4.6 from 1,000+ reviews

6 reasons you want to run away to a cottage in a bog.

You love them. You would also quite like to live alone in a damp field for a year. Both are true. Here’s what the second one is really about, and why it has so little to do with your family.

Read the six

Developed with a medical and nutrition advisory team. Updated October 2026 · 5 min read

A woman in her kitchen at dusk opening a door onto a misty bog with a lit stone cottage.
The truth

It usually arrives at about six o’clock.

Someone can’t find their PE kit. Someone wants to know what’s for dinner. Your phone goes, and it’s work, or your mum’s pharmacy, or both.

And somewhere behind your eyes, a small, clear picture appears.

A cottage. Miles from anyone. Possibly in a bog. Nobody in it but you.

Nobody asking you anything. A book. A fire you don’t have to share. Toast for dinner, eaten standing up, in total silence.

Then the guilt, about four seconds later. Because you love them. You would walk through fire for them. You’d just rather not hear your own name for a month.

So you take the smaller version:

And you wonder when you became this person. You used to be the organised one. The one who booked the holiday, remembered the birthdays and quite liked a party.

Here’s what nobody told you. That picture of the cottage isn’t a verdict on your family, and it isn’t a verdict on you.

It’s a message from your body. And a surprisingly precise one.

There are six reasons it keeps showing up. You’ll recognise the first four straight away. The fifth was worked out in 1921 by a man who, as it happens, also woke at 3am. The sixth is the one almost nobody has been told.

6 reasons the cottage keeps calling.

None of them is your family.

01

Your body keeps hitting the alarm. Nobody set it.

A woman folding towels, seen from above, with a red alarm bell ringing at her middle.

You’re folding towels. Nothing is wrong. And your heart is going as if you’re about to walk out on stage. Or it’s 3am and you’re awake, pulse already running, before you’ve had a single thought that would justify it.

That’s the part that makes you feel you’re losing the plot: there’s no reason. No bad news. No argument. Just a body that has decided, all by itself, that something is coming.

This is a body event, not a thought. Your nervous system has a side that braces and a side that stands down. When the bracing side stays switched on, ordinary things land like threats. A question from the next room. A bag dropped in the hall. Of course you want to be somewhere nobody can reach you.

You haven’t got worse at coping. Your alarm has got louder.

02

You’re running a day your mum never had.

A phone full of notifications, plugged into a tangle of cables like an overloaded socket.

Your mum says she doesn’t remember any of this. She “just got on with it”.

Maybe she did. But whatever her forties looked like, they didn’t come with a phone that follows you into the loo. A job and a household run off the same handset. A teenager upstairs and a parent’s hospital letters on the kitchen table, both at once.

4h 43ma day online, the average for UK women1
57%of calories in the UK diet are ultra-processed2
1 in 8UK women get too little magnesium from food3

More coming at your nervous system, all day. Less on the plate to run it on.

That isn’t a character flaw. It’s arithmetic.

03

Everyone keeps telling you you’re fine.

Two hands crumpling a sheet of paper printed with the word normal.

You did the sensible thing. You went to the GP. Bloods: normal. Possibly stress. Possibly your age. Possibly “a bit young for that” at 42. Have you tried a breathing app?

At home it’s “you just need a holiday”. Everyone is kind. Nobody is any help.

A standard blood test is built to find disease, and it’s good at it. It was never designed to tell you whether your nervous system is well supplied for the day it’s being asked to run. Your GP isn’t wrong. The test did its job. But “nothing’s wrong” and “you’re fine” are not the same sentence.

And when everyone agrees you’re fine, the only explanation left is that it’s you.

That’s a lonely conclusion. Lonely people dream about cottages.

04

Everything you’ve tried has worked. For about three weeks.

A switch stuck on, glowing red, surrounded by supplement jars, a sleep mask, headphones and chamomile tea.

The magnesium, which did help the sleep. The breathing app, lovely for ten minutes. The cold shower you tried exactly once. The ashwagandha that gave you a good month and then left you oddly flat.

Each one helped a bit. None of them lasted. So you’ve started to file that under you as well: the woman things don’t work on.

Look at what they have in common. Every one of them is a way of asking your nervous system to stand down. Ask gently: breathe. Ask firmly: cold water. Ask at bedtime: magnesium.

None of them gives it anything to stand down with.

Nothing you tried was wasted. It was half the job. The other half is reason five.

Before reason five

You can’t actually move to the bog.

Let’s be honest about the cottage. Bogs are damp. The Wi-Fi is terrible. And they’d find you by Thursday, because nobody can locate the PE kit.

