What Is Polyvagal Theory? Discover the Key to Better Relationships and Well-Being. Part 1

What is Polyvagal Theory?‍

‍Polyvagal Theory is the science of safety, created and developed by Stephen Porges, PhD, in 1994 and later in 2014, translated into clinical application and the general public for everyday use by Deb Dana. It emphasises the crucial role and influence the autonomic system has on our physical, mental, and emotional health and happiness. 

Here is what Deb Dana's and Stephen Porges say in their words:

"Polyvagal Theory is the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living."

"How safe we feel is crucial to our physical and mental health and happiness."

"The Polyvagal Theory is a new model for how our nervous system and the entire body responds to and changes with how safe or threatening the world feels to us."

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Introduction

The Theory of the autonomic nervous system and the wandering vagus nerve are the foundation of human's daily experiences and impact human health and behaviours. It helps us understand how we move through the world (how we react, behave, feel, and think, and what story we are creating) and how we connect with ourselves and others. Polyvagal Theory offers a physiological and psychological understanding of how and why people move through the phases of mobilisation, disconnection, and social engagement. When you feel safe, your nervous system and entire body undergo a profound physiological shift that helps you lower defensive and survival strategies and open to curiosity, happiness, playfulness, and an impulse to connect with others. By applying Polyvagal Theory to our personal lives, we can understand how safety, co-regulation, and connection are paramount to a healthy human experience. 

In this article, you will learn about the Vagus nerve, its role and influence on your state of being and how you can regulate it to achieve well-being.

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What you will discover

Part 1

• Overview of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) structure 
• Polyvagal Theory's key principles
• Autonomic hierarchy of ANS and its evolutionary development
• Insight into neuroception as the ANS's subconscious safety and danger detection system
• Co-regulation as a biological need for emotional connection and safety
• Connection between Polyvagal Theory and Imago Dialogue for building safe, thriving relationships

Part 2

• Cultivating awareness to influence your autonomic nervous system
• Benefits of PVT
• Practical uses of PVT
• Self-regulation practice
• Facial muscles and the link to ANS states
• Personal profile map to understand your autonomic states
• Tips for enhancing vagal tone for improved well-being
• Additional resources
• Practical advice on building a relationship with your autonomic system

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Exploring the Autonomic Nervous System: How Polyvagal Theory Maps Our Responses to Danger and Safety

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Inside the Autonomic Nervous System: Understanding Its Complex Structure

The ANS is made up of two main branches, the sympathetic and parasympathetic and responds to signals using three pathways, each with a specific, characteristic pattern of response:

1. The sympathetic branch begins in the brainstem and travels the motor pathways that grow from the middle part of the spinal cord. This pathway responds to cues of danger, prepares us for action, and triggers the release of adrenaline, which fuels the fight-or-flight response.

2. The parasympathetic branch consists of two response pathways, travelling within the longest 10th cranial nerve called the Vagus or "wanderer". The Vagus is divided into two parts, the ventral vagal and the dorsal vagal pathway:some text

• The ventral vagal is the branch of the Vagus that travels upward to connect with the nerves in the neck, throat, eyes, and ears. These nerves comprise "a social engagement system" discovered by Stephen Porges. The vagal responds to safety cues and supports feeling safely connected to others.
• Dorsal vagal begins in the brain stem at the base of the skull and travels downward through the lungs, heart, diaphragm and stomach. It responds to cues of extreme danger, which takes us from the safety of connection to the protective state of immobilisation. This state creates a shutdown.

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Understanding Polyvagal Theory: The Main Organizing Principles

While there is a strong and engrained belief shaped by science that our brains are in charge, the heart of our lived experience and how we navigate the world begins with the autonomic nervous system. This is where the stories we tell ourselves emerge and how we feel, think and act in the world. Before we embark on the journey of influencing our nervous system, its vagus nerve, and anchoring it in safety, it is helpful to understand the basics of PVT. You learned from school that ANS is the body's autopilot system that controls our heartbeat, breathing, and digestion. But it is not the only function ANS performs. According to new science, the NS is at the heart of our lived experience and how we navigate the world. It influences how humans live, love, work, feel, think, and act. At the heart of PVT are three organising principles: hierarchy, neuroception and co-regulation.

