Polyvagal Theory

Doug Noll again, and welcome back. This lesson is all about polyvagal theory. Yeah, that's a big word, polyvagal, but you'll understand it by the time we get to the end. This is all about the neurobiology of emotions, communication, and self-regulation based on some new science. Polyvagal theory was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, who is a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois in Chicago. And for the last 40 years, he's been studying this very important nerve system that runs from the medulla of the brain, the back brain, all the way down into the viscera. And he's come up with some really amazing findings that are very, very important for the work that we're doing here. Basically, he's asking the question, what determines how two human beings will act towards each other when they meet. In other words, what causes people to act the way they do when they are with each other? And we know, of course, from earlier lectures that there's a lot that's going on in the emotional centers of the brain in the cortex, but it also turns out that there's a lot going on in the viscera. And so the connection between the, the brain and our guts becomes a critically important thing to understand. So the first thing that we want to talk about is a process known as neuroception, and basically neuroception is a system that determines whether or not situations or people are either safe or dangerous or life-threatening. And this neuroceptive process occurs completely outside of our consciousness. We can't even control it. It is very, very fast and it is absolutely automatic, over which we have no control, or very limited control. Neuroception lets us physically control not only our own bodies and nervous systems, but if we're smart about it, it lets us control other people's bodies and nervous systems. And it is a method of rapid communication much like when we talked about emotional contagion. Neuroception is the process that allows for this instantaneous communication between human beings to occur. So there are really 3 circuits that control our reactivity. There's one circuit that causes us to freeze or to become immobile, and this is the most primitive component and is shared by most, most animals that have backbones, most vertebrates that have spines. It's dependent on the oldest branch of the vagus nerve. And here we're going to get a little technical because it's useful to know. And that, that old branch is really unmyelinated and it originates in the dorsal motor nucleus of the brainstem. So we're going to get technical here, but I'm not— I'm going to keep it really simple. So first of all, myelination. All nerves are either myelinated or unmyelinated. So it's basically thinking of a wire as either having insulation or not having insulation. A wire that has insulation is more efficient, it's more effective than a wire that does not have more— does not have insulation. And it's the same thing with our nerves, our nerve fibers. If our nerve fibers are myelinated, in other words, they have a sheath of insulation which happens to be a fatty tissue wrapped around them, the more myelination is, the more efficient and effective that nerve bundle is going to be. Myelination was fairly late in development in evolution, and so we have systems in our body, including the vagus— part of the vagus nerve that are unmyelinated. That is, they're just raw nerves with no insulation, and they are— they're very, very primitive. Now, in this case, the unmyelinated part of the vagus nerve— and let's take a look at the vagus nerve— starts in a place called the dorsal motor nucleus. We'll get to that in just a second, but here's the vagus nerve. So I'm going to put on the pointer so we can see what's going on. And up here you'll see where the vagus— this is the vagus nerve right here, and actually it's bilateral, it comes out both sides. And this is at the— this where almost where the spine comes into the brain. And the vagus nerve, we'll just take this branch here, it goes down and you'll see that it connects with the heart, the lungs, it goes down to the liver and gallbladder, the stomach, the spleen, the large intestine, the small intestine, it controls the rectum, the kidney, our urinary bladder and urinary system, and our reproductive systems for both men and women, male and female. And you can see that this nerve basically connects, directly connects the brain to all of our viscera, all of our viscera. So it is the huge highway from the brain to our gut. Now we were talking a second ago about the unmyelinated portion, and that starts— if we— here's a picture of that. So here is again is the, the vagus nerve coming out on both sides of the brainstem, and the unmyelinated portion comes from what's known as the dorsal motor nucleus. You need to memorize this, but it's just good to know this information that this is all based on hard science, not on myth. And the dorsal motor nucleus is this section right here, and if you look at a cross-section It is this little piece right here. This is the nerve ending that is going up and down, coming down the spine and going out. And this is the unmyelinated, very ancient primitive part of the vagus nerve that causes us to freeze whenever we see danger or we feel like we're in a life-threatening situation. So just remember, unmyelinated dorsal motor nucleus, very old, causes us to be immobile. The second system is really what we're all familiar with, fight-or-flight behavior, and that of course is triggered largely by the interplay of the amygdala, a little bit of the cortex, and the hypothalamus, and that leads to a fight-or-flight behavior which is really dependent on the sympathetic nervous system. That's the, that's the activating part of the autonomic nervous system that causes us to either want to take our fist and punch somebody out or argue with them or yell or fight or scream or run away. And that doesn't have much to— that has something to do with the vagus nerve, but here's the really important part, the third system. And this is the social— the system of social communication and engagement. And this is controlled through facial expression, vocalization, and listening. All of which are dependent upon the newest branch of the vagus nerve. And this is the myelinated part of the vagus nerve, so it's got lots of insulation, and it originates in the part of the brain in that same section