Voice Tone: A Vagus Nerve Approach to Social Anxiety

Voice tone, controlled by the vagus nerve, plays a crucial role in how we experience social anxiety and how others perceive our emotional state in conversations.

• The polyvagal theory explains how our autonomic nervous system regulates safety, connection, and defense mechanisms through the vagus nerve
• Ventral vagal activation produces a warm, smooth voice tone with range, signaling safety to others
• Social anxiety often stems from sympathetic (fight/flight) or dorsal vagal (shutdown) activation, creating tense or flat voice tones
• Voice tone creates a feedback loop – tense voices reinforce negative social experiences while warm tones signal safety

Grab my free Vagus Nerve Reset video in the show notes. It's a quick and easy way to start feeling better today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Voice Tone and Nervous System
• 2:15 The Vagus Nerve's Role in Speech
• 5:24 Vocal Warmups for Anxiety Relief
• 6:28 Breathing Techniques for Social Situations
• 8:18 Training Your Social Engagement System
• 12:16 Preparing for Social Interactions
• 14:40 Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Emily : 0:00

Have you ever noticed how some people's voices just make you instantly feel safe and comfortable, while others kind of make you feel on edge? Well, that's not an accident. Your voice tone is controlled by your nervous system and it plays a huge role in social anxiety. Today, we are going to explore how you can use your voice to feel more at ease in conversations.

Emily : 0:23

Welcome to it Starts at Vagus. The podcast where holistic health meets modern living. I'm Emily, your guide to unlocking the power of the vagus nerve, which is your body's ultimate key to calm, connection and overall well-being. Together, we'll explore simple ways to nourish your mind and body with natural remedies, actionable tips and empowering stories. Whether you're here to reduce stress, restore balance or take charge of your health, you're in the right place, because wellness doesn't just happen. It starts at Vagus. Let's dive in.

Emily : 0:54

The polyvagal theory explains how our autonomic nervous system regulates our safety, connection and defense mechanisms, particularly through the vagus nerve. A key aspect of this theory is that social engagement system, and that's just a neural network that influences our ability to connect with others through facial expressions, voice tone and listening. So there is a connection between your voice tone and social anxiety and with the role of the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve, particularly its ventral branch, it takes care of the muscles involved in speech, some facial expressions, and when it's activated it can foster that calm, connected state and it allows a warm and smooth voice tone that has different ranges. So not just that monotone which is just keeping the same voice tone over and over, but having that voice tone move up and down smoothly. But when we're social anxiety with the nervous system, that social anxiety can stem from chronic activation of the sympathetic, which is our fight or flight state of our autonomic nervous system, or even the dorsal vagal tone, which is where we just shut down. And it's when we're in these states of fight or flight, or the fawning, which is where we shut down, those voice tones tend to become more flat, tense, shaky, and these are all signals to others that we feel uncomfortable.

Emily : 2:34

I know we can always hear it when people are talking to us and you hear that shakiness in their voice. If they're giving a speech, you just want to go give them a hug and be like you're okay, it's fine, and that would allow us to have that social interaction. The person giving the hug would calm the person who's got that shaky voice tone. But you know, sometimes we're not in a position where we can just stop a speech and you're just kind of internally rooting for them, like you can do it I know you can and smiling at them helps calm down their nerves and then their voice tone won't shake as much because they want to feel calm and relaxed. And we get those social cues from other people like okay, we're fine. And this also leads into that loop of voice and emotion, because that tense or flat voice tone can reinforce negative social experiences and that helps, it makes interactions awkward because you just don't know what to do. But when you have that warm, uplifting voice tone, that can signal safety and better connections and interactions with others. So let's say you struggle with that anxiety, that social anxiety where you can feel your heart beating and you know hands get clammy.

Emily : 3:57

Well, we want to engage the ventral vagal system, so that's the ventral part of our vagus nerve. The ventral vagal system, so that's the ventral part of our vagus nerve. So things like humming or singing our vocal warmups you can even just hum high to low or a silly one. That I like to do is two different ones. I go back to when I was a kid. I go think of, even when I play with my children, where you go that O sound and then you put the tap, the hand over your mouth, it just makes me smile because it's silly and it's just, it's a lot of fun. And when you put your hand over your mouth it kind of reminds me back when we would like sing in fans and it would sound silly. So that's just a really easy way how to wake up our voice and it's that vocal warm up that will help us calm down and feel better, because then we use our voice and we're able to articulate better and we're able to use it stronger, because it's just all about it's a use it, don't lose it type of mentality, and when we practice using it it's going to get stronger, it's going to feel comfortable talking, and so that is just one way to stimulate the ventral part of our vagus nerve that helps us relax our voice.

Emily : 5:24

Another one that I usually think of when I think of anxiety and social interactions are the breathing. We can breathe really fast. If we're nervous or we stop breathing, those are the two that kind of overtake us, and when we recognize that our breathing has shifted, then we can just go like okay, I know, let's just breathe in and out. And if you're around, a lot of people just breathing in through your nose and out the mouth, that's not noticeable. You don't have to do a huge and out, you know, you don't have to make all these noises, you just can do a calm in and out. Nobody's going to notice. So it's just an easy, easy practice.

