Why the Polyvagal Theory is Cool
If you haven’t read the previous blog post (titled, “Poly…what? An intro to the Polyvagal Theory”), go read that one and then circle back to this one. It will give you context for what I’m about to share.
I want to share with you why I think this theory is so cool. It offers some pretty neat insight into the human experience and more specifically, it has several implications for how we approach mental health. I’m going to unpack and explain four of those here.
ONE
The Polyvagal Theory and recent neuroscience findings related to the impacts of trauma are giving therapists a new way of understanding mental health. What we know now is that having “good mental health” isn’t just about healing the brain or replacing negative thoughts with positive ones— it’s about healing the whole self, the whole body. It’s about achieving balance between the different parts of our nervous system and teaching them how to work together. It’s about learning to re-regulate a system that has become dis-regulated and unbalanced. We are not brains on sticks— painful experiences affect us holistically.
Dr. Karyn Purvis said, “Holistic harm needs holistic healing.” When we experience hard things (divorce, abuse of any kind, losing loved ones, getting an unexpected diagnosis, fighting with friends), it’s the whole body that is harmed. These hard things impact our minds, souls, and bodies.
Let me give you a few examples to further explain what I mean:
Anxiety is not just an emotional or cognitive state, it’s a physiological state, a result of an overactive sympathetic nervous system. Fear, which is what anxiety really is, has a physical, mental, and emotional component. Chronic stress and anxiety fundamentally change your body’s 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. Feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and isolation are associated with the body being in a state of conservation. This is a survival response, which is why we see a flat affect and dissociation in clients who are struggling with depression.
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.
People who struggle with OCD have different nervous systems than those who do not. The intrusive thoughts they experience activate their stress response systems (sympathetic activation). Compulsions are ways that the person attempts to deactivate or get rid of the anxiety the intrusive thoughts cause.
Disassociating (escaping your body) is an in-born defense mechanism that is meant to keep you safe. I’ve had clients tell me that they don’t remember traumatic experiences. Why does this happen? Because in the face of something terrifying, the body often shuts-down. You don’t get to control this—this just happens automatically.
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.
Eating disorder behaviors are manifestations of this fight/flight/freeze energy. In other words, behaviors like restriction, binging, or purging are attempts to feel regulated and safe.
Mental health is not simply about the brain. It’s about the brain AND the body.
TWO
In the previous post, I defined the word “neuroception”. Neuroception is how neural circuits distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous, or life-threatening. It’s detection without awareness, meaning that we’re usually not aware that our body is doing it. Think of it like this— your body has an inborn surveillance system. This system is responsible for taking in sensory information from the environment and responding in service of our protection.
Trauma, which we’ve all experienced to some degree and have stored in our body, leads to something called “faulty neuroception”.
Faulty neuroception happens when the body detects a threat when there is really no threat at all. In other words, a person reacts to a safe situation as if it were threatening OR reacts to a threatening situation as if it were safe.
The part of the brain that is responsible for this is called the amygdala. This part of the brain is associated with the body’s fear and stress response. This about your amygdala as an alarm; this alarm is activated when the body neurocepts danger (whether real danger is present or not). It releases cortisol and other stress hormones and the body mobilizes to respond. Which is great in the face of real danger but not so great when we’re safe and the body still enacts a fear-response.
Let me give you a few examples of what this could look like. Let’s start with the situation where a person reacts to a safe situation as if it were threatening:
This shows up a lot in relationships. Let’s say you have a history of sexual abuse or feel really insecure about your body or associate physical touch with a general feeling of “unease”. You are now with the man or women of your dreams and you feel super safe with them. You go to have sex or be intimate in any way and your body immediately freezes up and or panics. Consciously, you know your partner is safe— you might even be confused or frustrated about why your body is reacting this way, but your body has still initiated a self-protective response because it’s learned based on past experience that “physical touch or sex” = dangerous.
Another example would be communicating with friends or partners. Let’s say you grew up in a home where conflict was really scary and involved a lot of yelling or aggression. Maybe you never had the opportunity to share your perspective/opinion and your voice was often silenced. Fast-forward to now, to a moment of conflict with a friend/spouse. If the verbal and especially the non-verbal facial cues even remotely resemble those of someone from your past, your body might initiate a survival and self-protective response. You might get defensive really quickly or totally shut down and dissociate completely in the face of conflict. Consciously, you know your partner is safe, but your body hasn’t learned it yet. Your body responds before your thinking brain can assess the situation logically.
A more classic example would be being on a hike and seeing something that looks like a snake but is actually a stick. If your body perceives that stick to be a snake, it’s going to activate your sympathetic nervous system (aka, you might totally freak out and then laugh about it when you realize it’s a stick). Or a soldier who just got back from combat who hears a car door slam and immediately drops to the ground. His amygdala alarm was activated because his body neurocepted that loud noise in the very same way it did a bullet. The bodily response is the same. Before his rational, thinking brain could think, “Oh, that was a door, not a bullet”, his body had initiated a survival response.
