Polyvagal Theory To Shift Your Nervous System With Deb Dana

Do you know how your nervous system works? Polyvagal theory explains how our nervous system evolved and offers insight into why we become activated or shut down during stress. In this episode, Deb Dana helps us understand polyvagal theory and offers strategies to help you shift your nervous system toward connection and safety.

Transcript

What is polyvagal theory and how can you use it to help you sculpt your own nervous system so that it is adaptive and flexible?

That's what we're going to explore today with Deb Dana on Your Life in Process.

So polyvagal theory is a newer theory that you may have heard about or maybe if you're a clinician,

You are already using in your practice.

And it comes from the work of Dr.

Stefan Porges,

Who we are going to be talking to again in January and who has worked very closely with our guest today,

Deb Dana.

So Deb Dana is a clinician,

Consultant and author specializing in complex trauma.

And her work has really focused on using this lens of polyvagal theory to understand and resolve the impact of trauma and create new ways of working that honor the role of the autonomic nervous system.

She wrote the book Anchored,

How to Befriend Your Nervous System Using Polyvagal Theory.

And I'll make sure that you have links to some of her other resources in the show notes.

But for those of you that are new to this concept of polyvagal theory,

It's a theory that describes how our nervous system evolved.

And it proposes that we have this mammalian autonomic nervous system that involves both our sympathetic and our parasympathetic nervous system,

Which you may remember from high school.

And we'll be talking about that today.

The parasympathetic nervous system is the part of our nervous system that makes us feel safe and rested and sometimes also can lead us into a state of immobilization.

And then the sympathetic nervous system is what mobilizes us.

It's what gets us to go run for things,

To go seek out resources.

The polyvagal theory breaks down your nervous system into three branches.

So you have the branch of the sympathetic nervous system,

Which you may know well,

But the parasympathetic nervous system is broken into two different branches.

And today Deb Dana and I are going to talk about these branches of polyvagal theory,

The role that your vagus nerve plays in these different branches of your nervous system,

And how you can actually sculpt your own nervous system using some simple practices so that you come back into a state that is more flexible and open and regulated as opposed to the state that many of us reside in,

Which is the stressful threat and drive state or the complete shutdown state of being.

So I'll let Deb Dana describe it to us and I'll wrap this up on the other side with three concrete things you can do this week to help your nervous system out.

And my goodness,

After everything that we've been through over the past years,

Our nervous systems could use a little bit of tuning up and we can help each other tune each other's as well.

I hope that you will take the leap and come to Costa Rica with me,

April 15th,

2023.

I'm going to be leading a retreat there and it's at Blue Spirit Costa Rica,

Which is a beautiful retreat center right on the coast of Nosara.

It has a private beach where you can go swim in the ocean first thing in the morning and last thing at night at sunset.

All the meals are organic and locally grown and amazing food.

They have a longevity center.

They have all these wonderful body treatments that you can have and it's a place to completely reset and restore yourself.

So if you're looking for a break,

Whether you are a clinician or a healthcare worker or somebody that needs a break,

You are all welcome.

We're going to be doing workshops on compassion and psychological flexibility and embodiment.

We're going to have quiet time,

Downtime,

And we will all come back feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and ready to take on the demands of life.

So come with me on retreat,

Nosara Costa Rica.

You can learn more on my website at DrDianaHill.

Com.

I have to say I'm so jealous that it's raining.

Where are you?

We're in Santa Barbara,

California.

The sound of rain.

Talk about activating my soothing system.

When it rains,

Everybody just settles here.

Everybody's in a good mood because we're always in this constant threat of drought and fire.

We have trauma history with fire.

So where are you?

Where are you that it's raining?

I'm in Maine.

It's in Maine.

We have had a couple of days of rain and gray,

Which I really love.

I don't mind that at all.

We've been in a drought as well,

So it's nice.

And I do love the sound of rain as well,

But it was getting a little cold.

You wouldn't believe that,

But cold.

It was 61 and showers.

I was at,

We were 102 here yesterday and I was at Trader Joe's buying all the pumpkin products that you buy in the fall.

It doesn't seem quite right.

Doesn't sit,

Does it?

Yeah,

It doesn't quite sit.

Well,

It's wonderful to see you.

I've interviewed Dr.

Porges in the past.

I actually interviewed him right at the beginning of the pandemic.

And then I'm going to be interviewing him again in January.

We have his perspective on polyvagal theory,

But you bring a really different angle.

I have heard your name many times when talking about polyvagal theory to folks of like,

How do I learn more about polyvagal theory?

It was a part of my training and it's only recently been kind of introduced into some of the types of therapy that I practice,

Acceptance and commitment therapy.

But your name came up because you're known as sort of the translator,

The person that does the best job of taking the science and making it applied.

And I think of myself as a translator too.

I see that sort of one of my goals is to translate science into practice.

So it's really just a treat to have you here and hopefully we'll be able to translate some of these concepts in a really tangible way.

LS Well,

It's fun to meet a fellow translator because I do think it's a passion of mine.

I love that it's a passion of yours for me to take Steve's really brilliant work and use it in a way that we can bring it into our clinical work,

But also that everyday curious human beings can begin to understand their nervous systems.

And so I love that we'll get to have this conversation.

Yeah,

Well,

I like looking at people's backgrounds.

This is one of the benefits of Zoom,

Seeing what people put in their spaces.

And behind you,

There's pictures of the brain.

I can see that.

And then there's also some abstract art.

And maybe this is sort of a little bit of representation of you and what interests you.

But yeah,

Tell me about what's behind you.

CBF And it is fun because I had fun because when I look,

I can see my background and it's very reassuring to me to see what's in my background.

I have some of my favorite sculptures that were my dad's.

He passed them on to me.

I have some of my favorite books.

But the brain image,

The first image there,

The brain was one of my friends gave that to me when the first book was published.

We had a book release party and he gave me that.

And so it's become just sort of an anchor for me knowing that,

Ooh,

There are people in the world that really care for me and hold me in their energy wherever I am.

And then the one that's next to it,

The child's face,

Is a beautiful image of the social engagement system that my colleague Kate White had created.

