How to Use vagal in a Sentence

vagal

adjective
  • These scientists note that the tip of a vagal branch ends in the folds of the ear.
    — Shi En Kim, Scientific American, 28 Dec. 2023
  • For example, a large cluster of vagal neurons clings like a vine to the carotid artery in your neck.
    — R Douglas Fields, WIRED, 29 Sep. 2024
  • The team tested their subjects’ vagal tone, or strength, before and after the study.
    — Jeffrey Rediger, Discover Magazine, 17 Apr. 2020
  • The way your body does that is to increase vagal nerve activity, which, in turn, slows down your heart rate.
    — Trisha Pasricha, Washington Post, 29 July 2024
  • And as the number of social interactions went up, so did vagal tone.
    — Jeffrey Rediger, Discover Magazine, 17 Apr. 2020
  • Pros Studies show excess weight loss of about 24% with vagal blockade.
    — Amber J. Tresca, Verywell Health, 5 July 2024
  • The breath hold is believed to further raise vagal tone, which brings down stress hormones and lifts heart rate variability.
    — Allison Palmer, Miami Herald, 23 May 2026
  • Talk with your healthcare provider before practicing vagal maneuvers on your own.
    — Carrie Madormo, Verywell Health, 18 July 2025
  • Other studies have found that laughter helps restore a healthy vagal tone by contracting the diaphragm and pushing air out of the lungs.
    — Mark Travers, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Except the dorsal vagal complex hasn’t actually been proved to exist in humans.
    — Kristen Martin, Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2023
  • The strength of your vagus response is known as your vagal tone and it can be determined by using an electrocardiogram to measure heart rate.
    — Gaia Vince, Discover Magazine, 26 May 2015
  • The vagal response is an automatic response that occurs when the vagus nerve is stimulated by triggers like stress, fear and pain.
    — Camille Caldera, USA TODAY, 21 Dec. 2020
  • Increasing your vagal tone is associated with a lower heart rate, which is an important precursor to sleep.
    — Georgia Day, Vogue, 25 Mar. 2024
  • This response, often referred to as the dive reflex, slows the heart rate and increases vagal activity as the body works to stabilize itself.
    — Chloe Burcham, Vogue, 5 Feb. 2026
  • This leads to an increase in vagal activity, which relates to a decrease in heart rate, blood pressure, and the stress hormone cortisol, per Field.
    — Jessica Migala, Women's Health, 14 Aug. 2023
  • High vagal tone, perhaps secondary to obstructive sleep apnea or vigorous athletic conditioning may lead to heart block.
    — Christopher Lee, Verywell Health, 25 Sep. 2024
  • This would mean that the vagal nerves’ calming action is getting delayed—so the panic, heart palpitations and constant anxiety many people have described to me make sense.
    — Emily Mendenhall, Scientific American, 10 Nov. 2023
  • Gargling vigorously enough that your eyes water slightly engages the same reflex doctors use clinically to check vagal function.
    — Allison Palmer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 6 May 2026
  • Unlike deep-brain stimulation, which is used to treat some of the same conditions, vagal nerve stimulation can be accomplished without neurosurgery.
    — R Douglas Fields, WIRED, 29 Sep. 2024
  • Most recently, Liberles’s team discovered cells in the brainstem, connected to vagal neurons, that trigger nausea.
    — Emily Underwood, Science | AAAS, 10 June 2021
  • The researchers are also using their approach to examine metabolic changes, injecting mice with insulin or glucose and looking for vagal responses.
    — Tim Hornyak, Scientific American, 10 May 2018
  • But social-evaluative threat — being watched, judged, and evaluated by others — causes vagal withdrawal.
    — Amy Cuddy, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2026
  • Most vagal nerve stimulators, including SetPoint’s devices and those already in use for treating epilepsy and depression, are implants.
    — Scientific American, 14 Sep. 2018
  • Instances of ‘low vagal tone’ (a condition when the vagus nerve is not firing well) are associated with slower physical and emotional recovery after periods of prolonged stress.
    — Mark Travers, Forbes, 20 Feb. 2023
  • The non-invasive vagal nerve stimulator (nVNS), called gammaCore, is a small, handheld device placed on either side of the neck during a migraine or cluster headache.
    — Colleen Doherty, Verywell Health, 23 May 2026
  • According to a study, Loving-Kindness-Meditation created a healthy vagal tone in participants.
    — Womensmedia, Forbes, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Health Highroad also notes that higher vagal tone correlates with lower resting anxiety, better emotional regulation and faster heart rate recovery after stress exposure.
    — Allison Palmer, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 6 May 2026
  • Based on human experiments, Holst hypothesized that GLP-1 caused slower emptying of the stomach, which sent a signal through the vagal nerve signifying fullness.
    — Megan Molteni and Elaine Chen, STAT, 30 Sep. 2023
  • In 2018, neuroscientist Diego Bohórquez at Duke University discovered a direct vagal connection between nutrient-sensing cells in the mouse gut called neuropods and the brain.
    — Emily Underwood, Science | AAAS, 10 June 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'vagal.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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