Hierarchy

The ANS is built with three primary pathways of response. These pathways work in specified order and respond to life challenges in predictable ways, which is called autonomic hierarchy. The three pathways are anchored in the evolutionary development of our species: 

1. Dorsal Vagal is the oldest system at the bottom of the hierarchy, and it originates from our ancient vertebrate ancestors. It is the rest-relax system, and in its everyday role, it regulates digestion but also engages in the role of survival mechanism, which creates shutdown or immobilisation. When that happens, we are drained of energy, feel like we want to disappear, and finally, dissociate from our bodies, emotions, and people. 
2. The sympathetic system was the next to develop. It fuels action and mobilisation, and in everyday function, it helps regulate heart and breath rhythms and brings energy to move through the day. In its survival role, it activates pathways of fight and flight and pulls us into anxiety and anger.
3. Ventral Vagal is the latest upgrade, and it brings patterns of social engagement that are unique to mammals. We feel relaxed, grounded, organised, creative, and playful in this state. We meet the demands of life, experience flow and inspiration, see options, and have hope and a positive outlook on the world. We are regulated, safe, connected to other people, and ready to engage with the world.

Each pathway brings its own set of stories we tell ourselves, thoughts, emotions, feelings, behaviours and bodily sensations, and they work in order, always following the pattern. So when you are in your Ventral, in the flow, having a great time connecting with your friend, if something overwhelming happens, you move down the step to Sympathetic fight or flight mode, triggering anger or anxiety. Suppose we continue to feel this anger and sense of being trapped with no way out of the continuous challenges. In that case, we follow the hierarchy down to dorsal, a state of shutdown and collapse. Now, the only way back to the Ventral state and well-being is always through the sympathetic state, which in many cases is judged by humans and squashing anger, agitation, and frustration, creating the endless loop between collapse in the dorsal and agitation in the Sympathetic.

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Neuroception

Stephen Porges defines the internal surveillance system and describes how our ANS takes information as signs of safety or danger. With a neuroception of safety, we are invited to engage with the world, places, and experiences and connect with people. A neuroception of danger moves us away automatically from connection and into the protection of sympathetic fight or flight. At the same time, a signal of life threat takes us straight into dorsal vagal collapse and immobilisation. This subconscious network gathers information through three streams of awareness: 

1. within our bodies; heartbeat, breath rhythms, organs of digestion
2. outside in the world around us: immediate environment, neighbourhoods, nations
3. in between, in connection with another person or a group of people.

This biological internal surveillance system is constantly scanning for cues of danger, safety, and life threats operating way below our conscious mind and conscious awareness without involving the thinking parts of the brain. In response to these cues, we constantly receive and move from state to state (Ventral, Sympathetic, Dorsal) along the autonomic hierarchy. It has never been addressed before, yet it is the building block of our everyday lives. Humans, philosophers, therapy modalities and scientists for aeons have been looking for the real reason for human behaviour and have been driven to want to understand the "why" of behaviours. PVT offers humanity a profound framework to consider why people act as they do. Through polyvagal lenses, we can comprehend that actions are autonomic and adaptive, generated by the autonomic nervous system. Our story, how we think, feel, and act, begins with neuroception. We can influence it indirectly by bringing perception to neuroception. When we learn to attend to neuroception, we can start to shape our state, and by doing so, we will generate positive thoughts, feelings, stories, and behaviours.

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Co-regulation 

PVT identifies co-regulation as a biological imperative, a necessary human need that must be met to thrive and sustain life. It is all about connecting more emotionally with another human being. It's about creating a safe space where people feel heard, validated, and emotionally supported. It's a powerful tool for building healthy, thriving relationships that support Imago Couples Therapy and its goal of connecting. To connect deeply with another human being, the safety of our nervous system must be established first. The structured Imago Dialogue developed by Harville Hendrix and Helen Hunt fulfils this imperative, creating a safe space-between for co-regulating (relaxing, calming, synchronising) and deeper connecting.

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"Imago Dialogue is the technology of connection, and Polyvagal Theory is the science of safety. To truly connect, we must first ensure our nervous systems feel safe. The fastest and most effective way to create this safety is through a genuine connection with another human being."

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Continue Reading: What Is Polyvagal Theory? Discover the Key to Better Relationships and Well-Being. Part 2