And I just love that one too.

So again,

It brings alive in color,

In image,

The ways that I do love working with the body and the brain.

And then the abstract is just,

I just fell in love with that.

You know,

When you go to a,

I don't know,

One of the discount stores and you walk in and it's like,

Ooh,

But I love that.

And I kept circling around and I had to come back to it and I went,

Okay,

For some reason,

I have to bring this home and I have to have it on my wall.

It just makes me smile.

So yeah,

There we are.

There we are.

So we're already activating your social engagement system by bringing up these memories of your dad and your friends and people that support you.

And then also what your body was just attuned to of this makes me smile.

I don't even know why it does.

You're great.

Yeah.

So let's start there.

Let's talk about our nervous system and the different components of the nervous system,

Because I think we all have the biology 101,

But polyvagal theory takes a much more nuanced view on the nervous system.

So can you help us just start to flesh that out a bit?

Yeah.

Yeah,

And I was taking a trip down memory lane thanks to your questions about my background and my neuroception,

Which is one of Steve's brilliant words that he created,

Neuroception,

The way the nervous system takes in information,

Listens,

And then brings a response,

Brings us into one of our stakes in the hierarchy.

But my neuroception was having a lovely time remembering and taking in and feeling the connections and all those cues of safety and joy and happiness.

And then what happened was my neuroception of safety and connection brought alive my ventral vagal state,

Which is,

Again,

The state in our nervous system.

It's part of the parasympathetic nervous system that allows us to be present,

To be organized,

To engage,

To communicate,

To connect,

To experience joy,

Both in the present moment and remembering a moment.

And then you and I are having this moment together,

So our nervous systems are communicating in that way.

So the nervous system truly is at the heart of our lived experience moment to moment.

And so understanding it,

Again,

Through Steve's brilliant polyvagal theory,

I think is so helpful for us.

And so neuroception we talked about,

And neuroception takes in information inside our body,

So it's listening inside all the time to what's going on inside.

And then it takes in environmental cues,

Which we were just having fun remembering in my system,

And then it takes in cues between.

So your system and my system met like five minutes ago and are already having a conversation right below the level of our brain.

Our nervous systems are connecting and feeling each other out and answering the question,

Is this safe?

That's what the nervous system does through neuroception.

Is this safe?

Can I approach?

Can I connect?

Or should I take a step back?

Should I have a survival response instead?

So it's safety or survival is really the question for neuroception.

And that leads us to the next one to hierarchy,

Which again,

Steve illustrated through polyvagal theory,

Ventral sympathetic dorsal are the three states that we move through in a predictable order.

It's the predictability of it that makes it such a wonderful thing to understand because I know if I'm anchored in ventral,

That place of feeling a neuroception of safety,

I feel ready to engage and meet the world,

Meet the moment from a place of regulation and connection.

If that is overwhelmed by what's going on in my world in the moment,

The next place I go is to sympathetic fight and flight.

Everybody does that.

Everybody travels from ventral to sympathetic.

That's the next stop on the hierarchy.

And fight and flight,

I think most of us understand pretty well,

It's that cortisol adrenaline,

Desperate,

Overwhelming,

Chaotic,

Disorganized energy that comes flooding in.

That's your survival state of sympathetic.

And the hope of the nervous system is that by doing something here,

Taking an action here,

We will resolve what's going on and be able to come back up to the top of the hierarchy to ventral.

That's always the hope.

I think the nervous system longs to come to ventral and inherently knows how to get there.

I'm going to pause you there because before we even get to dorsal,

This is when people think about autonomic nervous system.

This is often what they're thinking about,

Right?

So the state of feeling safe and connected,

And then the state of feeling stressed and threatened,

Right?

And that we start with ventral when you're talking about the ventral vagus nerve,

Which we'll share more about.

But I just want to give an example of it because I think it helps people to get it when you can relate to,

Oh yeah,

I've had that feeling.

And an example for me,

Because I was preparing for this interview and listening to your book Anchored and listening to you in different ways,

But I was going to our first day orientation of school for my kids.

And I was really excited,

Yay,

We're going to meet people,

This is great.

And then as soon as I got there and there was this crowd of people that were all around the drinks,

I noticed myself getting really scared.

And I was panicking.

I was feeling different.

I was questioning what I was wearing.

I was just in this state of,

I don't know if I belong here.

And I'm in the middle of that trying to make small talk and I'm stumbling over my words a little bit because I don't feel like I have the right thing to say.

And up comes this very tall man who I didn't remember,

But he reminded me,

He said,

Hi Diana,

I'm Jake.

And Jake was someone that I went to high school with that I haven't seen in years,

But now teaches at this school.

And I remembered at a physical level,

A bodily level,

Jake,

He's safe.

And in that moment,

My whole,

Everything shifted.

All of a sudden I felt different.

So it wasn't even cognitive because I don't,

This guy wasn't even really like very close friends of mine,

But I just remember he was kind of like a good guy,

But my nervous system remembered it.

So that's an example I think of like,

You go in safe,

Then you go into threat,

But then you can find your way back again.

MARY LUCIA,

JR.

And what a beautiful example of the embodied safety,

Not in brain safety because your brain was going somewhere different,

But your nervous system had that memory.

It was wired in Jake,

Good guy,

Was wired into your nervous system.

And then everything began to settle.

I love that.

That's beautiful.

That's really beautiful.

Yeah.

So when you're talking about ventral,

You're talking about a part of the,

So this is the polyvagal theory,

Many parts of our vagus nerve.

Can we rewind a little bit and talk about the vagus nerve and the ventral part,

And then we can go into that third part of the hierarchy,

The dorsal.

MARY LUCIA,

JR.

Yeah.

So the vagus nerve is,

And vagus is Latin for wandering,

And it really does wander throughout our body.

It lands in our brainstem and then wanders down through our heart,

Our lungs,

Into our digestive system.

The whole length of the vagus goes brainstem down around all the way down,

Right?

And then it comes in two parts.

So we have ventral vagus,

Which is what we were just talking about,

That system that really brings us into social engagement,

Into feeling safe with others and on our own,

Right?