But the fantasy is right about one thing.

A week away really does help. You’ve felt it. About day three of a holiday, your shoulders come down, your stomach goes quiet and you sleep like a person. Then you’re home, and it’s back before the kettle has boiled.

That’s the clue. You were the same woman in both places. Same age. Same hormones. Same head. What changed was the state your body was in.

So it was never really the cottage you wanted. It was that state.

Which leaves one question worth asking. What is that state actually made of?

05

The quiet you’re craving is a chemical. And it has to be made.

Two puzzle pieces, choline from food and acetyl made by your body, joining into one. The image reads: your body builds this messenger, every day. Your nerve messenger, acetylcholine.

On the night before Easter Sunday, 1921, a scientist called Otto Loewi woke with an experiment in his head, scribbled it down and went back to sleep. In the morning he couldn’t read his own handwriting.

The next night it came back. At 3am he got up and went straight to his lab.

What he showed is that the vagus nerve, the main line of the stand-down side of your nervous system, doesn’t deliver its message by electricity alone. It releases a chemical. It later won him a Nobel Prize.4

That chemical is the “stand down” message itself. A heart that settles. Digestion switched back on. Shoulders down. The holiday state.

And your body has to build it, every day, out of two halves. One half comes from choline, a nutrient found in eggs and liver. The other half is made with the help of vitamins B1 and B5, with magnesium to switch the B1 on.5

Every breathing exercise is a request for more of that message. Almost nobody is topping up what it’s made from.

For the curious: the biochemistry

The messenger is acetylcholine: choline plus an acetyl group. The acetyl group comes from acetyl-CoA, which depends on thiamine (B1) and on coenzyme A, which is made from pantothenic acid (B5). Magnesium is needed to convert thiamine into its active form.

That pathway is standard biochemistry. Whether everyday dietary shortfalls limit it in otherwise healthy people is a reasoned hypothesis, not a proven one.

06

Oestrogen was quietly helping you make it. Until about now.

A dial marked oestrogen turned low beside a block marked choline, resting on B1, B5 and magnesium. The image reads: less oestrogen, less help making choline. Your needs can change after menopause. Making nerve messengers is a team effort.

Here’s the part almost nobody has been told. Your body can make some of its own choline. The gene that does it is switched on by oestrogen.6

In 2007, researchers at the University of North Carolina tested what that means in practice. They put 57 adults on a diet with almost no choline in it.7

44%of women who hadn’t reached menopause showed signs of running short
80%of women who were past it did

Same diet. Different oestrogen.

It was a small study. It measured the liver and muscles, not how anyone felt, and it compared women before and after menopause, not the years in between.

But set it beside the other five. More being asked of the stand-down side of your nervous system than ever. Less on the plate to build its message from. And, somewhere in your forties, your own built-in supply of one of the raw materials may start to wobble.

Nobody warned you. Nobody tests for it. And “just breathe” doesn’t come close.

It’s why we put a source of choline at the centre of Vagus One, beside the B vitamins that build the other half.

See the research

Fischer LM et al. Sex and menopausal status influence human dietary requirements for the nutrient choline. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2007;85(5):1275–85. On a diet of under 50 mg of choline a day, 80% of postmenopausal women developed fatty liver or muscle damage, against 44% of premenopausal women. Read the study

Resseguie M et al. (2007) showed that oestrogen switches on the PEMT gene, which makes choline, in human liver cells. Read the study

Why we built it

“What if these aren’t separate problems?”

I worked as a doctor in the NHS. Medicine is brilliant at diagnosing and treating disease, but we often treat the symptom in front of us. Bloating? Something for the gut. Can’t sleep? Something for sleep.

I kept seeing the same pattern: digestion that changed with stress, sleep that fell apart when people couldn’t unwind.

That question led me to the nervous system and the vagus nerve, where almost everything people were doing was stimulation, and hardly anyone talked about what the nerve runs on.

I still tell people to see their GP, especially if something’s new or getting worse. I just don’t think the conversation should stop at the symptom. That’s why we built Yona.

Sana MisraYona co-founder · Former NHS doctor
Dr Alisha Damani
Dr Alisha Damani
MBChB· Clinical adviser

Specialises in autonomic nervous system function and its effect on digestive health: the biology Vagus One is built around.

David McCollum
David McCollum
Cert Nat ANP· Clinical nutritionist

Twenty-five years in clinical nutrition, working with people who haven’t responded to conventional approaches.

What we built

So we built the supply.

