Skip to main content

Parasympathetic Tone

Meaning

Parasympathetic tone is the continuous, baseline level of activity maintained by the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), the branch of the autonomic nervous system responsible for the “rest and digest” functions. A robust parasympathetic tone signifies the body’s capacity to effectively downregulate the stress response, conserve energy, and promote essential restorative processes like digestion and deep sleep. Clinically, this tone is often quantified using heart rate variability (HRV), providing a reliable, non-invasive metric of the body’s overall resilience and its ability to achieve hormonal and metabolic balance.