Polyvagal Theory and Regulation
Polyvagal Theory says that to regulate the nervous system you must FEEL safe. Regulation influences an individuals ability to tolerate mixed states.
Vagus Nerve & Vagal break
We cannot neglect the body by just focusing on the brain when healing. Polyvagal Theory acknowledges this. It acknowledges that stories (brain) follow state (body).
Polyvagal means “many vagus nerves”. The vagus nerve is the tenth cranial nerve and can be thought of as the main highway that connects the brain and the body.
On the vagus highway there are four lanes that go north from the body to the brain and one lane that goes south from the brain to the organs of the body. These pathways regulate all autonomic processes.
This means we can heal from the bottom up. That the body can send safety signals to the brain. That we can influence state through breath, through movement, through art.
Bottom up healing can help to strengthen the vagal brake. The vagal brake regulates survival states, distress and heart rate.
The vagal brake is strongest when it has been influenced by co-regulation in early childhood, when there are safe people that create ongoing experiences in the safe and social state. This allows one to tolerate distress easier. The vagal brake is used every single day to navigate smooth transitions between states.
Trauma compromises the strength of the vagal brake. Small moments of distress become large challenges and create state shifts. We stay in survival mode states longer and get there easier.
Fortunately, the brake is not broken and can be re-strengthened.
Window of tolerance
How much stress can you endure before you are in survival mode?
How much neuroception of danger can you withstand before the vagal brake releases and sympathetic arousal takes over?
This is known as your window of tolerance.
If you blow through your window of tolerance you enter into survival states of hyper and then hypo arousal. Hyper-arousal, flight and fight response, is characterized by hyper vigilance and feelings of anxiety and or panic. Hypo-arousal, freeze response, is experienced through emotional numbness, emptiness, or paralysis.
The more trauma you have experienced and the more unprocessed trauma you hold within your body, the smaller window of tolerance you have.
The window of tolerance is only as large as the strength of the vagal brake. And the vagal brake is only as strong as the amount of safe relationships you have.
Isolation drops you into a survival state. We need safe relationships then to widen our window of tolerance.
Safe relationships provide co-regulation. Co-regulation is how we learn self-regulation.
People often think self-regulation comes first. But it doesn’t! We learn how to self-regulate through co-regulation.
Babies come into the world seeking co-regulation from their primary caregivers. They have no capacity to self-regulate.
Healing trauma is then much about expanding the window of tolerance and learning to find and feel safety with others. It is about learning our edges, taking baby steps past them, while honoring and respecting the body and nervous system.
Do you have one safe relationship where you can co-regulate? One person who can stay in their safe and social system and be an anchor while you drop into survival states? One person who can help you climb back up to safety?
CO-REGULATION
Co-regulation always comes before self-regulation.
Communication between two people can generate safety or can ping pong danger back and forth.
This one time, or maybe many times, I found myself in the same argument with a significant other. They were passive aggressive. They didn’t communicate their needs to me or communicate their boundary. Therefore, I kept crossing it because I wasn’t even aware of it. This resulted in a ton of resentment from them and anxiety for me. So, what did I do? I got extra sassy and pretty damn angry over their inability to communicate. The angrier I got the more they shut down. They didn’t say anything. We pushed each other both into our survival states. I was primed to fight and they were frozen. We took everything personal, felt like crap as individually, and hardcore made judgements of one another. We were not co-regulating, we were miss-attuned and created a massive rupture.
Two people in communication who are dysregulated is not a form of co-regulation or safety.
So what are these communication dyads and do they trigger safety or danger?
Safety & Co-regulation
This consists of two people who are present, reciprocally contributing to engagement, and the connection is felt between both. The upper part of the face has movement, the eyes show crinkles, and voices hold prosody.
Danger & Dysregulation
The dynamic between two people where presence is interrupted. There isn’t reciprocity or consistency in the internal feedback loops of either person. One person may not be holding eye contact or speaking in monotone, triggering danger in the other person.
Miss-attunement
This occurs when two nervous systems are not in the same state.
Ruptures
Ruptures are evident by withdrawal or confrontation. Ruptures trigger negative self-talk or judgement of the other person. Needs are not being met and often people feel that something is being taken away from them.
What’s most important here, is to understand that ruptures require repair. Without repair, people hold onto negative expectations of future circumstances.
To heal ruptures we need to first get back into safety ourselves so that we can release the other person’s words or behavior as something personal. Their actions are about them and not about us.
It helps to focus on the heart of the relationship, rather than the person’s behavior.
Behavior is a reflection of the state the other person is in. And thoughts, or stories, always follow state.
