a basic understanding of a very important part of you: your nervous system
For a long time, I didn’t read or concern myself with “science” stuff because I didn’t think I would understand it. I blame my 6th grade biology teacher. She legitimately thought I was serious when I told her that I thought cavemen were the first living organism on the earth. Convincing her that I was actually intelligent was an uphill battle all year long—one that I eventually lost. Then, in 7th grade I took physics and it was boring and confusing. Nothing made sense to me. So, from 7th grade on, I embraced my identity as just a reading and writing kid.
Fast-forward many, many years, to now. I love to read about the nervous system and neurobiology. I have become fascinated with the intersection of psychology and neurobiology, which is a fancy way of saying the mind-body connection. As I’ve explored the research, while simultaneously doing my own healing work, I have realized that us humans are so much more than our minds—we are (mostly) our nervous systems.
Last summer, I read “The Body Keeps the Score” by Bessel Van Der Kolk, a Dutch psychiatrist, who is profoundly shifting the way that mental health professionals conceptualize post-traumatic stress and trauma. His research findings have proven that trauma fundamentally changes the brain and the body and that its effects are complex and pervasive—trauma changes our neurobiology, it changes our nervous systems. It makes it really difficult to be in the present moment because the part of your brain that you need to recruit in order to be in the present moment is offline.
Dr. Stephen Porges, a behavioral neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry and human development, is also a pioneer in this field. In 1994, he published something called the Polyvagal Theory—a theory, or body of knowledge, that has given us a more robust and accurate illustration of our triune (3-part) nervous system. His research is also starting to shift the way psychotherapists understand and treat trauma, anxiety, chronic stress, depression, and attention-disorders. And I think everybody should know about it.
His research has implications for all humans, whether you’re in therapy or not in therapy or will never go to therapy. Understanding this science should be a part of our education systems. Understanding ourselves—our brains and our bodies—should be a necessary part of adulting. When I first started reading about Polyvagal Theory, I was blown away. I was also mildly pissed that no one had taught me about this before. It seemed like such integral and important knowledge to know related to just being human.
So, I’m going to unpack his theory for you—without an overabundance of fancy science words. There will be a few scientific words but take courage dear ones. Especially if you were like me and had teachers who told you (and then you believed it for yourself) that you were “bad” at science—you CAN understand this. I hope, more than anything, that this information gives you insight. Maybe you’ll even have an ah-ha moment! Just stick with it, ya hear!?
In order to understand his theory (that has been backed by statistically significant research), we need to know the word “neuroception”, a term that he coined. We “neurocept” every day. To neurocept just means to perceive. Dr. Porges says that we are constantly scanning our environments for three things: safety, danger, or life-threat, and that our bodies respond accordingly. This happens subconsciously, in the most primitive part of our brain. We don’t wake up in the morning and consciously say, “Today, I’m going to use the mature parts of my brain to scan all of my environments for safety or danger.” Instead, our nervous system does this for us.
Inside of our bodies are billions of nerve cells that make up different nerve networks. An important nerve to know about is your Vagus nerve. It is the longest nerve in our bodies, stretching from brain to gut. It’s like a walkie-talkie between our brain and our major organs. For example, it tells your lungs to breathe, it controls your heart rate, and it tells our brains to release certain neurotransmitters to calm us down if we get too revved up.
Thanks to the Vagus nerve and other nerve networks in the body that connect to the brain, what happens in the brain affects the body, and what happens to the body affects the brain.
Now, let’s turn our focus to the autonomic nervous system. We know now, thanks to Dr. Porges, that the ANS has three branches, as opposed to two. We thought it was 2 for a long time, but it’s been proven inaccurate. It’s 3. These 3 branches act like dials, each on to varying degrees at the same time, and responding in a hierarchical way in response to sensory input from the environment. All of this is moderated by the Vagus nerve.
Look at this diagram to the right (and don’t freak out on me—deep breathes, people), and let’s start on the right side, looking at what makes up the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS).
