I want to give you a model.
End.
A way of understanding your nervous system that is simple enough for you to use in your daily life,
But also accurate enough that it reflects what's genuinely happening in your body.
And the model is this.
Your nervous system has a volume dial.
Think radio volume dial old school if you're used to push button things but it's a dial not an on off switch and that dial has a range from deeply settled and at rest all the way up to maximum alert and mobilized.
Okay.
And everything in between is a gradient.
And at any given moment your system is sitting somewhere on that dial.
So most of the women I work with,
When they first come to me,
Are living in the upper half of that dial,
Almost all the time.
And they've been there so long,
They've forgotten what the lower half feels like.
And because it's become their baseline,
They've started to think that it's just how they are.
But it isn't.
Your system can learn how to find that lower half again.
And that is what we're working towards.
So for some context.
Polyvagal theory was developed by a neuroscientist called Stephen Porges and it gives us a sophisticated map of how the nervous system moves through the states.
And I'm going to simplify it,
But not in a way that loses what matters,
If that makes sense.
So think of the dial in three broad zones,
Okay?
Zone 1 at the bottom of the dial is your ventral vagal state and This is the social,
The connected,
The regulated state.
You feel safe.
You can think clearly.
You can be present with other people.
Your digestion works.
Your immune system functions well.
You can sleep properly.
This is the state that your body is designed to spend most of its time in.
In zone 2 is the middle of the dial.
It's your sympathetic state.
And this is your mobilization response,
Your fight or flight.
So your heart rate increases,
Your muscles prime for action,
Your digestion pauses,
Your cognition narrows to the immediate problem.
And this state is useful,
It gets you out of danger.
But.
.
.
The problem comes when you stay here long after the danger has passed or when your system can't tell the difference between a genuine threat and a difficult email,
For example.
Now zone 3 is at the top of the dial.
This is your dorsal vagal state.
And this is the freeze,
The collapse,
The shutdown response.
So when the sympathetic activation becomes overwhelming,
Your system goes to this place.
You feel numb.
You feel disconnected.
You feel exhausted in a way that sleep doesn't fix.
You feel foggy,
You feel unmotivated.
And this is not laziness.
This is your nervous system's last resort protection response,
Okay?
And here's the part that I invite you to sit with.
For many women,
The pattern looks like this.
Okay,
So you're in zone two.
Sympathetic for most of the day.
You're running on cortisol and adrenaline,
You're holding it together,
You're getting through that list.
And then at night,
Instead of dropping into Zone 1,
The regulated restful state,
Your system drops into zone 3,
The collapse,
Which feels like exhaustion but doesn't restore you because it's not true rest,
It's shutdown.
And this is why you feel exhausted but can't sleep properly.
You're not dropping into regulation,
You're dropping into collapse.
And they look similar from the outside.
You're lying down,
You're still.
But physiologically,
They are very different places.
And understanding this changes the question.
The question is not,
Why am I so tired?
The question is why does my system go from zone 2 straight to zone 3 without passing through zone 1?
And the answer to that is because Zone 1,
The regulated ventral vagal state,
Requires a felt sense of safety.
And if your body has been in a threat response for long enough,
It stops checking for safety.
It stops offering you zone 1 as an option.
It goes directly from activated to collapse.
The work of this series,
All of it.
Is about restoring your body's ability to access Zone 1.
Not by removing the demands of your life,
But by teaching your body what safety signals feel like again,
So it can find that state on its own.
And this is not a mindset shift.
It is a physiological retraining.
And it works!
So,
Let's do a practice.
And this practice is called an orientation practice.
And it's one of the most evidence-based tools in somatic therapy.
And it's specifically designed to bring your system into a ventral vagal zone 1,
Right,
By engaging the part of your nervous system that is wired for safety scanning.
And you can do this anywhere.
Open eyes are fine.
It's actually preferred.
So start by sitting comfortably,
Feet on the floor if you're in a chair.
And now really slowly,
Without hurrying.
Let your eyes just move around the space that you're in,
Not looking for anything.
Just letting you guys travel.
Over surfaces,
Shapes,
Light sources,
Shadows.
Let your eyes move at their own pace.
Unhurried.
This is not passive.
What's happening is that your visual system is connected directly to your nervous system's threat detection network.
So,
When your eyes move slowly and voluntarily across a space.
.
.
Taking in information without urgency.
Your brainstem receives a message.
I am looking.
I am not fleeing.
I am not frozen.
This is safe.
So keep letting your gaze travel.
That's hot.
And now let your head slowly move gently.
Just a small rotation.
Just taking in more of the space around you.
Not stretching,
Not performing.
Just looking.
Notice if there's anything in your environment that you find pleasant or neutral,
Not beautiful,
Not significant.
Just something your eyes land on without resistance.
It could be a colour,
A texture,
A shape.
Whatever it is,
Let your gaze rest there for a moment.
And while you're allowing your gaze to rest there for a moment,
Notice what happens in your body when you do that.
Often there's a small softening,
A breath.
Or it could be a yawn or a shift in the shoulders,
A slight drop of the jaw.
These are all signs that your system is registering as safe.
Now take one long,
Slow breath,
Belly first.
And then a really slow exhale.
And that's the practice,
Just a slow visual scan.
Let the eyes rest somewhere pleasant and breathe.
And you can do this at any point in the day.
When you feel like the system is climbing towards zone 2 at a red light.
Before a difficult conversation?
In the 30 seconds before you pick up the phone in the morning.
It is not about having time.
It literally takes 20 seconds.
So you have the map,
The three zones.
Where you're spending most of your time.
And what it takes to shift.
And from here.
.
.
Every episode in this series is going to use this framework.
We'll be working on specific symptoms like sleep,
Skin,
Brain fog,
The midday crash.
But underneath all of it,
We're doing the same thing.
We're teaching your body to find zone one more often,
More reliably,
More quickly.
And in episode four,
I'm going to take you through a morning practice.
Not a morning routine.
I know you don't have time for that.
It's a morning practice.
10 minutes that can shift how your system runs for the rest of the day.
And I'll see you there.