Because it's not just social,

It's also solitude,

Right?

It's those lovely moments of stillness that are nourishing as well.

The hallmark of ventral is a neuroception of safety,

And so there's so many flavors of ventral.

Let's think about those for a minute.

There can be the calm,

But there can also be the passion and the joy.

There can be the ease.

There can be the ready to do this interview,

Ready to have this conversation.

So there's an alertness and also an ease,

Right?

So lots of different flavors,

And I love talking about that because people often think ventral is calm because the opposite is stress,

Right?

And there are just so many flavors of ventral that are fun to explore.

Look at kids.

Kids have so many flavors of ventral.

They're playful,

They're joyful,

They're artistic,

They're focused.

It's fun to see all those flavors,

And we have the same as adults.

So that's ventral,

Right?

And we talked a bit about the sympathetic,

And you illustrated it so beautifully.

You feel like,

Oh,

I don't belong.

I'm an S-fit.

What am I doing?

I can't talk.

It's this energy that's flooding and you can't organize,

So it loses its purpose,

Right?

We have lots of energy in ventral,

But it's organized and purposeful.

It's taking us somewhere.

It's sympathetic.

It's just chaotic all over the place,

Right?

And then if we go,

Sympathetic doesn't help us escape the problem,

Resolve what's happening,

We have that other place in the nervous system,

Which again is vagus,

But is dorsal vagal.

And that again is what Steve really mapped in polyvagal theory.

We have these two aspects of the vagus.

We have ventral,

Which we talked about,

And now dorsal.

That we'll talk about.

Endorsal is the place where we go,

We collapse,

We disconnect.

The energy drains from our system.

We kind of go through the motions,

But we're not really present doing it.

And I know every time I talk about it,

I can feel it beginning to come up in my system.

My voice changes.

My breathing changes.

And what polyvagal theory shows us is that it's a very common place for people to go.

In fact,

We visit all of these states in small ways all the time,

In big ways where we're really challenged,

But in small ways all the time.

And for dorsal to help people get a flavor of it,

It's simply often for me is a sense of,

Oh,

I don't feel as present as I was just a minute ago,

Or really the going through the motions.

I'm going through the motions,

But I'm not really caring so much about what's happening.

So I look like I'm here and doing things,

But not really.

That's the dorsal survival energy that again protects us.

And one of the things it does is it rescues us,

So to speak,

From the overwhelm of sympathetic.

And so,

It takes us out of that chaotic,

Disorganized world,

But it doesn't nourish us.

It just gets us away from that into another survival state,

The state of disconnect.

I talk to people,

I say we disappear in some way.

We become invisible in some way,

Unseen,

Lone,

Lost,

Abandoned in some way in this dorsal place.

KRISTEN SULLIVAN-MCCARTHY Sometimes the terminology can get us all mixed up with these things.

And so,

I always use mnemonics to try and remember which is which dorsal ventral.

It doesn't matter as much.

You understand it,

But one of the ways that I think about it is I think about ventral as being like vents that open up.

So there's a way out.

You don't feel trapped.

The vents are open,

You can breathe,

You have room to explore,

You feel safe.

And then dorsal is like shutting down.

The doors are closed,

You're shutting down.

And for some people,

They may experience that as even dissociation if they're in an extreme trauma of just the complete body shutdown.

And it's important for us to also recognize because you use survival that none of these are good or bad.

We want flexibility amongst them and be able to move from shutdown to open up to run when you need to run.

I was interviewing a monk,

Brother Phapu,

Who was the attendant of Thich Nhat Hanh when he went through his stroke.

He was attendant of his for 10 years,

But he talked about his experience of being Thich Nhat Hanh's attendant during the time of his stroke.

And he talks about this moment when he looked across the way and he saw some of the nuns hugging and he thought that Thich Nhat Hanh had died.

And he said,

I started running,

Mindful,

One-pointed running because of that sympathetic nervous system,

But it was sympathetic in a way that he was staying centered and mindful while he was being active as well.

MR.

WILKINS Right,

Which is,

If we want to talk about one other piece of our anatomy,

That is the gift of what Steve named the vagal break,

Which is this one ventral circuit.

So it's a circuit that goes to the sinoatrial node of your heart.

And so,

It allows the heart rate to speed up and slow down.

I like your vents.

So it can open the vents wider so that we have more energy flooding in from the sympathetic mobilizing energy,

But it keeps us in the state of safety and presence rather than going to sympathetic survival.

So if we think about the vents,

The vents can open wider and close more and open and close so that we have more or less access to that energy.

And it sounds like the monk was in that place of vents had opened,

So he had the energy to run,

But he was very much present and in that place of ventral regulation as he was running.

And that's really part of what we're doing all the time is we're trying to help this part of our anatomy work more and more efficiently so that we have more capacity to become activated and calm and activated and calm all while staying in that place of feeling regulated enough,

Safe enough.

And I liked what you said.

The goal is never to be anchored in ventral all the time.

That's not realistic or really not even achievable.

It's not safe.

We have survival responses for a reason,

And we need our survival responses.

And the goal is to know when I'm in ventral,

When have I left ventral and am now visiting sympathetic.

And my clients would say they went down the dorsal drain,

So when have I gone down the drain to dorsal,

And how do I come back to ventral?

It's a flexible,

Resilient nervous system,

Which is how we experience well-being.

That's well-being,

Really.

KRISTEN MCDONALD-MCCARTHY I used the example of the stroke in Tichnahan in part also because I know that you've talked about your husband having undergone a stroke and you're a caretaker.

And one of the places that is the most stressful things you can do is long-term caretaking.

There's some interesting research on that too at the cellular level,

How it is really hard on your cells and your telomeres and all of that.

How have you used this concept of the ventral and the sympathetic and dorsal for yourself as a caretaker?

MARY LUCIA,

JR.

Yeah,

And it's an interesting journey.

We're about seven and a half years in now,

And in the beginning,

There was a lot of sympathetic anxiety and drivenness to make sure he was getting everything he needed and fear because when someone has a stroke,

They often say they'll have another one,

Right?