However, states are usually mixed. that means we experience two primary states at once.
PLAY
Play is safety in motion
Play requires a feeling of safety. That may be why you’re serious or put together. Serious feels safer. Serious keeps you surviving.
If you look at play from a Polyvagal Lens, it’s a combination of two primary autonomic nervous system states. The behavior and action of play is the combination of safe and social with flight and fight. Its safety paired with sympathetic arousal. Its safety paired with your mobilization system.
Play looks like:
Movement on the face
Shared attention on a common interest
Attuned nervous systems
It’s no longer play if you have mobilization without the engagement of the safe and social system.
Trauma impairs the ability to play because the vagal brake isn’t strong enough to navigate sympathetic arousal in a safe and social state.
You may find the energy for mobilization triggers your defenses and an inability to co-regulate, as well as self-regulate.
Letting down the serious exterior requires safety. Maybe safety you didn’t have the luxury of feeling as a kid and therefor didn’t have the opportunity to play or strengthen your vagal brake.
It takes one safe person to experience ongoing co-regulation with, which is the first step in finding your play again.
For today, notice when you feel serious and see if through a bit of curiosity and a bit of compassion, you can lighten the load just a bit.
STILL
Stillness was not a part of my survival agenda. I built an entire lifestyle hell bent on outrunning any sensation in my body and out performing any limiting belief in my mind.
It wasn’t until I found yoga that I was confronted with the deep dark truth. I was completely fragmented in body and mind. I had no off switch. I couldn’t be still. And I had no home base.
On that mat, I cried my heart out and I didn’t even know why. But I knew it felt so fucking good afterwards. So, I kept coming back.
That was until the tears were followed by panic. Panic during the quiet moments, the so called restorative movements, and when the lights were dimmed for corpse pose at the end of EVERY CLASS.
Can you relate?
Stillness, from a polyvagal lens, is the combination of the social engagement system and the shutdown system. It is essentially freeze state without fear. You are immobile, but you still feel safe.
But when immobilized after trauma, stillness doesn’t come without fear.
When asked to be still, you feel vulnerable because you are immobilized and defenseless. You are neurocepting danger. You don’t recognize any escape pathways. You can’t tolerate the quiet. You feel restless. There is anxiety when under stimulated. And the stories take over.
Stillness means you are unprotected from a predator. You are alone on your mat. You are in the dark. Both being cues of danger.
At this juncture, the social engagement system is inaccessible as the primary state of freeze has taken over. You’re down the ladder.
The environment is now matching the stories. Remember, the stories are representative of state.
What was I going to do then? Yoga was the one thing that was so healing, but also felt so dangerous.
First, I had to recognize and honor how my nervous system was protecting me. Next, I had to identify my threshold for tolerating stillness and even practice stillness on my mat at home, in an environment that removed shame and social pressure. And lastly, I took small steps back into class with teachers that held a safe container, with props that felt supportive, and permission to try different poses during stillness.
Healing requires slowing down and finding safety in stillness and aloneness. And it requires gentle baby steps.
MIXED STATES
That’s what trauma is: life threat + arousal + fear + freeze.
This response is a mix state of sympathetic energy and parasympathetic shutdown.
We are rarely existing in one primary state. It’s not that black and white. Only in the moment of survival.
There is a wide range of expressions of primary states and many different symptoms. The effect of being in certain states is dependent on the individual, their circumstances, their history, and their trauma.
We don’t get to choose our state based on what is helping and what is hurting. It’s about what state we had to drop into to survive. If we drop down the ladder into shutdown, it is because we are already existing there. And our bodies have gotten stuck there. We haven’t released the energy.
So the very next time we neurocept danger we are already there.
What’s really fascinating is that while being stuck in a certain state, we can adapt and develop different tools to get our needs met. We seek relief from the state we are in.
These are learned responses. These responses follow state. They are learned behaviors, survival skills and coping skills. The behaviors represent the way you are dealing with the state you’re in.
A starting point to identify which state is your primary, ask yourself what makes you feel the safest: running, fighting, or shutting down? Which one do you feel the most and has the most impact on you? What is your biggest struggle right now? How do you cope with this struggle? What feeling would you be left with if your coping strategy was removed?
For me, I feel safest shutting down. Shutting down is a space I’m very familiar with. I isolate, emotionally eat, and watch Netflix. A close second is aggression. Releasing this deep rage that begs to be given air time when my most tender wound is touched. My biggest struggle has been managing panic and to cope with it, I would take medication or hide myself and feelings. Without that medication, an outlet of expression, or a support network, I would have felt desperate. Honoring this feeling of desperation, is where the work began.