Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve: Self-Help Exercises for Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, and Autism

Peter and Stephen have a friend-ship that goes back several decades.

When two people are socially engaged and communicating face to face, they pass information about their emotional states by small movements of facial muscles. This also stimulates the nerves in the muscles of each person’s own face, so that their fifth and seventh cranial nerves give them ongoing feedback and a clear idea of what they are feeling th

To avoid the confusions that arise from the word “stress,” I prefer to use Stephen Porges’s description of the fight-or-flight state as “mobilization with fear,”

Depression continues to be the leading cause of medical disability in the United States and Canada, accounting for nearly 10 percent of all medical disability.74 In recent years, medical doctors have been prescribing more and more antidepressants.75 In Denmark, where I live, almost 8.3 percent of the population takes antidepressants.

“immobiliza-tion with fear.”

The dorsal vagus, the older of the two, is not myelinated.

Prior to the Polyvagal Theory, depression and depressive behaviors issues lacked a physiological model in terms of the nervous system.

(To get an appreciation of how fine and delicate this tissue is, go to YouTube and search “Strolling under the Skin.”)

Before the Polyvagal Theory, we did not adequately differentiate between these two branches of the vagus nerve.

The fourth state is a hybrid that supports friendly competition, or “mobilization without fear,”