And he had to learn how to walk again,

And was that ever going to happen?

So there was a lot of that sympathetic fear that drove me.

And then my go-to survival space is dorsal.

It's been that way since I was a kid.

I go to disconnect,

Escape,

Become invisible.

So there was that pull.

When it got overwhelming and too much,

Just go to dorsal and just sort of disappear for a while,

Neither of which is helpful for my husband,

For Bob.

He needs me to be anchored in ventral so that I can be a cue of safety to his nervous system,

Because one of the things that happens when someone has a stroke or someone has an accident or an illness that changes their body is their body no longer feels like home to them,

Right?

And so he needs external cues of safety in order to feel safe enough to begin to have a different relationship with his embodied home.

And I've done a lot of thinking recently about caregiving because he had a complicated winter last winter with a couple hospitalizations and things going on.

And I do not do it perfectly.

I will say that right up front,

That there are many days when I will reflect on the day and think,

I showed up and did what needed to be done,

But I didn't do it from a place of ventral kindness.

I did it more from a sympathetic,

This is what needs to happen.

And it's hard.

What I'm learning is my own sort of self-care,

Self-compassion limits because I'm never going to do it perfectly,

And no caregiver does.

And yet,

If we can do it when we're feeling regulated,

We can then do it with kindness.

And that's the only time I can do it with kindness.

The other times,

I'm doing it just because it needs to be done.

But the problem being that that gets translated to his nervous system.

I can be saying all the right things,

But if I'm not in that regulated,

Connecting state,

My nervous system is communicating to his nervous system that I'm not in that place,

And his nervous system then experiences me as not a restorative resource,

But as a threat.

And it's that basic,

Which is fascinating,

I think,

When you think about relationships.

My intention is always to be there for him and with him,

But my nervous system can't always help me do that.

Yeah.

I think many people that are in,

Maybe they're not in a caregiving situation like caregiving someone that has a chronic illness,

But they're caregiving as parents,

Or they're just sort of also the exchange of care that happens with any relationship,

Or maybe they're a leader that's caregiving their employees in some way.

That point of what we're transmitting through our facial signals,

Through our tone of voice,

Through our holding of our breath,

Through the rigidity of our bodies,

That that transmission is often more powerful than the words that we're saying.

And polyvagal theory has the reason why.

I think we understand that.

When I go into my kid's room and they're not sleeping at night,

And I'm irritated at them for not sleeping,

And I'm like,

Just get to bed,

Sweetheart,

But you can hear it in my voice.

They're going to register my voice and it'll keep them up longer.

So can we talk about that?

How this transmission from our bodies to one another's co-regulation is happening and how it relates to this nervous system.

Yeah,

And the social engagement system is how we send cues and search for cues.

So through eyes,

Through the look we're giving,

Through the tone of voice,

The prosody of our voice.

Because what the nervous system does is it tells you the state of your system through the sound of your voice.

So you might go in and say,

Okay,

Guys,

Go to sleep now.

And your children's nervous system goes,

Ooh,

Mom is not happy.

They don't have the language to say,

Oh,

Mom's got some sympathetic get to sleep now energy,

But they know it.

Their nervous system knows it.

That's the between of neuroception,

The communication that happens.

And the head movement,

The simple head movement we do is a welcome or a warning.

So we've got all of these different ways that social engagement system,

Which is biologically wired in,

Is sending cues and is also looking for cues coming back.

And the tone of voice you're saying,

What you say does not matter as much as the state you're in when you're saying it because the nervous system listens for your intonation,

Your prosody before it takes in any information,

Which is why for so many of us,

We work with maybe it's a parent and child or a couple.

I've said it a million times.

I just don't know why you don't get this.

I've told you a million times.

And so as soon as I get that cue of danger,

I stop hearing the words.

My nervous system has now gone into survival mode,

And I stop hearing the words.

And as soon as we leave that space of connection and safety and move to sympathetic or dorsal survival,

Our prefrontal cortex goes into hypoactive mode.

It slows down.

It doesn't work the same way.

I like to tell my friends,

When you move down the hierarchy,

Your prefrontal doesn't come along for the ride.

It's no longer there to help me problem solve,

To brainstorm,

To see options.

I'm now stuck in a survival story that just gets reenacted over and over.

So yeah,

I think it's quite amazing.

It also feels,

When I understand this,

Like a responsibility that I'm taking on.

I'm responsible for the autonomic information that I'm putting out into the world.

And so that takes us back around to being kind to ourselves,

Remembering that nobody does it perfectly.

And if you're talking about parents and kids,

Ed Tronic's beautiful research,

It's about 30% of the time that parents and kids have that place of attunement,

And that's okay.

It's that we recognize there's been a misattunement,

And we come back and we make a repair.

So for everybody listening,

You don't have to do it 100% of the time.

That's not possible.

And even 30% of the time,

I say that to couples,

Do you think you could do it 30% of the time?

And they go,

One in three,

Probably,

Right?

That feels reassuring.

For parents with kids,

One in three,

You can do that,

And you just go and you make the repair.

So the next day,

You might talk to your kids and say,

Yeah,

I was a little frustrated that you weren't going to sleep,

And I'll bet you got that message,

Even though what I was saying was,

You know,

So you're making a repair.

You're sort of saying out loud,

Here's what was going on for me,

And here's how I think it might have impacted you,

Right?

Yeah,

That important part of the nervous system actually physically connects to your face.

It physically connects to the,

You know,

Up in the eye area is what Stefan Porges has talked a bit about,

That these connections are there on purpose.

I mean,

There's sort of an evolutionary reason why they're there,

Because we are caretakers as humans,

You know,

We evolved to be able to soothe each other and soothe ourselves.

You give specific strategies and practices to help us when we are in dorsal or when we are in,

You know,

Our sympathetic nervous system,

And we're to prevent us from getting stuck there too long and to help us get more into that vented ventral system.

Can you talk about some of the things that you would do with either yourself or with some of your clients so that we could learn some of these skills?

Yeah,

It's interesting because everybody's nervous system is going to respond to certain resources in their own way.

