Stress Part 3: Polyvagal Theory
If you feel like you’ve been in “survival mode”, here’s the science about why.
This is the 3rd in a series on stress - busting myths and exploring how stress affects our health, wellbeing, and so much more than you might know.
The 2 previous articles:
Part 1 TL;DR
“Stress” is a state in the nervous system. A response to actual and perceived stimulation. Some stress is necessary to grow and achieve.
The nervous system was not built to be “on” all the time and long term stress results in a variety of negative health outcomes.
Part 2 TL;DR
When you’re chronically overstimulated you adapt and think the feelings of overstimulation are “normal”. Over time your baseline of what it means to rest are skewed - and chronic stress can damage many functions of the mind and body.
Understanding & Unwinding a Stressed Nervous System
By now you hopefully agree that stress is an experience in the nervous system. Regardless of the cause - if you’re “stressed” your nervous system is releasing hormones to ready you, a la Fight or Flight.
“Normal” nervous system = perception of calm & safety
Fight or Flight = sympathetic nervous system readying you for danger
According to polyvagal theory the mammalian nervous system (spoiler: of which you have one) evolved to passively observe our surroundings. When something in your autonomic nervous system perceives a potential threat the sympathetic aspect of your autonomic nervous system (remember, that means the things outside your control) ramp up into “fight or flight”.
But what happens when the threat is so intense that you can’t handle that stress?
Or the threat is prolonged - like growing up in trauma - and you have to learn how to function?
There comes a threshold where the threat (or perception of threat) overwhelms a person - and they go into freeze. In polyvagal theory this is called “shutdown” - and a person in shutdown is immobilized or dissociated. We numb out, feel frozen, or detached.
Shutdown isn’t a choice. It’s a switch in the nervous system focused on self-preservation.
Here’s the trick: shutdown is parasympathetic.
Whereas “fight or flight” is sympathetic (upregulating) and “rest and digest” is parasympathetic (down regulating) - “freeze” is also parasympathetic, but it’s like stomping on the emergency break when you’ve been going full speed. Your body is flooded with calming hormones; but not so it can re-establish baseline.
It’s the neurological equivalent of “playing possum”.
When we stay in sustained stress endlessly we eventually numb out, shut down, and our nervous system attempts to live on even though the sense of safety and calm has been compromised.
Those in long term shutdown feel fatigued, disengaged with life, struggle with communication and accessing emotions. Their digestion, resting heart rate, and blood pressure can be compromised and there have been links between shutdown and autoimmune disease. Polyvagal theory has also been a proposed link to chronic depression, depressive anxiety, and a host of other mental health challenges.
Often times shutdown is associated with self-neglect, disengagement with others, feelings of exhaustion or disinterest in life.
If you are struggling with depression, anxiety, or the after-effects of trauma know that help is available to you. Find a qualified mental health practitioner - they have done wonders for me when I’ve needed help and support.
Remember the Somatic System?
Back in part 1 we explored the difference between the Autonomic Nervous System (the stuff you can’t control in your body) and the Somatic Nervous System (the stuff you can).
To recondition the nervous system out of freeze (or down from fight & flight) we use the only internal tools we have available: focusing on what we have control over! The Somatic system!
By focusing on the sensations of the body and learning to calm the nervous system one can re-condition from freeze, back through fight or flight, and into a normal rest-and-digest mode.
Yoga postures
Breath work
Functional Movement Training
Walking meditation
Body Scan mediation
Meeting your foundational needs (eating regularly, keeping a set sleep sched, etc)
Fair warning: when you’ve been in freeze/shutdown and you start to unwind that cross-wiring, some stuff can come up. Whatever put you in freeze will have to be processed, buffered, and integrated as part of your work. If you need help working through your trauma get a therapist!
The Bigger Picture
I’m often working with clients to build the “life they want” - one that allows them to build and sustain wellbeing (the link to my calendar if you ever want to talk about working with me). However, one of the most consistent roadblocks that clients are unprepared to deal with is their stress, relationship to stress and overstimulation, and to work on their trauma (with a qualified professional!).
Why does that matter?
Let’s say a client wants to eat healthy and exercise but is in polyvagal shutdown. They want me to push them because they think that’s how they get results - however they’re not sleeping well, digestion is compromised, blood pressure is threw the roof, and now their A1C is starting to climb (sign of diabetes). They want to get moving(!) but their nervous system is fighting us every step of the way.
Why? Because their nervous system hasn’t resolved the threats.
If you need to - go back to Part 1 and re-read this part about what happens when we stay stressed. All of those things are compromised when someone lives in shutdown.
Sometimes to make progress we have to back up.
In order to help those clients reach their goals they first must learn to build a relationship with themselves, their bodies, and whatever un-resolved emotions they haven’t integrated yet.
For me this is a major payoff of our current understanding about health, longevity, and wellbeing. We are not minds with separate bodies & whatever we haven’t integrated will show up time and again in the quality, duration, and efficacy of our lives.
<would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, questions, and ideas in the comments>