Your parasympathetic system has two dials or brake systems. One of these systems is called the Social Engagement System (also referred to as the Ventral Vagal Complex on the diagram above). This system is activated when you perceive that you are safe. This is our “sweet spot”, the system that we want online most of the time. Think about a time when you felt really grounded, in your body, connected in relationships, and calm. In that moment, your Ventral Vagal Complex was dialed up. It’s sometimes called the “foot brake” because it helps us (adults) self-regulate. When this system is activated, we feel rested and sufficiently energized. And yet, this is the system that gets hijacked as a result of trauma and chronic stress.
The second brake system is like an emergency brake. It is called the Dorsal Vagal Complex on the diagram above. This system is activated in the face of life-threatening danger. This is NOT your fight or flight response (we’ll get there)—this is your freeze and collapse response. This is your “playing possum” system. If you’ve ever felt numbed out or completely shut-down, this is because your Dorsal Vagal System energy is dialed up.
What is optimal for holistic wellness and healing from trauma is that we re-train our bodies to rely on the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) for growth and restoration, instead of recruiting it for defense.
Let’s re-cap the parts of our parasympathetic nervous system (PNS):
Ventral Vagal Complex or Social Engagement System=activated when we feel safe, grounded, and connected in relationships.
Dorsal Vagal Complex=activated when we are faced with life-threatening danger; when we freeze up, shut-down, or feel numb and depressed.
Okay, let’s change gears! You also have a sympathetic nervous system (SNS), the dial on the left of the diagram above. This is your gas pedal or your arousal system, the system that is activated when you perceive threat or danger. The keyword here is perceive. If you’ve experienced trauma or live with chronic stress (*not mutually exclusive), this system is often subconsciously over-activated. Dr. Porges says that if trauma remains unresolved or we live with consistently high, untreated anxiety and stress, people develop “faulty neuroception”. They may perceive danger in a safe environment or even perceive safety in a truly dangerous environment.
Okay. Take a pause and let’s recap. Below is a diagram that describes how your nervous system responds when it perceives (or “neuroscepts”) safety, danger, or life-threat.
This diagram is helpful and succinct. But what it doesn’t depict is that these systems are actually organized in a hierarchical way. Below is another graphic to help you see it more clearly. Let’s start from the bottom.
The green zone is your Social Engagement System, also known as your Ventral Vagal System. Two words for the same thing (I know, I’m sorry). As discussed above, this system is activated when we “neurocept” or perceive safety. Like I said before, this is our sweet spot, or maybe more accurately stated our “zen spot”. When this system is activated, we are able to experience joy in the present moment. So, this posits the question, what activates this system? A felt sense of safety—in the environment, yes, but especially in relationships. We cannot underestimate the gift that we can offer someone when we communicate with our verbal’s, but mostly our nonverbal body language and facial expressions, that they are safe with us. Healthy relationships are powerful medicine.
And yet, this system is the one that is first and most often hijacked by trauma, especially relational trauma. Trauma has two kinds. When I use the word trauma, I’m referring to “big T trauma”, like war, physical abuse, domestic violence, disasters, poverty, attachment wounds and also “little t trauma”, like emotional abuse, neglect, grief, stress, bullying, and witnessing violence. These “little t’s” are the traumas that are pervasive; we often write off as “not as big of a deal”—but our bodies don’t know that. Our bodies respond as if these things were a big deal, because they are. We tell ourselves the “get over it” stories, while our bodies are subconsciously telling a totally different story. If we don’t feel safe in our bodies, there are social, emotional and biological consequences.
When we neurocept (or sense) danger, our arousal increases, and we mobilize—our sympathetic system is dialed up. We enter the “red zone” on the diagram above. *Caveat here: low to moderate amounts of stress, especially if mediated by the Social Engagement System, are not “bad”. What is detrimental, however, is if we live consistently in this space, and many of us unknowingly do. It’s not our fault—we’re socialized to live in this space, to always be hustling. It’s seen almost as a badge of honor. It’s a rat race, and I ran it for a long time. My body eventually just learned to live in a fight or flight space—this became my baseline, and it had (and sometimes still does have) some severe consequences.