What I like to say is there's no right or wrong way,

There's just the way of your nervous system.

And so,

You know,

We can go over some of the ways and your nervous system might say,

Oh,

Yes,

Or no,

Thank you,

Or maybe,

Right?

If you get a yes or a maybe,

Play around with it.

If you get a no,

It's just not for you,

That's okay.

And I love to say that first because,

You know,

When the pandemic started,

My mailbox started getting filled with,

You know,

Five things to do to,

You know,

Survive this connection or ten ways to make it through the day.

And I was reading it and I was thinking there must be something wrong with me because those don't fit for me,

Or one out of ten fit.

And I finally came around to really,

You know,

Understanding that people were giving the ways their nervous system would appreciate,

But that was not necessarily the way my nervous system was wired.

So,

As we begin to talk about things,

Just,

You know,

Listen for yourself and think,

Oh,

Maybe,

Yes,

Or no.

So anyway,

Yeah.

So in sympathetic,

You know,

Movement is one of the best ways to begin to move out of sympathetic back up to ventral,

Right?

Because we have so much energy flooding our system and we need to organize that energy in some way.

You know,

I laugh nowadays.

I never tell people to calm down,

Right?

Because I think it's a crazy thing to do anyway when you've got all that energy.

But if you calm down,

You go down to dorsal,

Which is not where I want you to go.

So we calm up.

We organize the energy to give it purpose so that we can come back to ventral.

And for some of us,

You know,

Movement is an imagined experience,

Right?

So I can imagine moving in a different way when I'm in a sympathetic overwhelm,

When I'm flooded with that chaotic energy.

And in my mind's eye,

I can feel it,

I can see it,

And that brings my motor cortex online.

And it's almost as if I'm doing it actually out here in the world.

KRISTEN STURMOND-MCCARTHY I love that.

So you could even imagine,

Say you're in a meeting and you're noticing yourself getting really stressed,

You could imagine yourself maybe doing a sun salutation in your own head.

And that will activate,

Imagery can activate our body in the same way as actually doing that thing.

So that's powerful.

And another one that I do often with people that are having panic attacks is take a walk around the room,

Which changes your perspective and also gets your body moving because it's so flooded with the catecholamines that are just,

You know,

You don't want to sit still and try and breathe when you're having a panic attack.

That's actually not the most helpful thing.

MARY LUCIA,

MD If you're in a place where you can get up and move,

You know,

I just invite people to just let your body do what it needs to do.

Your body knows the way back to ventral,

Right?

And it may need to,

You know,

I would have clients say,

I need to get out of here.

I say,

Great,

Let's go,

Open the door and let's go.

Where are we going?

And there needed to be some movement and then it would slow down.

And as it began to slow,

Oh yes,

We're now entering ventral together.

So you know,

Either imagined action or enacted movement is wonderful because it's about movement in that place.

I like to have people have touchstones.

Is there something that you can grab that reminds you that you do know the way to ventral?

For me,

I am living part of my life in Maine near the beach,

And so beach stones have always been important to me.

And so I have beach stones,

You know,

And I have beach stones all around the house where I can grab one when I can feel that overwhelm that reminds me of all of the things that are connected to the beach,

Walking the beach,

The sound of the beach,

The energy of the beach.

So touchstones and having them in a place where you can find them is really,

Really helpful.

A statement that reminds you to use the language part of our experience and then write that statement and have it somewhere where you can find it because if it's just a statement you think about,

You'll never find it when you need it,

Right?

But if you've written it down,

And I had clients who were incredibly artistic and they would illustrate that one statement and they would put it somewhere where they could find it.

I had other clients who were not artistic at all would write on Post-it notes and put them in the places around the house where they would see them.

But it's the ability to access whatever the resource is because remember your prefrontal is not going to help you out in that way in that moment.

Oftentimes,

When we're in it,

We can't access that.

Like you said,

We can't access our frontal lobe when we're in sympathetic.

And so having a time when you're out of the sympathetic nervous system to write down some self-compassion statements.

And I was actually working with a group of teachers.

So school is just starting up and I was working with a group of teachers.

They were one of the groups that were most impacted by the pandemic.

And what some of the research was showing around teachers is about 30% of teachers were considering leaving their jobs or left their job during the pandemic.

Teachers also had much higher levels of stress than regular workers as well as lower coping skills and ability to cope.

And so we developed,

We worked on thinking about it a moment last year when you were at sort of your limit with the kids and the pandemic.

And if you could think about yourself then and have some compassion,

Like write down a statement of what you would want to say to yourself.

And then also think about all the other teachers that were in that same,

What would you want to say to them?

And then we wrote them on these papers and we passed them to each other.

We just sort of mindfully walked around and passed them.

And they,

I just pulled up what they wrote because they said things like,

You're doing the best you can,

Be patient with yourself,

You will find a way,

It's okay to suck at something or even a lot of things.

I see you,

You are enough,

You're doing enough,

You get through it like you always do,

Your gift is your presence and energy.

So these beautiful statements that even as I say them,

That I could feel my nervous system settling down,

But we have such a hard time accessing them when they're in the moment.

So that idea of writing it down and having it somewhere to read,

Whether it's in your notes in your phone or it's on a little post-it note you put on your,

If you're going into a difficult Zoom meeting,

Put the post-it note on the corner of your computer so you can read it during the Zoom meeting.

Yeah,

That's really great.

Self-compassion is important.

Absolutely.

And is only available from ventral.

So we can't do it in the moment,

We have to pre-plan for it.

And that was beautiful what you did.

You did a reflection with the teachers.

We'll flip back to that moment and what could you have said or what would you say to another.

And so,

Upon reflection is one way and then looking ahead,

Anticipation is another way to come up with a statement.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

So we have movement and we have a touchstone,

We have self-compassion statements,

And then you were also going to talk about breath as well.

Talk about breath,

Yeah.

Because breath is an autonomic activity.

It's guided by our nervous system.

It's one of the things that the nervous system does is it regulates our breath.

And so,

It's a direct route to changing our nervous system state,

Which makes it a wonderful regulator.

It also makes it an activator.

