M2 : Lesson 1 : What is the Polyvagal Theory? What is the Vagus Nerve?
Transcript
Regulate module 2, the Polyvago theory, mapping your nervous system to improve resiliency and becoming aware of your pattern of safety versus protection. Module 2 overview. What is the Polyvago theory? What is the vagus nerve? Why does understanding the Polyvago theory help me with my health?
What are the different functions of the autonomic nervous system? Polyvago mapping, what is the current state of my nervous system? Why we may feel worse before better? And using polyvago mapping to help move out of chronic stress responses. Lesson 1, Polyvaggle theory overview.
The Polyvaggle theory provides a map that helps explain the nervous system’s responses to the perception of threat versus safety. The founder of the Polyvago theory, Doctor Steven Porges says, Our underlying physiological state shapes our perspectives of the world. I think what he means here is that if we are in a stress pattern in our nervous system, we will see a threat type pattern represented outside of us in the world. But if we have a safety based response pattern in our nervous system, we will tend to perceive love, connection, and opportunity in our world. Polyvagal theory explains the hierarchy of 3 biological pathways or patterns in our own nervous system, and it gives us a map of how we can move from states of distress back into states of safety.
This theory specifically focuses on the function of the vagus nerve and its impact on the autonomic nervous systems. And so we will be exploring this vagus nerve in great detail in the regulate program. The Polyvaggle theory can be pretty complex to understand. And in this program, I’m going to attempt to give you a basic summary so that you can understand it and use its principles to help you with your own nervous system and help you know better how to use the tools of all of the practices that we’re going to be learning in module 3 and beyond. In this lesson, we will learn about the Polyvagal theory and how to map or see the pattern of the current state of our autonomic nervous system.
This will be a key part of your nervous system regulation toolkit This Polyvagal awareness mapping of your own nervous system will give you a sense of which tools and strategies will help you move from stress to safety. You will learn why certain symptoms follow certain states of your stress response. You will understand the importance of getting your safety needs met to activate your self healing. By understanding the map of the Polyvagal theory, we’ll understand more that learning to cultivate a mindset and experience base of I am actually okay in this moment and it’s safe to connect. This experience in mindset is imperative the long term healing and well-being of your mind and body.
Remember, our nervous system is always looking to the ants answer of the question we learned in module 1, which is, am I safe or am I in danger? Am I okay? We all have an inner drive to primarily feel okay and feel safe to connect, and we can learn strata is to send those messages and move out of the chronic stress response. From a state of safety and connection in our own nervous system, our innate healing mechanisms are unlocked. As our cells receive signals to make energy and thrive, and your vital force is freed up.
What do I mean by the term innate healing mechanisms? Well, I mean that our body has the intelligence to self heal and come back into balance. In fact, we’re programmed to do just that when we are not stuck in fear stress and protection responses in our autonomic nervous system. Nervous system regulation. And I also wanna make sure that you clearly understand what our overarching goal is of this program.
So what is nervous system regulation? It’s the ability to create energy to respond to life when we need it. It’s the ability to easily return to rest and care when we do not need to act and respond. It’s the ability to easily move from energy and activation back to rest and repair without getting stuck in overactivation or in down regulation or mobilization. Next, to understand how to use the Polyvaggle map, we will need to have a clear understanding of some key terminology.
The key terms of the Polyvago theory are the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, the ventral vagal circuit, the dorsal vagal circuit, the vagus nerve and vagus tone. First, let’s go over the autonomic nervous system once again. This is basically our personal surveillance system of our body. It’s always determining and responding to the question of am I safe, and it’s comprised of 2 branches which we already learned about in module 1, the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. However, we’re gonna go into these two branches and explore them even further.
First, let’s learn about the branch on the left. The parasympathetic nervous system, our rest and digest pathway. This is our slow down branch. This is the part that is regulated by the vagus nerve. And in fact, there are 2 circuits of the vagus nerve that affect how our parasympathetic nervous system reacts and responds.