we'll look at in just a second called the nucleus ambiguus of the brainstem. Now don't get caught up in the Latin and all this stuff. It's just important to know that there are scientists who are studying this stuff that, that profoundly affect the way we look at human behavior. So here we have the nucleus ambiguus, and here's our vagus nerve coming out. And it's instead of this, instead of this dorsal motor nucleus, which we looked at just a moment ago, right next to it is this little thing right here. And this is called the nucleus ambiguus. And here you can see where the dorsal motor nucleus, the unmyelinated part of the vagus nerve is here. Right here is the nucleus ambiguus, which is the unmyelinated or the myelinated part of the vagus nerve, which is totally, totally controls social engagement and how social we are with people. It's amazing that just these little pieces here can have so much to do with who we are as human beings. So the vagus nerve acts as a blocking system, and it works like this: if the neuroceptive system says that we're safe, that we're in a safe environment, it inhibits our defensive and aggressive strategies. It basically prevents those strategies from activating, and it promotes and activates pro-social strategies so that we approach each other through vocalization, facial expression, and the ability to listen. When there's high vagal tone in this system, for example, the muscles in the middle ear can now detect higher frequencies of human voice, which tend to be frequencies associated with people being attracted to each other, people coming together, socialization. On the other hand, if it detects unsafe, it stops inhibiting these defensive and aggressive strategies, which allows them, these defensive and aggressive strategies, to just unfold reactively. This is why you see people get really angry or verbally aggressive almost instantaneously, because the vagus nerve is— the myelinated system is shut down and it's basically releasing out of the cage the, the unmyelinated system, which then gets us into defensive and aggressive strategies, and it stops promoting pro-social strategies. So there's this constant tension going on, a constant balance or bouncing back and forth between the unmyelinated and the myelinated, between the old and the new. And our vagus system in conjunction with our brains are constantly assessing Basically, is our environment safe or is it unsafe? And depending upon what's determined in the moment largely determines what our reaction to the environment is going to be. We're either gonna be defensive or aggressive, or we're going to be pro-social. We cannot be both at the same time. It's one or the other. So basically, neuroception is the brake that we have on anger and aggression. And neuroception is the difference between being charming and being creepy. So social engagement depends on how well we can regulate facial, vocal, and our head muscles because all human beings are tuned to human faces, and this is hardwired into us, and this is where we gain most of our social information. From watching and observing unconsciously the rapid facial vocalization and head muscles of people around us, and we unconsciously interpret that information because it's communicating to us whether or not that person is safe or unsafe. These muscles are all controlled in the brainstem, and they are highly myelinated, meaning that they are highly insulated, increasing efficiency and speed, which is why we can detect the emotional states of other people so quickly and so unconsciously without even having to think about it. Now, getting this wrong is really, really dangerous. So here's some maladaptations that can occur that you've probably seen before, and especially if you're dealing with angry, verbally aggressive people at work. This is probably what's going on. First of all, if people do not have the ability to inhibit their defense mechanisms when the environment is safe, they're going to be maladapted to their environment and people will get angry or aggressive when it's completely inappropriate to do so. Likewise, when— if they have the inability to promote prosocial mechanisms in their brain and body when the environment is safe, They're not going to be able to approach, they're not going to be able to engage people, and they're, they're actually going to trigger unsafe perceptions in other people. And finally, there are those people who are unable to activate their defense systems in a risky environment, and so they become risk-seeking people, and they're oblivious to the threats around them. So the next thing to understand is that our nervous system settles on its state— safe or unsafe— in reverse evolutionary order. So what's gonna happen is we're gonna start out being prosocial, uh, over here, but if we determine that there's not safety, we're gonna regress all the way down to a more primitive nervous system. The more danger we sense, the more ancient our response. So let's take a look at the vagus nerve again. Here it is right here, all these branches through here. And the vagus nerve, as I said before, links all of our organs together. They communicate, they literally communicate with each other and with the brain because this nervous— these nerves are bidirectional. They're afferent and efferent. That means there's information coming down and there's information going back up into the brain. And that's what we mean when we say there's communication that's bidirectional with the brain. And so the whole idea of getting a gut feeling, well, that's because the viscera are reacting to the environment and they're sending information to the brain and it's coming from the gut. And that's where the saying gut feeling came from. And as I said before, it's interconnected to our facial, vocal, and middle ear muscles, all of which control pro— control pro-social behaviors. So the vagus nerve allows us to be calm and measured. Now what's really interesting is the only part of the vagus nerve that we can really control, or the only autonomic process we control, is our breathing. And as you can see here, the vagus nerve is connected to the lungs, but we can consciously control the p— the speed and depth of our breathing. And what's really amazing is that the vagus nerve will then con— link our breathing to everything else. And so here's a technique, and we'll be covering this in the next list— lesson in more