And so,

I always want people to be careful with breath because our brains and bodies have figured out a pattern of breathing for a reason,

Right?

And when we are in a sympathetic survival state,

Our breath changes.

And so,

We can focus on the breath and begin to bring a different breath in to help us come back to ventral.

The difficulty being that we can also be pulled down to dorsal disconnection,

So we just want to be careful with breath.

And the breath that I love and use most often with people is sighing because there is a lot of research on sighing.

Sighing is a momentary resetter of both our cognitions and our nervous system,

And so you get the benefit of a sigh.

And when you're in sympathetic,

You might notice if you reflect back,

You often do sigh.

We have these sighs of frustration we do all the time.

Everybody's like,

Huh,

Right?

And that is your nervous system attempting to interrupt that sympathetic flood of energy,

Right?

And so,

One of the things I invite people to do is go ahead and have a sympathetic sigh,

Whether that's frustration or overwhelm or anxiety or whatever,

But sigh.

Because the science of sighing,

A sigh is a loud exhale,

Right?

And as we exhale,

We bring more ventral action into our system,

Right?

So in breath work,

The more you accentuate the exhale,

The more ventral you bring in.

So even sighing,

A sigh of frustration,

Is a wonderful way to just gently interrupt.

And sometimes that interruption is enough,

And then,

Oh,

Then I can begin to find my way back to ventral.

So a sigh.

BT.

KRISTEN STILT GARVIN-SMITH So people could try that right now.

I was doing a little sigh and notice how quickly that response is,

And in part because it's activating that ventral vagus nerve that goes through your diaphragm.

The diaphragm wraps around the vagus nerve,

So when we're breathing,

We're actually stimulating that ventral vagal part.

So that's wonderful.

What about the flip side?

So we're talking about things that you can do when you're in sympathetic,

So when you're in your threat system,

The fight and flight system,

But then we have this shutdown.

So what would be some things we could do there when we're noticing ourselves shut down or maybe folks that dissociate even?

KRISTEN STILT GARVIN-SMITH So it's interesting because in dorsal,

The energy has drained from our system,

And we've entered what we call conservation mode.

Heart rate has slowed down,

Breath has changed,

The oxygenation of blood flow to your brain changes,

Which often takes us to that fuzzy,

Numb,

Disconnected,

Even dissociated place.

And so here,

We want to bring some energy back in,

But we need it to be a gentle return of energy,

Gentle being the key word.

Because if we try to do something too big,

Too intense,

Too much,

We go to sympathetic survival rather than just bringing some energy in so that we can travel through sympathetic mobilization back to ventral.

And that takes some time and practice to figure out how do I bring a bit of energy in so that I can begin to gently come back and move up the hierarchy to ventral.

So again,

We talked about remembering or reflecting or imagining.

Those are wonderful things to begin with in dorsal.

So I can remember a moment when I felt connected,

And that will begin to bring some energy back in.

I can imagine sending a text to a friend.

I can't do it.

I don't have enough energy to actually do it.

That is way too much.

But I can imagine doing it,

And that begins to bring some energy in.

I can look out a window and see what's going on outside because in dorsal,

I'm in a very collapsed room.

Often my clients talk about being in a cave where nothing gets in.

And so if I can simply look out a window or look to another room and remember,

Oh,

There is more than this moment I'm in.

Those are the gentle things to do.

One of the things that I love is music because for me,

Music is just a lovely autonomic experience.

I just love music.

And so I have curated playlists for myself,

And it's easy.

I can just push a button,

And there they are.

And the playlists can bring a gentle return of energy and then can bring some more sympathetic,

Mobilizing energy and then bring me to ventral and whatever flavor.

And there are lots of flavors of music that can take you to those places,

And music seems to be sort of a universal way our nervous system feels these different states safely and can travel.

And how easy to turn on my phone,

Push a button,

Whatever the case is for you.

And then I begin to hear it in my head.

Sometimes I'll sing along.

But I'll begin to have a gentle movement.

You sway with music,

And that movement means that you're bringing energy back into your body.

So those are some of my favorites.

CMF.

And I bet people can think about,

As you were saying,

Music.

What music would be the best music for their sympathetic nervous system?

When I'm really feeling stressed or revved before I go to do a talk,

I love this chant by Snatnam Kaur,

Which is,

Ramadasa Satsesoham.

So it's these really basic root sounds that when I chant them,

I'm also getting that humming sound and it's really slow.

And it just repeats itself for 20 minutes.

That's it.

And that's perfect for my sympathetic nervous system because I don't want to think too much.

I just want to get back in my body and slow myself down.

But then when I'm wanting to activate myself a little bit,

I love Jon Baptiste's song,

Which is,

It's Alright.

And if you haven't listened to that,

I will send it to people that are depressed,

Like friends when they're feeling really down because the energy behind it,

He's just a beautiful singer,

But it gets you going and it reminds you of there is still good in the world,

Even though you're feeling so terrible.

So we could kind of curate our little,

We could have a little curated playlist of,

This is my dorsal playlist,

This is my sympathetic playlist to help us kind of shift.

And again,

It's that vagus nerve gets into the ear.

And I know that,

I'm sure we'll talk about this more with Dr.

Porges of all of his work around using sound to regulate our nervous system.

So I love that.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then at some point,

We have enough energy back in our system that we do truly,

Our body wants to move because movement truly is how we know we're alive.

And again,

It's a very gentle movement that then might become more of a movement and you might actually walk to a window or go out your front door,

But it takes a while.

And so,

We want to be gentle with ourselves and it takes a while.

And that place of collapse,

Shutdown,

Disconnection is the path of last resort for our nervous system.

And it takes a while to get into it.

It takes a while to come back out of it.

So we want,

Patience is really needed to come back from that place.

Can we talk a bit about the link between trauma and the sort of restructuring of our nervous system that happens if you've experienced adversity,

Especially intense adversity,

Traumatic events.

A lot of us are climbing out of a collective traumatic event of the pandemic right now.

And I know there's been some research around how that impacted our autonomic nervous system,

And now we're kind of needing to sculpt it again into health.

