Our Polyvagal World

Trauma also reprograms our neuroception system so it is primed to pick up more signs of threat, at the expense of feeling safe.

A key tenet of the Polyvagal Theory is the paramount importance of how our bodies feel and respond to the world around us.

When the modern vagus is activated and we enter the Green state of safety, our faces become more expressive. Our voices become less monotone and exhibit more prosody and nuance. We are physically better able to hear and listen to others.

Our ANS is a time machine. The more threatened our bodies feel, the more evolutionarily ancient our response.

An obsession with death rates when attempting to quantify the impact of the pandemic meant that a lot of its nonfatal negative effects were ignored or dismissed.

when it comes to our nervous system, autonomic state, neuroception, and the impact of all those things on our health and happiness, our body’s detection and feelings of safety are what matters.

In this sense, music likely developed as a form of social co-regulation that would allow people to feel safe together.

Changing our breathing will change our heart rate. This synchronization between our breathing and our heart rate is driven by the vagus.

“stress” is often used to apply to both the stimulus and our body’s response to it.