Oestrogen used to help you make choline. The message your stand-down side runs on is built from it. Vagus One supplies choline, as citicoline, plus the B1, B5 and magnesium the other half is made with. Two capsules. Every day.

Vagus One bottle and two capsules on a stone plinth.

The message is built from two halves: choline, and an acetyl group your body makes with the help of B1 and B5. Citicoline brings the choline. The rest of this layer covers the other half.

Citicoline250 mg
Acetyl-L-carnitine300 mg
Pantothenic acid (B5)100 mg

The research In a double-blind trial of women aged 40 to 60, citicoline at the 250 mg used here meant fewer attention errors than placebo.

  • 40+peer-reviewed studies behind the formula
  • 19studies in people
  • 100+years of nervous-system research
See the studies behind each ingredient →

Per two capsules. Thiamine, riboflavin and magnesium contribute to normal functioning of the nervous system; pantothenic acid contributes to normal synthesis and metabolism of some neurotransmitters.

Just as important

What it isn’t.

  • Not a hormone, and not instead of HRT.If you’re on HRT, keep it. This is a different job.
  • No ashwagandha.Nothing in here is meant to turn the volume down on you.
  • Not a stimulator.It doesn’t reset, activate or act on the vagus nerve. It’s food.
  • Not one more thing to master.No app. No routine. Two capsules, with a meal.

Keep the breathing. Keep the magnesium. Keep the walks. Everything you tried in reason four was asking. This is the supply.

See the 90-day supply
Vagus One bottle beside two capsules on a saucer, a glass of water and breakfast.
What customers told us

They told us where they felt it first.

Customer survey748 Yona customers · 2026
73%felt calmer and less reactive to stress
84%noticed less brain fog
76%had more energy through the day
81%reported better digestion

Self-reported survey of 748 Yona customers, 2026, not specific to perimenopause. Individual experiences; results vary.

Of those who noticed a change, 64% noticed it inside four weeks.

Hear it from the people taking it.

Customers on camera, in their own words. Most of them found Yona through their digestion.

Videos from Yona customers, including Vagus+, the formula Vagus One grew out of. Individual experiences vary.

And in writing.

★★★★★

“Now I am more relaxed”

Before I started taking Yona I would get upset very quickly, now I am more relaxed. I also have more motivation to do things where before I couldn’t be bothered.
Eileen B. · Verified buyer, January 2026
★★★★★

“I do feel calmer”

…soon settled on two capsules daily. Although it has only been just over a week, I do feel calmer and my stress levels have fallen somewhat. I am amazed and looking forward to more improvement as time passes.
Carol B. · Verified buyer, July 2025
★★★★★

“Nerves, stomach, sleep: all improved”

I was skeptical that this product could support me, but on reflection my general regulation — nerves, stomach, sleep — have all improved and I’ve felt supported.
Jules Z. · Verified review, April 2026
★★★★☆

“I’m sleeping a lot better”

I’m noticing some changes… I’m sleeping a lot better but still feel like I’m in the early stages at this 4-5 week stage.
Jasmine A. · Verified buyer, April 2026
★★★★★

“More stable throughout the day”

I used to feel exhausted and heavy every afternoon after lunch. Now, I feel my energy levels are more stable throughout the day.
Ashley · Verified buyer, October 2024
★★★★★

“Feeling a lot calmer too”

Within the first week I felt a massive difference and have continued using these daily. I have less bloating… Feeling a lot calmer too…
Adriana C. · Verified buyer, November 2024

Reviews from Yona customers, including Vagus+, the formula Vagus One grew out of. Headlines are pulled from each review; trimmed for length where marked. Individual experiences vary.

Exclusive · 20% off your first order

Cheaper than a cottage. Considerably drier.

One bottle and two refills: ninety days of two capsules a day, backed by our money-back promise, with 20% off your first order.

The Vagus One 12-week box: one bottle, two refill pouches, the guided plan and a QR card.
A woman holding a Vagus One bottle and a capsule. The image reads: your nervous system needs nutrition too.
A Vagus One bottle between a high-alert side and a rest side. The image reads: your body has an on state, it also needs a way back.
A woman sitting on her bed in the evening, hand on her chest. The image reads: the day ended, your body didn’t.
A Vagus One bottle being put into a handbag. The image reads: in your bag, for busy days.
An open Vagus One bottle with its lid and three capsules beside it.
Also in the box · all optional

The only thing you have to do is take two capsules. These are here if you want them.