Emily : 6:13

When you start feeling nervous or anxious, to take that slow breath in and slow breath out, again, everybody breathes, so they're not going to notice that you're breathing differently because it's controlled. They're going to notice a lot more if you're breathing really, really fast, but if you just breathe that rhythmic way, just the slow, slow in, slow out, they won't notice. So this is probably just where you just get in that rhythm breathing, just that slow rhythm breathing. We're not trying to hold our breath, we're not trying to do box breathing. The box breathing is where we breathe in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds and then four seconds, breathe out for four seconds and then hold for another four seconds. It's got that box breathing. This would not be the time for that because we don't want to hold our breath. Our anxiety would be fed more if we want to hold our breath, because that's one way that our body holds onto tension. So we really just want to breathe in and breathe out very rhythmically, just smooth, and once that starts calming down and it'll happen fast your body will start calming down. Then you can start with a smile and start talking to other people and if it starts becoming overwhelming again, just breathe in and out. If you want to take a drink of water, go for it Again. Nobody's going to notice these things. They're easy, simple ways to support yourself, to not freak out. Essentially, it's just an easy way to take control of a situation where you feel that anxiety sneak in. So just breathe it in, breathe it out.

Emily : 7:51

Now how we can train the social engagement system and that's where we can, how we react in social situations One is just mirror other people's voice tones. So we can just engage in conversations where you practice using a gentle, warm tone voice and see how your body feels. You can even practice this in the bathroom. It doesn't have to be with somebody, just getting used to hearing your own voice. That is a skill. I'm just saying it. It's weird to listen to yourself and if you take that time and just decide how do I like this, how does it sound? You're going to realize that you like your voice tone in different pitches and then just practice it, because that's what practice will make it comfortable. It'll be make it feel like, okay, I recognize how I feel when I use this voice tone.

Emily : 8:46

And then you can practice reading. Just read a book out loud, just hear how your voice sounds. Oh my goodness, read it to a preschooler. They are so much fun to read. To Grab an easy book, throw some emotions in there and bring your voice tone up and down. And grab a book like, let's say, like the Three Bears, fully Relaxed, and the Three Bears, Because you're already familiar with it, you know the storyline, and then you can practice putting emotions into it and your emotions will match your voice. So it will just help give you an opportunity to train your vocal patterns.

Emily : 9:26

Another one is just learning from others Audiobooks. They're a really good medium to learn how to bring in different voice tones. Learn how to bring in different voice tones. So if you have to work on a calming voice, well, find an audio book that has a calming speaker. You can also listen to guiding meditations If you want to listen to calming songs. Those all give you ideas on how to use your voice.

Emily : 9:53

Because once you learn that voice, you're able to accomplish that social engagement where you feel comfortable talking to other people that you're surrounded with, instead of getting nervous. Your default will be I've got this, I know this, I've practiced it, and it will reduce that fear, the fear response, by gradual exposures to social situations. So start with low pressure interactions, like ordering food, which sometimes is a struggle. If it's a place you haven't been to before, you might be like I don't know their menu, I don't know if they're going to ask me any follow-up questions. So just take those times, because it's just a short, short moment that people will be interacting with you and if you mess up, they're not going to remember you. They are going to carry on because they get so many orders and then you can have that experience down. Then you're like, okay, maybe I need to go to a new coffee shop where they don't know me. So they get used to answering questions, because answering questions is on the spot. You don't know what they're going to ask you all the time and it'll get used to you answering questions without over-complicating the situation.

Emily : 11:10

And my tip on if you go to a coffee shop that you don't know and you aren't sure what to ask for or what to say, you can just always ask the barista what is your favorite and ask them to create it, because I've never met a barista who doesn't know their favorite coffee. They know exactly how to make it perfect and they are excited to share it with you. So that is an easy, easy tip. It's so much fun because they get excited and then you get to see a different flavor that might not even be on the menu. So it's just all around. It's really fun. That is my favorite way to order coffee.

Emily : 11:46

You can also try self-soothing. So if you need to go and do some affirmations in the car before you go somewhere, you can write down things that you are really really good at Like I am going to just make eye contact and smile and write down questions that you might ask another person. So you already prepared, because if you know you're going into a social interaction let's say it's for work and you don't know the people that you're meeting you can have a list of questions in your head and say and then practice them and use your voice tone and it'll give you practice on how you want to interact with people that you aren't familiar with. And it's pretty easy. It's hard in the moment, but easy to practice.

Emily : 12:37

Now there are things that we can do, again to support our vagus nerve, because, again, our vagus nerve is the messenger to our brain saying how everything is going. Are we safe? Are we not? Are we in fight or flight mode, or are we going to shut down? Or are we going to rest and enjoy the calm that rest and digest and by practicing that gets our body familiar with what's going on. And it's not that practice makes perfect. We're not going for perfect, but we're going so that we can gain some familiarity. But we're going so that we can gain some familiarity.

Emily : 13:18

Our body likes familiar things, it likes routines, it wants to feel safe and feeling safe often goes back to our defaults, and if our default is practicing a certain phrase, it becomes easier and that really helps calm all of your worries and so that your brain doesn't go in overload, and that's all it is. We're just trying to calm it down. So voice tone has a lot to do with how our body feels safe Because, again, if it feels shaky, you can feel it feel shaky, it's going to trigger other things and we don't want that. Feel shaky, it's going to trigger other things and we don't want that. We want to feel safe and secure so we can just enjoy the connections and people around us. And so if you need to take, you know, five minutes to practice something, that's okay. And if you want to sing one of your favorite songs before meeting your friend at a new place, again that's okay. It's okay to prepare. It's safe knowing that if you're going to meet somebody new, know as much as you possibly can Ask about the environment, the parking, anything that will give you some sense of control or familiarity. So I hope that you're able to pick one of those today and practice it Again. Practicing helps make it familiar, which makes it our default.

Emily : 14:43

Sing a song after this. Just practice singing a song, enjoy it. Smile, breathe, do all the great things.

Emily : 14:50

Thanks for listening to "It Starts at Vagus.

Emily : 14:52

If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're ready to take the next step toward calm, grab my free Vagus Nerve Reset video in the show notes. It's a quick and easy way to start feeling better today and until next time remember wellness starts at Vagus.