But what is this link between trauma and the nervous system?

Yeah.

It's interesting because micro-moment to micro-moment,

Our nervous system is being shaped and reshaped.

So as we are here together,

Our nervous systems are being shaped by this experience.

If we think about the pandemic,

Our nervous systems were all shaped,

And we had a collective experience.

I like to think we were all in the same ocean,

But we were in different boats because our nervous system responded differently to the same experiences.

And some people did better with solitude than others,

Depending on our past experience.

So if we go to past experience,

Our nervous system is shaped by how we are met when we enter the world.

The biological expectation is we're going to be met by a regulated person who will care for us.

Humans need care.

We need connection to another human in order to survive.

And for so many people,

That regulated and regulating being was not predictably present.

And as Steve once said,

And I think it's just a lovely way of thinking about trauma,

Trauma is a chronic disruption of connection.

That's how the nervous system would describe trauma.

We have so many definitions of trauma,

And we have big T and little t,

And we have all of these things.

And yet,

For the nervous system,

It's that unpredictability of having a safe person to be in connection with that is traumatic.

And so,

If you think about your growing up,

Did you grow up in an environment that felt to your nervous system safe,

Or were there cues of danger that came in or were unpredictable?

We talk about acts of commission and omission when we think about trauma,

And the acts of commission are the things that were done to us that were harmful,

Hurtful.

And then we have acts of omission,

The things that didn't happen that we needed to have happen in order to feel safe and okay in the world.

And the research tells us that both have a profound impact on us as humans.

And in a nervous system,

They both impact our nervous system.

And as our body enters into survival states,

That information gets fed up to our brain,

And our brain's job is to make a story to make sense of what's happening,

And that's how our stories get created.

The brain is trying to make sense of this crazy world that we're in,

This dangerous world.

And I think the wonderful news that the polyvagal theory brings us is that,

In fact,

We are being reshaped all the time.

So the patterns that happened for me growing up are not ones that I'm stuck with forever.

I can reshape those patterns.

I can help my nervous system have enough experiences of safe connection with others so that it begins to have that expectation that others are safe,

And I can be discerning and I can feel through my neuroception when it feels,

Oh,

This feels safe.

I want to approach here.

This feels not so safe.

I'm going to stay back here and begin to trust that inner intuition,

That autonomic intuition that's happening all the time.

So that's the hopeful part of understanding the nervous system is that we are shaping and reshaping,

And so we can intentionally reshape those patterns.

But those patterns get set up from the moment we come into the world.

Probably before we come into the world,

We are taking in information from our mother's experience,

And then we enter the world,

And then our nervous system is shaped in order to help us survive.

That's its job,

And it will do that in whatever way it needs.

And if ventral,

If connection and safety with another is not an option,

It's going to take you to sympathetic or dorsal survival so that you will survive.

So,

Part of our job in reshaping our nervous system is finding our way back to ventral and helping it sort of almost relearn that there is ventral.

In those early stages of the pandemic,

The whole toilet paper fiasco of everyone trying to buy toilet paper and then freak out,

I actually didn't.

I had just the social contagion of it.

I should go buy toilet paper because everyone else is.

That cognitive bias of everyone's doing it,

So I should do it.

But where I actually had a deep fear was when food,

When I went to the shelves and I couldn't find beans and I couldn't find flour.

And then I would spend hours online buying 50-pound things of flour to be shipped to my house.

And the reason why is because I have a history of anorexia.

So I have trauma history around not having enough food.

And I started noticing that in my clients that had any kind of either famine history in their family or they grew up poor with not enough food.

They had a different response to the no beans on the shelf.

So our early experiences do shape our current,

How our body responds to stressors.

And then I had to kind of do a little bit of this,

There's enough food.

Just because there's not beans,

There's plenty of other things to eat.

And reminding myself that I'm safe.

MARY LUCIA,

PhD Right.

And as you remind yourself you're safe,

Then the story that you are caught in can change.

But from a sympathetic anxiety panic,

There can't be enough.

That's a place of scarcity.

That's a place of me against the world,

Right?

Because those are the qualities of a sympathetic nervous system,

Right?

So for you,

You found your way to enough ventral so that the story could change.

You felt safe enough.

Oh,

There's other food.

You can't have that thought unless you come to enough ventral,

Or a critical mass of ventral is what I call it.

We don't have to be fully immersed in ventral,

But we have to have a toe gold or a critical mass or enough so that,

Oh,

There is another story.

Oh,

There's something besides beans,

Right?

But we can't get there from sympathetic and from dorsal.

The story is one of despair and hopelessness.

You're not even going to reach out and look,

Right?

And so we always have these different stories in our system.

They're always there,

And we can tune into the different stories and listen.

What's the sympathetic story?

Oh my god,

I've got to get beans.

I've got to get flour because I can't survive without it.

And the dorsal story is,

Don't even try to give up.

And the central story is,

Huh,

There's probably something besides beans and flour,

Right?

Yeah.

We have chickens.

We'll survive.

Right!

But it is so fascinating how when we get pulled into a state,

We get pulled into the story that emerges from that state,

And we cannot see something else.

So trying to convince somebody who is in a sympathetic panic that there will be enough flour or beans,

Or you don't have to buy a case of toilet paper,

You can't do that because their nervous system,

You're talking to their brain that's not there,

And their nervous system is running the show,

Right?

So again,

It's that sending a cue of safety to another nervous system by being regulated yourself that then can help another person's nervous system feel a bit of that and begin to be able to hear a different story.

It's such an important part of the sending the cue of safety to each other because so much of what's happened in the last few years have been about not sending cues of safety and all the divisiveness amongst us in terms of political divisiveness and vaccine divisiveness that has contributed to our nervous systems being in sympathetic or dorsal,

And then it becomes a sort of cumulative transactional effect.

And this is a way of turning it around maybe from the inside out when you learn how to understand your own nervous system,

See which state you're in,

And then maybe use some of these tools that you talk about.

And you teach us more of them in your book,

Anchored,

And in your Sounds True program is another way that people could learn about how to do this.

And it's pretty empowering.

