There are many things I dislike about anxiety, but one of the worst things is that it's an ambush predator. I can be having a good day, week or month and then, all of a sudden, I'm not.
Anxiety strikes, and for no obvious reason, the panic attacks return and my mind scrambles.
I’ve had generalised anxiety disorder for nearly a decade. I’ve tried the antidepressant sertraline, cognitive behavioural therapy, herbal remedies, exercise, meditation, rhythmic breathing and sobriety.
The anxiety is manageable, but it’s never fully left and sharper episodes occur every few months. I’m resigned to living with it, but recently I’ve tried something new: mild electric shocks.
A clip round the ear
As I write this, clipped to my left ear is a small electrode, which is attached to a device about the size of an iPod (remember those?). The device is a Nurosym.
It has a few simple controls that let me adjust the strength of the electric shocks. It’s a weird sensation. Not a burn, but not a tickle either – it’s a buzz.
It feels like a current, probably because that’s exactly what it is: a mild electric current that’s finding its way from my ear to my brain via my vagus nerve.
Maybe you’ve heard of the vagus nerve. It’s become something of an anatomical celebrity, piquing the interest of researchers and wellness enthusiasts alike.
The nerve, sometimes described as a superhighway between the brain and other organs, plays a key role in the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls our ‘rest and digest’ mode – the opposite of fight or flight.
To put it simply, the vagus nerve calms you down.
“It’s the only counterbalancing system we have in the body to dampen the stress response,” says Dr Elisabetta Burchi, who heads up translational research at Parasym, the company behind Nurosym.
“We have multiple systems to activate the stress response; this is the only one deactivating it.”
The Parasym website talks of being stuck in survival mode, which is a pretty good description of how it feels to live with anxiety.
Your ‘fight or flight’ response is overactive most, if not all, of the time. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) devices like the Nurosym are designed to override it by bringing the ‘rest and digest’ system online instead.
Measured results include increased heart rate variability (a sign that the ‘rest and digest’ system is active) and improvements in a range of symptoms, including anxious thoughts, depressive states and sleep issues.
Parasym has conducted a number of its own studies, but there’s also independent research suggesting the technology can help with a range of mental health conditions.
In March 2025, a team at the University of Texas at Dallas published a study looking at VNS in nine people with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder. Within six months, all nine were symptom-free.
In 2024, another study showed similar results for people with depression.
It’s important to note that this is early work.
Some forms of neuromodulation are approved for treatment (including some available on the NHS).
For VNS, especially as a treatment for anxiety, evidence is growing, but a lot of it comes from exploratory pilot studies rather than large-scale clinical trials.
Read more:
- Do any foods help to decrease anxiety?
- Yoga found to reduce symptoms of anxiety in adults
- Why does drinking alcohol trigger my anxiety?
Subtle effects
I’ve been using the Nurosym for about a month. Sessions last 30–60 minutes and as the device is portable, I can use it while I’m cooking, on the train, fighting deadlines or winding down for bed.
Burchi says that most users notice some benefits within a month, although some people report feeling better from the first time they use the device.
“If you’re particularly stressed, you can feel the effects straight away,” she says.
“It can be a sense of recovery. Say you give a talk or have a stressful meeting – that would be a reactive use case. But we also want these effects to be maintained – there’s a kind of memory effect [with continued use].”
For me, the device’s effect is subtle, but I think it’s doing something. I’ve had no major anxiety attacks while I’ve been testing the Nurosym.
When I use it in the evening, I feel a sense of calm, although it’s difficult to tell how much of that is due to my vagus nerve getting some electric stimulation and how much is just the general wind-down.
Historically, my anxiety is worse at night. It can also be triggered by stressful periods, poor sleep and busy London trains. For things like that, Burchi says you can use the device as a kind of pre-emptive strategy.
“If you know that you’re going to face something stressful, you can use it beforehand. If you know in a specific situation you normally feel anxious, then it can help to relax in advance.”
I’ve tried the Nurosym on trains and before boarding them. Again, the effects are subtle. The tingling in my ear is distracting and sort of pleasant, but there’s not a complete absence of symptoms.
My chest can still feel tight, my breathing shallow and stunted, and my thoughts… not quite scrambled, but not fully on track either.
I plan to persevere, though. Most people I know with mental health issues have a toolkit of mechanisms that they use to manage it. That’s certainly true for me and a VNS gadget is a useful addition.
The wider interest in neuromodulation is obvious, too: it’s a drug-free form of therapy delivered by wearable devices that target specific nerves or regions of the brain.
It’s not cheap, but it could be cheaper than pharmaceutical options in some cases.
The Nurosym costs £599. I think most people with chronic mental health issues or other conditions could square that if the effects were guaranteed.
The research picture is still coming into focus, but for me, if it can stave off another anxiety ambush in the future, I’d say the buzz is worth it.
Read more:
