Our Polyvagal World

But the first step to breaking a vicious cycle is to acknowledge it.

Who is exploiting your nervous system to make you physically and mentally unhealthy for their own cynical ends?

It’s also important to note that repeatedly experiencing signs of danger (especially ones our nervous system views as truly life-threatening or traumatic) can change the way we respond to them.

The truth is that our actions impact others. This is true in normal times (our innate interconnectedness is a major theme of this book), but it is especially true during a global pandemic.

So while we evolved to be occasional tourists to the state of fear and alarm, many of us have become full-time residents.

Addiction is often about our need to manage our feelings.

Neuroception can be viewed as a sort of invisible sense or radar system that constantly scans the world for any and all external signs and signals that might help us determine how safe we are at any given moment.

Scientists and public health officials who were tasked with offering advice based on new research and understandings became the targets of death threats. We wanted things to be cut-and-dried. We wanted easy answers. And in their absence, people were angry.

These feelings are all universal, and largely adaptive. They are not innately “bad” but, rather, exist within us to serve specific functions that evolved to help us survive and hopefully return to a state of safety.