When we live in the “red zone”, cortisol cascades throughout our bodies. Cortisol, our stress hormone, in large doses, is detrimental to our health. It, quite literally, makes us sick. Remember the Vagus nerve—the one that runs from our brain to our gut? It plays an active part in this cortisol cascading. When we perceive danger, we then feel panic, fear, anxiety, worry, or anger, our bodies respond accordingly. Our blood pressure and heart rate rise, our pupils dilate, and our ability to digest and feel a sense of calm is greatly diminished. Anxiety is often fear in disguise, and our body does what it was biologically designed to do when it feels afraid—defend itself.
That’s good if we’re actually in danger—if we need to side-step a snake on the pavement or run away from an angry bear. That’s bad, however, if we are living, chronically, in this hyper-active space, and we don’t realize it because it’s just become our “normal”.
Let’s go back to the diagram above. I want you to locate the “blue zone” (yes, scroll up!), the state that the body enters via immobility or collapse. This is your Dorsal Vagal System—your emergency brake! Defeat, learned helplessness, shame, shut-down, numbing, disassociation, and even personality splitting happens when your body is in this parasympathetic state. You may feel disoriented, disconnected, and you may quite literally “faint”. Your body, again, is trying to protect you and conserve your energy because it is, whether there is real danger or not, perceiving a life-threat, it is physiologically preparing to die. Your heart rate decreases, as does your eye contact, social awareness, sexual response, and immune response. In this state, you’ve essentially escaped your body, which is adaptive if you’re in a life-threatening situation, but becomes maladaptive if your body gets stuck here even after a dangerous event has passed.
Let me offer you a paradigm shift.
Anxiety is not just an emotional or cognitive state, it’s a physiological state, a result of an overactive sympathetic nervous system
Depression is not just an emotional state or a cognitive state, it’s a physiological state, a result of an overactive Dorsal Vagal System
ADHD is a consistently, chronically overactive sympathetic nervous system; it’s a body that is on cortisol overload and desperately needs social engagement and soothing
Disassociating (escaping your body) and shame (hating your body) are in-born defense mechanisms that are just trying to keep you safe
Trauma fundamentally disrupts the nervous system—it knocks it off balance. If that is true, which it is, it means that trauma recovery is more than symptom reduction. Recovery, then, is a fundamental recalibrating of the nervous system, so that the body can learn to trust that the danger belongs to the past
Experiencing “good mental health” isn’t just about healing the brain, it’s about healing the whole self. It’s about achieving balance between our excitatory (sympathetic) and inhibitory (parasympathetic) systems. It’s about learning to re-regulate a system that has become dysregulated and unbalanced. As Dr. Karyn Purvis said,” holistic harm needs holistic healing.”
This research has vast implications for all of us and developing insight around the inner-workings of your nervous system can only lead you to a deeper and more comprehensive sense of Self. One is that “mental health” and physical health are not so separate. “Alternative” methods, like yoga, breath-work, and expressive arts and even play therapy are not so alternative anymore. A second is that social connectedness and healthy relationships are a biological imperative—which means they’re crucial to our survival. Attachment theorists have understood this from the beginning. We need relationships, healthy relationships. We need to feel seen, heard, and cherished. It’s not fluffy and feel-good—it’s science. A third is that “mindfulness” practices are not so hippy-dippy, people. Practices like meditation and prayer now have some robust scientific backing. And lastly, we cannot minimize the importance of safety in our environments and especially in our relationships. Not just in the physical sense, but in the emotional sense. I mentioned above that relationships are a biological imperative. A mindful, calm, and nurturing presence using appropriate eye-contact, a soft smile and even a hug, are some of the most healing gifts that we can offer the people we love.
There is that song, “I want to teach the world to sing”.
The world would not be a better place if I taught it to sing because I cannot sing.
But, I do want to teach the world about the power of connection and the power that safe relationships have to help people recalibrate their nervous systems, to counter act the toxicity of trauma, and to ultimately heal their mind and body.
Maybe my new mantra is, “I want to teach the world to understand their nervous systems to they can self-regulate and also help to co-regulate the children that they love”.
It’s possible. It really, truly is.