It gives you a sense of choice and control,

Especially during a time when there's a lot of things we can't control and we don't have choices.

DR.

ROGERS Yeah,

And I love what you just said because for me,

It can feel really overwhelming what's going on in the world and my longing to make a difference,

To have things change.

And if I come back to my own nervous system and understand that if I can anchor in ventral that I am then putting out into the world cues of safety and inviting other nervous systems to feel that.

That's how I think,

You know,

Then I think,

Oh yes,

I can make a difference.

This is how we're going to change the world,

By each of us being able to anchor in that place of regulation and safety.

DR.

SUSAN KINZER So there's many different words for it.

Polyvagal theory has one angle in.

I think contemplative practices,

Spiritual practices have another angle in.

I think attachment theory has another angle in.

But we also know about positive neuroplasticity in the brain and compassion focused therapy.

We're all just looking at different parts,

This conciliatory view.

But I think that the polyvagal theory and the way you describe it,

It's just another way of organizing it for ourselves,

Understanding so that then we can work with it.

So thank you,

Deb Dana,

For spending this time with all of us.

And I will share your resources in the show notes for people that want to learn more from you and read your book Anchored and other things that you have.

You have a lot of resources out there for clinicians and laypeople that want to learn more about polyvagal theory.

DR.

DEB DALGLER Thank you.

It's been a joy to go on this journey together.

DR.

SUSAN KINZER Alrighty.

To summarize,

Polyvagal theory expands on our understanding of our nervous system.

You have a vagus nerve that goes from your brain and nerve-ates your heart and nerve-ates your diaphragm and goes all the way down to your gut.

And a lot of the signals of this vagus nerve are going from the bottom up.

They're sending signals from your gut and your heart to your face and your brain.

Your vagus nerve is designed to help regulate your nervous system and your stress.

When your ventral vagus nerve is activated,

You feel connection,

Safety,

Openness,

The ability to move freely throughout the world.

But when you are stressed,

You can go into what's called your sympathetic nervous system,

Which is the sort of first state of response to stress.

And that may lead you to feel drive,

To run from things,

To get working on something,

Maybe even to panic a little bit.

And if you're not able to get to a place of safety with that first level of your sympathetic nervous system,

The dorsal part of your vagus nerve,

The part that goes from your diaphragm down will lead you to shut down.

And that's the closing of the doors that I talked about.

So Deb Dana today shared with us things that we can do,

Things that you can do to help you stay in that ventral vagal state,

Things that you can do to help you when you're in your sympathetic nervous system,

To get you back to that ventral vagal,

And things that can help you when you've gone dorsal,

When you've gone into shutdown,

To help you get back into ventral.

I want to highlight that it's about flexibility within your nervous system that we're looking for,

Much like,

You know,

Sort of how many of you may have heard of heart rate variability.

It's not that you want your heart rate to be the same all the time.

You want your heart to be able to respond to stressors when stressors come up and then be able to come back to a regulated state.

You want yourself to be able to shut down if you need to shut down.

If you are under severe stress,

Say you got hit by a car,

You don't want to necessarily remember everything that happened,

Right?

It's good for your body to have a bit of a shutdown and a freeze.

But it's getting stuck in those places that is the problem.

So your first practice is just to check in with your nervous system throughout the day.

Are you in a state of chronic stress,

Being revved,

Always on edge,

Maybe irritable,

About to jump?

That's an indicator that your sympathetic nervous system is on override.

You can check in and say,

Am I on a complete shutdown?

Am I checked out?

Am I kind of dissociated?

Am I distancing from people?

Am I distancing from life?

That's an indicator that your dorsal ventral system is on override.

So first do that check-in.

Then figure out for yourself what works best for your nervous system.

When you are stressed,

What works best for you to bring you back to a state of equilibrium?

Maybe it's movement.

Maybe it's having a talisman or something to hold on to.

Maybe it's a self-compassion statement or breath work.

Play with those different things.

Figure out what works for you and use that as your tool that you practice over and over again when you're in that state of sympathetic drive.

Likewise,

When you are in shutdown,

What works best for you?

Maybe it's imagery.

Maybe it's gentle movement.

Maybe it's a little bit more of sort of activated breathing.

I like to use breath of fire.

Or maybe music,

If there's certain energizing music that is motivating and helpful for you.

So begin to explore what is it that works for you when you are under stress and you're in a sympathetic nervous system?

What works for you when you're in shutdown?

And start to tune into your own nervous system and tune it up using some of these practices.

All righty.

I'd love to hear from you.

I want to know what your playlists are.

What music you play for yourself when you need to down-regulate a bit and then what music you play when you need to up-regulate a bit,

When you need to get yourself moving and motivated.

So,

So curious.

Send me that and maybe share it on social.

And I will be back next week with more from Your Life in Process.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Your Life in Process.

When you enter your life in process,

When you become psychologically flexible,

You become free.

If you like this episode or think it would be helpful to somebody,

Please leave a review over at podchaser.

Com.

And if you have any questions,

You can leave them for me by phone at 805-457-2776 or send me a voicemail by email at podcast at your life in process.

Com.

I want to thank my team,

Craig,

Angela Stubbs,

Ashley Hyatt,

Abby Deal,

And thank you to Ben Gold at Bell and Branch for his original music.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only,

And it's not meant to be a substitute for mental health treatment.

Reviews

So informative and helpful! I have a much better understanding of my nervous system and how I can help it become more flexible!

Clear, concise and simply and effectively explained in a way that makes sense to my nervous system. It was a delight to hear your interchange with Deb Dana! I have read Anchored and attended. Workshop at Kripalu this summer with Deb based on her book. It reinforced what I learned.

Definitely bookmarking this interview for easy access. 🙏🏻🙌🏻

This was really informative and made sense to me as I navigate chronic anxiety. I will try the exercises mentioned. Thank You for your work in spreading this important information 🙏🏻 ❤️

Fabulous program. Lots of great information and a wonderful kind energy between the two of you. Many thanks. 💕

Thanks for uploading this.

This was fascinating and so informative. I got a lot out of it; great interview!
Thanks so much!

Great info thank you