29/10/2025
Author unknown apologies.
Polyvagal theory is not a scary science !
Yes it can be understand mediacally and backed up by a lot of changes in hormone, heart, brain and body symptoms but also it can be understood by anybody
Benefits of teaching our children are enormous for them for us as their care givers.
I post tables like this for its ease of understanding
Perhaps take a moment to look at what ‘helps’ the middle yellow band and conversely what is unhelpful ( ‘shrinks’ it).
Aiming for the right hand side of the yellow band is ‘ventral vagal state’ - a state of good regulation or when we get and get cooperation, connection peace, and the main one, - safety
That brings about health, repair even recovery after illness, injury, surgery
We all want to be leaning into those states ! But many people need to take positive action
Especially in this day and age
Facilitating young ones regulation is more practice and demonstration ( and by young ones I go on to mean our adult children aswell when they grow up because across the life span they will be co regulating with us their parents)! It becomes more verbal though!
So very young ones I may give a physical expression (like acting out with physical gestures)
Eg “When I feel wired v when tired “ is a good place to start with young ones ..
So,
Simple, relatable words with gestures helping them to know eg when they feel this way they can seek a blanket or when they feel the other way to stop and come get me but safety is the goal in our kids
We are effectively showing them that, even if we feel dysregulated ( wired or too tired ), they are safe and well and loved & these are normal and have a post I’ve response
Tired= Having a nap
Wired= we need to burn off energy ‘lets go for a walk ‘!
When I worked with some child care cases with a lot of dysfunction & some
neglect it was sometimes that parents failed to do this and so their kids were rightly quite agitated and communicating this well
to the parent
- it was just noticabke the parent wasn’t responding too well
We teach kids how to make sense of their world
They get their cues from us
Let’s increase our understanding of what it is to be regulated and dysregulated
I feel very encouraged that some people who get regulated get back into ventral vagal ways of being
That is reassuring and wonderful to see and be next too
We all that person who can fly up and down this chart I’m sure mothers they are using alcohol or something else to try regulate and it’s extremely more accentuating the extremes
The world will be a better place if we can get back into ventral vagal
Sometimes when I’m working with people with self reported high levels of dysregulation we can visit a Polyvagal table like this one
Some patients have asked me to explain it and benefitted from applying it on their lifestyle
It seems to help me understand people who constantly ‘boom and bust’ and help them aim to look into those states too
We’re not going to get it right
everytime.. I boom and bust!
but when you work with pain and disability and conditions like EDS (and factor for life stress or trauma), it facilitates therapeutic approaches and outcomes improve
We don’t look for full recovery and return to zero symptoms.
It takes more effort and resources used and sharing feedback is very tough for some but benefit outweighs the practice
Chart- polyvagal theory explained easily below
Note:
I may swap out the word ‘trauma’ below for ‘overwhelm’
I have found it useful to replace it with the word ‘overwhelm’ ( because I believe the term trauma does get some overuse at the moment ) so
‘OVERWHELM’ is more of a term I use for the experience of what’s coming in and the person can experience too-much of-whatever’s-coming- in
Noise
Distress
Pain symptoms
Emotional eg overload from carrying too much responsibility on your own
For adults too it can be working too much
Loss/grief
Or even a relationship that’s perceived as too much
And yes,
It actually could be trauma history is there but it’s not exclusive to trauma
It’s more overwhelm of any kind
Hope that can be a useful way of seeing this chart
Wishing you wellness,
Dawn
