read time: 8 minutes

disclaimer: This is not medical advice. This is intended to educate, inspire and support you in your self healing journey. Speak to your functional medicine doctor, holistic psychologist, or medical professional. Some content might be sensitive; I invite you to practice self-harmonizing resources.

WARNING: POSSIBLE TRIGGER

A thousand years ago you lock eyes with a lion. Lion is excited for dinner.

Your nervous system, designed for safety and survival, scans your environment for your tribe, your support network.

No one near you to scare this challenge (threat) off, and it takes off for you, so your nervous system creates mobilizing hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to run away now, FAST!

Fleeing doesn’t work this time. Lion catches up to you and rips an arm off.

Now your nervous system starts to create immobilizing hormones like endogenous opioids to dissociate and numb the pain… and perhaps even trick the predator into thinking you’re dead and to leave you alone. Afterall, Lion isn’t a scavenger.

This is your nervous system recruiting different methods of survival; social support, sympathetic (fight/flight) and shutting down. This is Polyvagal Theory.

collapse, freeze, shutdown nervous system response

fight/flight… freeze and shutdown?

For more than half a century, scientists, researchers, clinicians operated under the assumptions of 2 (two) branches of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS);

Sympathetic Nervous System (fight/flight), and
Parasympathetic Nervous System (rest/digest)

However, Dr. Stephen Porges recently discovered there’s more to the story.

When faced with the fact the “good” Parasympathetic Nervous System could result in death in infants, demonstrating that too much of a good thing could be bad, dangerous, even life threatening.

He soon realized that the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is comprised of 3 (three) branches, not two (as seen above).

Research showed the Parasympathetic Nervous System wasn’t only health promoting, rest and digest… there was also a protective or defensive component.

The Parasympathetic Nervous System — and it’s primary influencer, the vagus nerve — could then be separated into 2 (two) branches: ventral vagal and dorsal vagal branches.

This two branches (ventral vagal and dorsal vagal) plus the Sympathetic Nervous System now makes many different stress states.

He coined it, Polyvagal Theory.

Poly (many), vagal (vagus nerve).

now we understand the Autonomic Nervous System as:

Safety/Social Engagement (ventral vagal branch of the Parasympathetic Nervous System, where connection, restoration, digestion, health & growth happens)
Sympathetic (fight or flight, mobilizing protection)
Shutdown (dorsal vagal branch of the Parasympathetic Nervous System immobilizing protection, dissociation, collapse)

note: Freeze or Functional Freeze is a combination of Sympathetic and Shutdown stress reactions, a mix of mobilizing and immobilizing energy.

stress hierarchy works like this:

We are meant to hang out primarily in Safety & Social Engagement. This is our home, our base, our true selves in harmony with ourselves and all of life.

— When we experience a stressor where our needs don’t get met in Social Engagement, we drop into Sympathetic, a mobilizing energy to fight or flee the threat. This energy can come across as angry, anxious, scattered, fidgety, racing mind, everything seems urgent, impulsive, tense, easily distracted, flaky, …

——— If that doesn’t work, or if our nervous system is chronically inundated with stressors, we collapse into more of a Shutdown state, an immobilizing reaction where we go numb, dissociate, check-out for the really bad stuff. This energy can come across as hopeless, helpless, small, forgettable, dull, lifeless.

Remember our story with the lion? Tribe, run, numb

Polyvagal Theory has really meaningful implications for how we understand symptoms of nervous system dysregulation

For example on edge, angry, wanting to yell or push, constant foot tapping, storming out of a room slamming the door or promptly hanging up on someone… this is all fight or flight (Sympathetic) energy.

Whereas, checking out, not listening, not remembering things, poor memory, poor self worth, chronic fatigue or depression, are more symptoms of Shutdown energy.

And a mix of racing mind and inability to move, frustrated, frozen, stuck energy is more Freeze.

With this broader perspective of stress, we can see how stress is really at the root cause of all dis-ease; body, mind, mood, emotions, energy, spirit.

DIVE DEEPER: Overwhelmed by stress? Do this ONE thing!

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infinite love,
Stephanie