Triggered? Get Cozy With Your Nervous System To Hear What It’s Telling You
Triggered.
Activated.
Reactive.
Popping off.
Whether watching the news or Bravo, you may have heard these familiar phrases. These are all descriptions of a particular response of the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS). With everything that has happened collectively, from COVID to polarized politics to racial injustice and disparities on top of everyone’s individual experience and the potential for unprocessed trauma, we’re all well within our rights to acknowledge that our nervous systems are fried. But what does that even mean? And how is it showing up for you?
Dr. Stephen Porges's Polyvagal theory offers a map for exploring where we might find ourselves in our own system, which includes three different possibilities:
Ventral vagal
Sympathetic
Dorsal vagal
Knowing where we find ourselves in our nervous system is an important piece of awareness for our health and relationships and for knowing what we may need to reconnect with a sense of safety. The vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in our bodies, governs both ventral and dorsal vagal states (hence the term polyvagal). Sympathetic activation stems from other nerves along the spine.
Clinician Deb Dana has written wonderful materials for therapists — and really, her writing is for everyone. She explains, “Stories about the world, the self, and relationships come from our autonomic state.” This is a brilliant way of understanding what’s happening in our nervous systems.
What’s your nervous system story?
Here’s how to hear what your nervous system is trying to tell you. If you feel easygoing, ready to connect and be social, and generally safe and calm, that’s a good sign you're operating from the ventral vagal state. Ventral vagal is our social engagement system, also known as the face to heart connection. The cues we receive from all of the nerve endings in our face and head travel to our heart and vice versa. When the ventral vagal is online, our heart rate and blood pressure are lower, and our body isn’t in a physiological state of stress.
This is great for our overall health. In this state, we can “tend and befriend” ourselves and others.
The story of ventral vagal is the story of connection.
We can rest and digest things easily, including our meals and feelings. Our nervous system is regulated and we're in our window of tolerance. We feel connected, compassionate, and available to collaborate. We’re available to co-regulate with others (our calm can be contagious), and when others are in this state, it can help us return to our own state of calm.
Ventral vagal is a beautiful place to be, and it might be the place we want to strive for.
Other states are essential and valuable, too. For example, at the sign of a threat, our sympathetic response kicks in, which we may know as fight or flight. In sympathetic arousal, the world seems less safe. And it may be that what’s happening is less safe when this response gets activated. If our system tends to be more sympathetically aroused, the world can appear less safe even if we're in an okay situation in the present moment.
This is where the experience of anxiety lives, as well as being quick to anger or feeling irritated, or frustrated. It’s meant to motivate us to action — to respond to a threat, restore us to safety in our surroundings, or get us out of a bad situation. It’s an adaptive, healthy, and unconscious function in the nervous system, and we wouldn’t have evolved without it. Tigers would have devoured our ancestors without the sympathetic response mobilizing us into action to fight or flee to safety.
The story of sympathetic mobilization is the story of protection.
Hormones like adrenaline and cortisol course through the body, preparing us for quick, instinctive responses. Our heart rate elevates, digestion can be disrupted (it could speed up or slow down), and we may feel jittery and tense in our muscles. Internally we may feel driven to compete. We may notice feeling judgmental or critical of others or ourselves and find ourselves in comparison mode.
If we’re in acute or prolonged distress and can’t take motivated action to change or influence things, dorsal vagal collapse steps in. Also known as the freeze response, dorsal vagal tells the story of disconnection. Its function is preservation in the face of what registers as a life threat by down-regulating many autonomic functions of the body. It’s truly a brilliant response from an evolutionary standpoint — playing dead with the help of dorsal vagal collapse may have been a powerful protection strategy in the face of that proverbial prehistoric tiger.
When we're in dorsal vagal, we’re more likely to have depressive symptoms.
We might zone out on our phones, binge TV, have difficulty getting out of bed, feel numb, and not feel like talking to others. We may hear things inside like “Nothing I do matters. It will never be enough.” This feels very different from, “There’s so much to do! It will be a disaster if I can’t do it all. Everything will fall apart!” This is a more likely soundtrack in sympathetic arousal.
You might even notice how it feels hearing these two different inner narratives. Deb Dana created an exercise and visual called the Autonomic Ladder, using the image of a ladder to perceive where each of these responses falls, offering a way of mapping where we're in our nervous systems and a pathway back to safety. Ventral vagal sits at the top, with the sympathetic in the middle and dorsal vagal at the bottom. It’s possible to move gradually up the ladder toward a sense of connection and calm.
What to do when you notice your flight or fight response kicks in.
The first step is to notice where you are based on the sensations you experience and inner narrative you hear. Once you notice your state, see if you can get cautious about what’s happening. It may be obvious why you feel so activated. Perhaps you’re in the middle of a stressful conversation with your boss or partner.
There may be more information, though, and often, the intensity of our reaction to a relatively mild disagreement can be confusing. Here’s where it’s helpful to notice our sensations, stories, emotions, and beliefs that are present in the moment. Being gently curious about the parts of us present during our reaction can create an opening to deeper understanding and self-compassion.
Ideally, we can first honor where our nervous system is operating and make space for what it might be trying to tell us by turning toward the physiological experience, either about our present-day reality or whether something from the past is being expressed through this moment. Beyond your individual exploration, Internal Family Systems therapy can be an excellent way to befriend the parts of us having these reactions.
We may need access to a bit more calm to engage in such an inquiry.
Moving up the ladder from the bottom if we're in dorsal vagal can look like engaging in gentle movement to start shifting states. Walking around the neighborhood, being in nature, or doing some restorative yoga can help the body start to ease out of a dorsal vagal response.
In contrast, moving up the ladder from a sympathetic state can involve higher-intensity exercise, which can help discharge the activated energy. Intentional breathing practices can also increase access to the parasympathetic/ventral vagal response.
Glimmers: Cues of Safety
It can be helpful to notice what happens inside when our protective responses are activated and what leads to feelings of safety, including even the smallest elements in our immediate environment. If triggers call upon our protective parts and ANS responses, glimmers are cues of safety and connection guiding us home to ourselves. Even tiny moments of noticing a glimmer can pave a pathway back up the ladder toward our ventral vagal state.
Here’s what to try:
Looking around the room where you find yourself in this moment, what are the cues of safety?
What feels good right now?
Maybe it’s the coziness of the lamplight, the color of the walls, the photographs of loved ones nearby. No detail is too small.
You may also notice what doesn’t feel right. Would it feel better to close or open the door? Does your back feel exposed, and might it make a difference to orient yourself differently in the room?
Play with the components of your environment and see if you can amplify or shift any glimmers to respond to your unique safety cues.
In my office, glimmers come from the calming aqua color of the walls, a collection of images on my desk of beautiful places that brighten my peripheral view with color, the flickering candle I light while working, the softness of the rug under my feet, the woven texture of the throw blanket draped behind me or over my lap. Coziness is a defining feature of the glimmers I return to over and over. Do you notice a theme for yours?
Want to go deeper?
For more on these topics, check out Deb Dana’s book Anchored, or if you're a therapist, The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy.
Listen to this podcast conversation between Dr. Scott Lyons and Deb Dana for more on polyvagal, including why the goal isn’t to be in a state of calm all the time.
For more ideas on what might be a glimmer for you, particularly in your environment, check out the book Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee or her blog The Aesthetics of Joy for a breakdown of components that create the felt sense of joy. Joy and glimmers go hand in hand!