  • A week-by-week guide to your first 12 weeks12-week Guided Handbook
  • A quiz that shows your patternVagus Pattern Assessment
  • A check-in at each refill, to see what’s changed90-Day Progress Tracker
  • Short calming exercises, for the days you want themGuided nervous-system routines
  • People on the same 90 days, and our team to askThe Yona community
4.6from 1,000+ reviews
Vagus One

Daily nervous-system nutrition, designed around the biology of the vagus nerve.

1. Choose your supply

Exclusive20% off your first order, already included in the prices shown.

2. Choose your plan
FreeA 12-week guide + 4 optional extras
  • A week-by-week guide
  • A quiz that shows your pattern
  • A check-in at each refill
  • Short calming exercises
  • The Yona community
90-day promise. Nothing changed after 90 days? We refund what you paid. No need to send it back.
How it works

Your 90 days start the day your order arrives. Take it every day for the full 90 days. If nothing has changed, email hello@meetyona.co.uk between day 90 and day 120 and answer a few short questions, and we’ll refund what you paid for this supply. Covers your first 90-Day Supply. On a subscription, skip or cancel your next delivery before it bills if you plan to claim.

That’s £1.10 a day. Less than the coffee in the car.

Ships from the UK · usually 2–3 days

Secure checkout

Visa Mastercard American Express Apple Pay Google Pay PayPalShop Pay Klarna
  • Pause or cancel anytime
  • Third-party tested, every batch
  • Vegan, no fillers, no ashwagandha

Questions before you order? Message us on WhatsApp

“Before I started taking Yona I would get upset very quickly, now I am more relaxed.”

Eileen B · Verified buyer, January 2026
The 90-day promise

A full 90 days. One simple routine.

Your 90 days start when your order arrives. Take it every day for the full 90 days. If nothing has changed, email hello@meetyona.co.uk between day 90 and day 120 and answer a few short questions about how you took it.

We’ll refund what you paid for your first 90-day supply. You don’t need to send anything back.

Read the full promise

The 90-day promise applies to the 90-day supply only; the 30-day supply is outside it. Your 90 days start the day your order arrives. Take Vagus One every day, as directed, for the full 90 days. If nothing has changed, email hello@meetyona.co.uk between day 90 and day 120 and answer a few short questions about how you took it.

We’ll refund what you paid for your first 90-day supply. You don’t need to send anything back. On a subscription, your next delivery is billed about three months after you order; if you’re planning to claim, skip or cancel it first. Your statutory rights are unaffected.

CoversYour first 90-day supply
StartsWhen your order arrives
Claim windowDay 90 to day 120
ReturnsNone needed
The science

Over a century of research. One daily formula.

Vagus One is built on what physiology has known for more than a hundred years about the nerve that tells your body to stand down.

  1. 1921The stand-down nerve has a messenger.

    Otto Loewi shows that the vagus nerve signals chemically. The messenger is acetylcholine, and the work wins a Nobel Prize.4

  2. 1943That messenger is built from nutrients.

    Acetylcholine is shown to be made from choline and an acetyl group. Later work ties that acetyl group to vitamins B1 and B5.8

  3. 2007Oestrogen helps you make choline.

    Researchers show that the gene your body uses to make its own choline is switched on by oestrogen.6

What the research shows

Citicoline · 250 mg

In a double-blind trial of 60 women aged 40 to 60, 250 mg a day meant fewer attention errors than placebo after 28 days.9

Read the study
Saffron · 30 mg

In a double-blind trial of 128 adults, 28 mg a day improved mood scores against placebo. In a second trial at 30 mg, heart-rate variability held steady during a lab stress test, where it dropped on placebo.10

Study one Study two
Benfotiamine · 200 mg

In a human absorption study, benfotiamine raised blood thiamine far higher than standard thiamine.11

Read the study

40+ peer-reviewed studies behind the formula, 19 of them in people.

Start my 90 days See every study →
Questions

Questions people actually ask.