Experiences of faulty neuroception are sometimes called “triggers”. Something in the present “triggers” a survival or self-protective response based on your past experiences. You know this has happened to you if you’ve ever found yourself saying something like, “Why the heck did I react like that?” There’s always a reason for reacting the way you do, it’s just usually unconscious.
Dr. Porges believes that this is at the root of many mental health problems, and I agree with him. Here’s what he has to say about that:
The areas in the brain that are assumed to inhibit fight, flight, or freeze reactions are not activated in people with autism or schizophrenia, who have difficulty with social engagement (Porges, 2016).
Individuals with anxiety disorders and depression have compromised social behavior; difficulties in regulating the heart rate, as reflected in measures of vagal control of the heart; and reduced facial expressiveness (Porges, 2016).
Maltreated and children who are diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder tend to be either inhibited (emotionally withdrawn and unresponsive) or uninhibited (indiscriminate in their attachment behavior)(Zeanah, 2000). Both types of behavior suggest faulty neuroception of the risk in the environment.
THREE
Healthy relationships heal…like literally, they heal.
I’ve talked a lot about the fight/flight or freeze states (in the previous post), and how these are activated in almost every mental disorder or disease that there is. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, trauma, OCD, and insert so many more— what they all have in common is one thing: dysregulation of the nervous system, an overactive or underactive amygdala alarm, which in turn impacts our thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and behaviors. And this isn’t our fault (the body is just doing what it was designed to do)— it’s just that we’re all walking around this earth (largely unconsciously) with so much heavy, self-protective armor, and that is problematic. Because we weren’t ever meant to *stay* in these defensive states.
We weren’t intended to live our lives oscillating between fight or flight and collapse energy. And yet, so many of us are living our lives this way due to unresolved trauma and hurt that we’ve buried or stuffed (but that our bodies absolutely remember and are actively responding to in the present). I know this from the research, but I also know this from my lived experience. I know what it feels like to live in sympathetic fight/flight domination (also known as “hustle and grind” culture). And it’s totally exhausting. And we can’t be healthy (mentally or physically) when this is our pattern.
So now to my point regarding relationships. We were created to be in close relationships. With ourselves (*that’s important) and with others. Hyper-independence is a trauma response (and lawwwddd, have I learned that one the hard way).
And what the Polyvagal Theory says is that safety, the neuroception of safety, is a prerequisite for healthy relationships. A neuroception of safety is necessary before social engagement behaviors can occur (in other words, if my body doesn’t sense safety around you, I’m likely not going to talk to you or smile at you or trust you). When this happens, then and only then can someone experience the benefits of the Social Engagement State (like feeling grounded, connected, and present).
Oxytocin, a neurochemical that is involved in the formation of social bonds, makes social behaviors possible by blocking defensive behaviors. It’s sometimes called the “love hormone” or “bonding hormone.” It’s released during physical touch (like a hug), sex, childbirth, and even lactation. Oxytocin release helps build trust in relationships, fosters secure attachments, and helps with relaxation. In other words, we need daily doses of oxytocin to be healthy humans.
When someone has experienced a lot of trauma or is struggling with a mental disorder, social connections can feel unsafe. This happens because the body neurocepts connection as danger and instead of oxytocin being released in the body, cortisol (a stress hormone) is released instead; this reinforces the narrative that relationships are unsafe because they become correlated with unease. Social relationships can feel like a risk because they are a risk. And yet, one of the paradoxes of healing is that healthy, intimate relationships are necessary for recovery and health. We need repeated doses of activating our Social Engagement Systems (the Ventral Vagal System). Time spent activating this system (and consequently deactivating the fight/flight/freeze systems) is imperative to health.
FOUR
The fourth and final reason that this is important is because awareness is important and the Polyvagal Theory offers us an amazing tool for self-insight. Part of my heart for this blog is helping you understand why you do what you do, and you cannot understand this without a basic understanding of your own body! You cannot change what you do not understand or have awareness of. Being able to recognize which state your body is in (Ventral, Sympathetic, or Dorsal) is a really important part of healing and self-regulation. I want you to learn tools that can help you self-regulate and get back to a state of groundedness after your body has initiated a survival response.
Our culture at large devalues the body. We value thinking more than feeling, logic more than intuition. We are so unbalanced in this way. We regard our human experiences as if we were brains on sticks, neglecting the wisdom that lives in the body and the unspoken language it uses to speak to us. Befriending our nervous systems is a crucial part of healing. Understanding that mental health is about so much more than “fixing the brain” is so important.
If you want to learn about your various nervous system states, go read the previous post! I’ve included a chart that I created to help you understand the various thoughts, feelings, and sensations that are associated with each nervous system state.
Self-knowledge is power. Awareness is power. It’s also a portal to healing.