Polyvagal-Informed Yoga Therapy
Discovering and deeply immersing myself in polyvagal theory was pivotal in my own healing journey. Now, it also serves as a powerful foundation in how I support others. Polyvagal principles resonated with me as a scientific neurophysiological explanation for many of my behaviours, feelings, and experiences that were typically invalidated by others, mocked or shamed. The theory also felt unifying and clarifying in the way it illuminated the crucial element necessary for healing shared by a range of diagnoses and types of therapy: an internalized sense of safety.
Overview of Polyvagal Theory
The theory, contributed by Dr. Stephen Porges, is a landmark leap forward in our understanding of biophysiological responses to cues of safety and threat in our environment. This is a big deal for three reasons: 1) it emphasizes that humans need experiences of safe social interconnection to flourish, 2) it explains how a wide spectrum of responses to feeling unsafe are completely natural and 3) polyvagal-informed therapeutic tools can be integral to being able to effectively self-regulate and take charge of our own well-being – I know this firsthand.
Three Primary Neural Circuits
Polyvagal theory focuses on three hierarchical neural circuits within the autonomic nervous system:
1) The Ventral Vagus Complex: This uniquely mammalian circuit is the most recent system to evolve and acts as a neuromodulator, regulating the two other circuits to promote homeostasis or a physiological state that optimizes health, growth and restoration. This circuit supports social interconnection and a felt sense of safety and calm.
2) The Sympathetic Circuit: This system gears our physiological state towards energy, activity, and mobilization.
3) The Dorsal Vagus Complex: This circuit is the oldest system and supports winding down and states of shut down, collapse, and immobilization.
Together, these three neural circuits create synergistic responses expressing a dynamic spectrum from activation to relaxation in both safe and threatening contexts.
I like to think of our nervous system like a music sound board. The different neural states represent input signals that can be adjusted to different levels to create optimal harmony for particular effects. Our ventral vagus acts similarly to the sound engineer - a modern conductor synthesizing and tuning the three circuits to, ideally, achieve optimal functional integrity.
Safety First: The Significance of Feeling Safe
When we have an internalized sense of safety (vs. just an intellectual recognition of safety), our autonomic state is tuned to health, growth and restoration, and our ventral vagus supports social engagement. We feel comfortable being in proximity to others and making eye contact, we can express our friendliness or ease through facial expressions and gestures, and we can focus on conversation. And importantly, we are receptive to these same signals of presence and openness from others.
That receptivity is due to the social engagement system allowing for interpersonal attunement and co-regulation. I can relate to another person in such a way that our autonomic states become interconnected. We can help each other grow and sustain an internalized feeling of safety, allowing each of us to remain skilful, present, and responsive. Each of these qualities facilitates open communication, cooperation, and meaningful relationship.
As a neuromodulator, the ventral vagus can also regulate the two other circuits to support safe social experiences that require mobilization or immobilization. For example, the sympathetic sub-system can contribute energy and tone for play, sports, and creative collaboration and the dorsal vagus can have a role in rest and affection.
Survival States: Recruiting our Defense Mechanisms
When we experience internal or external cues of threat, our sympathetic nervous system is activated to fuel our fight/flight responses. We experience a great increase in metabolic output and physiological changes including: increase in muscle tone, heart rate and respiratory rate, inhibition of the digestive system, and the release of cateholamines. This defense response can include emotional shifts towards anger, anxiety, and hypervigilence.
In instances of perceived danger, the dorsal vagus is triggered when the social engagement system and the sympathetic circuit are not sufficient for resolution and a return to safety - when the threat feels inescapable. The system reduces metabolic and oxygen requirements as well as muscle tone and cardiac output. We may experience this defensive immobilization as social isolation, depression, hopelessness or, in more extreme cases, as severe dissociation, fainting or torpor.
Often, we judge immobilization harshly. We are accused of, or shame ourselves, for "doing nothing" in a true case of danger, or for acting so strangely when triggered in an objectively safe context. It is important to remember that the dorsal vagus response is just as adaptive and natural a defense mechanism as the other system responses, and deserves the same embrace and respect.
The Impact of Trauma
Unprocessed personal trauma, as well as intergenerational patterns of recurrent trauma, often gears us towards defense. Experiences of true danger and overwhelm which recruit the sympathetic and dorsal vagus circuits can leave us prone to perceive threat when we are in fact safe, more likely to mistrust others, and to feel powerless in stopping cycles of anxiety, depression, hypervigilence, dissociation, and emotional flashbacks.
These effects may be even more deeply ingrained in our autonomic nervous system when traumatic experience was repeated, when a developing child did not have opportunities to experience safe connection or co-regulation and/or experienced relational injury, or when the environment felt chronically unsafe for any reason including cultural and systemic factors.
Having a nervous system marked by a lower threshold for internal and external cues of danger can hamper access to the social engagement system in times of distress. Being defensive and fearful changes our ability to participate in the dance of attunement with another. We are unable to offer signals of safety and stability, and we are far less receptive to someone else's support or opportunities for co-regulation. Instead of internal homeostatic harmony, it is like we are stuck on one discordant note: chronic defense.
Hope for Healing
There is now multi-disciplinary support for the claim that social connection is a human biological imperative. We need to experience safe belonging and trustworthy interpersonal relationships in order to thrive. But even if we feel such experiences are absent or unattainable, there is always hope.
No matter how our trauma history affects us, we can grow our ability to re-tune our neural pathways until dynamic harmony is restored. Trauma-informed yoga therapy is one way we can strengthen our self-regulatory skills and resources. Yoga practices can nurture an active and resilient social engagement system.
Polyvagal theory inspires me to recognize my current feeling state through mindful embodiment (not just intellectual labelling), to accept whatever feeling has arisen with self-compassion, and to engage in practices tailored to restoring harmony. I am committed to the practice of ensuring my decisions, actions, and interactions come from a place of felt safety and connection.
What would the world be like if we offered the same mindful care to others? If we prioritized attunement to the people we encounter, hold compassionate space for them, and contribute to supporting others in feeling safe in our presence when we can?