First, we have our ventral vagal circuit. This is also known as our safety connection circuit or our social engagement circuit. This part of the vagus nerve runs through our eyes, our ears, our face, our throat, and is above the diaphragm. The second circuit of the vagus nerve is the dorsal vagal circuit. It’s also known for the rest and repair and also in mobility if it gets turned on too much.
It can also lead to shutdown if this dorsal vagal circuit is turned on too much. The vagus nerve in this circuit innervates the belly, the organs, and is below the diaphragm. Now, as you remember, the second branch of the autonomic nervous system over here on the right is our sympathetic nervous system. The part that’s responsible for the fight, the flight, and the reaction response during a state of stress or whenever we need energy. This is our go branch of the nervous system.
And when the vagus nerve activity decreases, the sympathetic branch increases in activity. In other words, when there’s low vagus activity, there’s a high sympathetic activation in our nervous system. But when the vagus nerve is in high activity, or in higher tone, there is a low sympathetic activation. So there’s an inverse relationship here. The healthy functioning of the vagus nerve allows our parasympathetic nervous system to engage properly.
So that is why unregulated, we are gonna work on our vagus nerve function because it does help greatly with our capacity for nervous system self regulation. The vagus nerve. The vagus nerve or cranial nerve 10 is the master controller of the parasympathetic nervous system as we just learn. The vagus nerve is responsible for an enormous amount of crucial body functions, including the control of our mood, our immune response, our digestion, and our heart rate. It runs the majority of the physiological functions of the organs in our body.
And emotionally, the vagus nerve is responsible for shaping our experiences of safety and impacts our ability for ease of social connection. In some would say your vagus nerve is literally the on off switch for chronic illness. So, yeah, it’s a big deal to understand and to learn how to tone properly, which we’ll get into in a moment. We’re gonna be learning about the 2 main circuits of the vagus nerve that regulate your autonomic nervous system. Like we just mentioned, there’s a ventral vagal or above diaphragm circuit and a dorsal vagal or a below diaphragm circuit.
We’re also gonna learn about vagal tone, which indicates how healthy the functioning of our vagus nerve is. Some might think of vagal tone as strengthening the vagus nerve so that it can more optimally regulate the autonomic nervous system. And for this reason to improve nervous system regulation, we’re gonna be using quite a few vagal toning tools and practices to help optimize vagus nerve function. Having low vagal tone means that the vagus nerve is impaired and it’s functioning to regulate and move you in and out of different stressful states with ease. This can lead to conditions such as anxiety, depression, gut problems, inflammation, and just general poor autonomic nervous system regulation.
Other signs of low vagal tone are having a flat mood. Having cravings, having social aversion.
Stimulating the vagus nerve can increase the vagal tone, and thus have a significant positive effect on the overall functioning of your body. One of the key ways that vagal tone is measured is something known as heart rate variability. Having a higher vagal tone means that your body can relax faster after stress.
So heart rate variability is the ability to move in and out of different states of stress easily. We’re gonna be discussing more on the vagus nerve and vagal toning exercises in module 3. A healthy vagus nerve moves us out of a stress response. Let’s go over the stress response and the vagus nerve act activity. First, the amygdala in the limbic system sends a distress signal, and the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system and what’s known as the HPA access or hypothalamus pituitary adrenal access.
This puts us into a fight or flight mode. The APA access relies on a series of different hormonal signals to keep the that it nervous system or the gas pedal press down to respond if needed. When the limbic system detects, that the threat has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the break, is engaged by the vagus nerve. So having a healthy, vagal tone is essential to completing the stress cycle response and to return back to calm. Think of the vagus nerve as saying to the body.
It’s okay. We can slow down and rest now, the danger has passed. This is what should happen when we have a regulated nervous system and a healthy limbic function in our brain. But if the vagus nerve has low tone or if the threat is continuously being detected, the stress response can continue. Sometimes there’s a lack of vital tone affecting this response, meaning there’s too much sympathetic activity ongoing.
12:47Sometimes we end up exhausting our sympathetic nervous system, and then the vagus nerve causes a total shutdown response. Saying, we can’t cope with this stress anymore, and we’re just gonna go into protection mode. For these reasons, targeting the vagus nerve and training it to function more optimally is a key goal of the program.