Is this a menopause supplement?
Not in the usual sense. It contains no hormones and no plant oestrogens, and it isn’t an alternative to HRT. It’s nutrition for the nervous system, including a source of choline, which matters more once oestrogen stops helping you make your own. If you think you might be perimenopausal, that’s a conversation to have with your GP, and HRT is worth asking about.
Can I take it alongside HRT?
Vagus One is a food supplement, not a hormone, and it’s designed to sit beside what you already do. If you take HRT or any other prescribed medicine, including antidepressants or beta blockers, check with your GP or pharmacist first. They can see your full list. We can’t.
Will it make me feel flat?
There’s no ashwagandha in it, and nothing in the formula is sedating. We can’t promise how any one person will feel. If it doesn’t suit you, stop.
Does Vagus One stimulate the vagus nerve?
No. It’s a food supplement. It provides nutrients; it doesn’t stimulate anything. The full formula is listed above.
How long until I notice anything?
There’s no first-night effect, because you’re supplying raw materials, not forcing a response. Of customers who noticed a change, 64% noticed inside four weeks. Vagus One is designed to be taken daily for ninety days. There is no guaranteed timeline or result.
Is it just placebo?
Fair question. Vagus One is built on published biology: the stand-down message is made from choline and an acetyl group, and the formula supplies a choline source and the B vitamins that pathway uses. There are 40+ peer-reviewed studies behind the formula, 19 of them in people, and citicoline and saffron are included at amounts tested against placebo in double-blind human trials. See the studies.
Can’t I just eat more eggs?
Please do. A varied, balanced diet comes first, and eggs are one of the best sources of choline there is. Vagus One isn’t a replacement for food. It’s a daily supply of the nine nutrients this pathway uses, in one routine, for the days dinner is toast.
Why has my wee gone bright yellow?
That’s the vitamin B2. Harmless, slightly alarming, and now you know.
How do I take it?
Two capsules daily, with a meal. If you’re sensitive to supplements, start with one capsule a day for the first few days.
When should I see my GP instead?
If your heart is racing or fluttering and that’s new for you, if you have chest pain, fainting or breathlessness, or if anything is getting worse, see your GP. A supplement is not the place to start.
Do I have to subscribe?
No. Choose One-time purchase for a single payment. Subscriptions have no minimum term; you can pause, skip or cancel.
How does the 90-day promise work?
It covers your first 90-day supply. Take it daily for 90 days from delivery. If nothing has changed, email us between day 90 and day 120 and answer a few short questions. No return is needed. The 30-day supply is outside the promise.

The cottage will keep.

You were never trying to get away from them. You were trying to get back to the version of you who could stand in that kitchen and feel like herself.

Try Vagus One for 90 days

P.S. If you do still go to the bog, take the bottle. Two capsules, with a meal. Toast counts.

  1. Ofcom. Online Nation, 2025 report: average daily time online, UK adults, by sex.
  2. Rauber F et al. Ultra-processed foods and excessive free sugar intake in the UK: a nationally representative cross-sectional study. BMJ Open. 2019;9:e027546.
  3. Derbyshire E. Micronutrient intakes of British adults across mid-life: a secondary analysis of the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2018;5:55. 12% of women had magnesium intakes below the lower reference nutrient intake.
  4. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1936, awarded to Sir Henry Dale and Otto Loewi for discoveries relating to the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. NobelPrize.org.
  5. Overton E, Emelyanova A, Bunik VI. Thiamine, gastrointestinal beriberi and acetylcholine signaling. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2025;12:1541054. PubMed 40271433.
  6. Resseguie M et al. Phosphatidylethanolamine N-methyltransferase (PEMT) gene expression is induced by estrogen in human and mouse primary hepatocytes. FASEB Journal. 2007;21(10):2622–32. PubMed 17456783.
  7. Fischer LM et al. Sex and menopausal status influence human dietary requirements for the nutrient choline. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2007;85(5):1275–85. PubMed 17490963.
  8. Nachmansohn D, Machado AL. The formation of acetylcholine. A new enzyme: “choline acetylase”. Journal of Neurophysiology. 1943;6(5):397–403. doi:10.1152/jn.1943.6.5.397.
  9. McGlade E, Locatelli A, Hardy J, et al. Improved attentional performance following citicoline administration in healthy adult women. Food and Nutrition Sciences. 2012;3(6):769–773. doi:10.4236/fns.2012.36103.
  10. Kell G, Rao A, Beccaria G, et al. affron®, a novel saffron extract, improves mood in healthy adults over 4 weeks. Complementary Therapies in Medicine. 2017;33:58–64. doi:10.1016/j.ctim.2017.06.001. Jackson PA, Forster J, Khan J, et al. Effects of saffron extract supplementation on mood, well-being, and response to a psychosocial stressor in healthy adults. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2021;7:606124. doi:10.3389/fnut.2020.606124.
  11. Xie F, Cheng Z, Li S, et al. Pharmacokinetic study of benfotiamine and the bioavailability assessment compared to thiamine hydrochloride. Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2014;54(6):688–695. doi:10.1002/jcph.261.

Cited as published research on the underlying biology, not as studies of Vagus One. Survey figures are self-reported by 748 Yona customers, 2026.

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