digestive issues. When the vagus nerve isn’t regulating the nervous system effectively, your body may stay stuck in “fight-or-flight” mode, making everyday social interactions feel overwhelming.
How does vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) work, and is it safe?
VNS uses a small handheld device that sends gentle electric stimulation through the skin to activate the vagus nerve, helping shift your body from a stressed state to a calmer one. Devices like Truvaga are designed for safe, at-home use. Just two 2-minute sessions per day may help reduce stress and make social situations feel more manageable.
References:
- Wickramaratne, Priya J., et al. “Social Connectedness as a Determinant of Mental Health: A Scoping Review.” PLOS ONE, vol. 17, no. 10, 13 Oct. 2022, e0275004, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9560615/.
- Penwell-Waines, Lynn, et al. “The Power of Connection: Self-Care Strategies of Social Wellbeing.” Journal of Interprofessional Education & Practice, vol. 31, June 2023, article 100612, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405452622000933.
- National Institutes of Health. “Social Wellness Toolkit.” NIH Your Healthiest Self: Wellness Toolkits, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, reviewed Mar. 2026, https://www.nih.gov/health-information/your-healthiest-self-wellness-toolkits/social-wellness-toolkit.
- Austelle, Christopher W., et al. “Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS): Recent Advances and Future Directions.” Clinical Autonomic Research, vol. 34, no. 6, 4 Oct. 2024, pp. 529–547, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10286-024-01065-w.
- Vonck, Robrecht, et al. Vagus Nerve Stimulation…25 Years Later! Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2023.
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