detail. But if you have the time to breathe slowly, your body will perceive safety and you will calm down. So this is why everybody always says, take a deep breath, breathe slowly, because what's really happening is that you are activating the myelinated, the new evolutionary new part of the vagus nerve, and that is acting as a calming effect on the rest of the viscera and on the brain, especially on the heart. But the vagus has an evil twin. The ancient unmyelinated vagus branch, that part that started in the dorsal motor nucleus, also acts as a brake, and it is associated with life-threatening situations. Now, it may not be that there really is a life threatening situation, but if the brain and the vagus nerve perceive a life-threatening situation, even though that perception is wrong, the reaction is still the same. And instead of calm, it causes us to involuntarily freeze. We're just unable to move. It's called immobilization. So we have two vagus branches, hence the term polyvagal Vagal. We've got the, the modern, more evolutionarily new system, which provides for and promotes prosocial engagement, and we have the ancient system, which provides for aggression and defense. So this starts to answer the question of, for example, why did I freeze when my boss yelled at me? Well, because your nervous system detected that it was an unsafe situation, your prosocial part of the vagus nerve shut down, it released the brakes on the defensive part of your brain, and you immobilized and you basically froze. Why didn't I fight back when I was bullied? Exactly the same reason. That ancient part of your vagus nerve was activated, the prosocial part of the vagus nerve could no longer act as a brake, and so you froze. Why did I lose my temper when my boss yelled at me? Same thing again. Your boss yelled at you, you had a perception of unsafety, your body did and your brain did, totally unconsciously, outside of your control, and so you just reacted. And you can't control this, it happens, it just happens automatically. And so instead of freezing this time, You fought, and so you get— you started yelling. And if you're experiencing chronic anxiety, the reason is that your vagus nerve is perceiving generally your environment and the world that you live in as being unsafe, and that promotes a sense of chronic anxiety. So the lesson here is that feeling safe is critical. You have to create safety for yourself so that you can engage in prosocial behaviors. And one of the great strategies that you're going to learn in the next lesson is how to create safety for somebody who is angry or verbally aggressive, because the reason they're being angry and verbally aggressive is because fundamentally their vagus nerve is saying, "It's unsafe to be here." There's— and that's creating this reactive behavior that is so difficult to deal with. So here are some quick tools to create safety. We're gonna go into a lot more detail in the next lesson, but the simplest way to make people like you, for example, is to use your facial muscles and vocalization. And the next lesson we're gonna teach you exactly how to do that. So you want to always maintain a neutral to friendly expression no matter what's going on around you. You never want to be subservient or supplicating because, contrary to what you might think, when you are trying to appease somebody or you're being supplicative, or you're being subservient, you're actually creating a sense of more danger, because the person who is feeling an unsafe environment does not want to feel like he or she is around a weak subservient person who cannot protect them. You're much better off presenting yourself with high social status and high social power, because that way you will be perceived as somebody— especially if you do it without aggression— because you will be perceived as somebody who is safe, like a father figure or a mother figure. But when you are subservient, supplicating, or appeasing, then you are perceived as weak, and that is perceived as dangerous. Weird, huh? But that's exactly how the body works, which is why subservient, supplicating behavior always makes people more angry, because they feel more unsafe. And of course, you learn how to breathe slowly, and that calms the vagus nerve down and reactivates the, the new part of the vagus nerve so that you can engage in prosocial behavior. And the, the last part of this is rehearsing non-reactivity. And you'll recall from the second week, we've been working on learning about triggers and rehearsing non-reactive choices when we're being triggered. And what we're basically, basically doing is reprogramming our vagus nerve so that we have a compassion reaction, not a freeze, flight, or fight reaction. So when you are confronted by an angry boss, think safety. First of all, understand that your boss is not— at a deep unconscious level— is not feeling safe. Now, if you were to have a conversation with your boss about this, your boss would absolutely deny that. But the science shows us that this kind of reactivity is due to an unconscious perception of danger. Any kind of danger, and it probably is not being caused by you. The second thing to recognize when you're confronted by somebody like an angry boss is that— recognize that you're not going to feel safe. And so you're gonna have to start engaging in strategies to make yourself feel safe so that you can maintain a pro-social engagement strategy rather than a defensive immobilization strategy that is counterproductive to what you're trying to accomplish. So you're gonna have to learn how to create safety for yourself and create safety for your boss. Do not appease anybody. Do not try to rationalize or justify anybody in the face of arrogance or verbal aggression. Do not supplicate. All of these make you look weak, and when you look weak, you intensify the feelings of danger. That your boss or whoever is angry at you or with you is experiencing. And that brings us to the end of this lesson on Polyvagal Theory. If you find that this work resonates with you, I invite you to attend my free webinar at deescalate.dougnoll.com/5-step-webinar-registration. Register there. You can watch the webinar anytime you want. And you'll be given an opportunity at the end of the webinar, if you find the work fascinating, to schedule an appointment to chat with me about whether or not we should work together. So check it out, and thanks a lot for watching.