How Understanding Your Nervous System Can Help You Heal: A Gentle Introduction to Polyvagal Theory

9 June

Polyvagal Theory

Have you ever wondered why some days you feel calm and connected and other days you feel anxious, shut down, or distant from others?

You’re not alone. And there’s a beautiful framework that can help us understand these shifts in our emotional state: it’s called Polyvagal Theory.

When you learn how your nervous system works, you can begin to relate to yourself with more compassion, less judgment and greater ability to move toward the states where you feel safe, connected, and alive.

What is Polyvagal Theory?

Polyvagal Theory explains how our autonomic nervous system the part of us that operates below conscious awareness responds to life events, moment by moment.

It gives us a map of our emotional states and how we shift between them throughout the day.

The theory was developed by Dr. Stephen Porges, based on his research on the vagus nerve a long, wandering nerve that connects the brain to the heart, lungs, digestive system, and face.

The word vagus means "wanderer" in Latin — a perfect image for this vital nerve that influences so much of our experience.

The Three States of the Nervous System

Polyvagal Theory outlines a hierarchy of three states our nervous system moves through in response to life:

Ventral Vagal → Connection & Safety
The state where we feel calm, connected, engaged with life and with others. From here, the world feels safe, and we can be playful, creative, compassionate.

Sympathetic Activation → Mobilisation: Fight or Flight
When we sense a threat or stress, our system moves into action — we may feel anxious, restless, angry, or driven to act. The world feels more dangerous or chaotic.

Dorsal Vagal → Shutdown & Collapse
If the nervous system perceives too much danger or overwhelm, it may shut down to protect us. In this state we may feel numb, frozen, disconnected, hopeless.

How Do We Shift Between States?

Your nervous system is always scanning your environment (and your body) for signs of safety or threat a process called Neuroception.

This scanning happens below your conscious awareness even before your brain has fully registered what’s happening.

Throughout the day, we move up and down this "ladder" of nervous system states, often without realising it.

Imagine:

You’re driving peacefully → ventral vagal
A car swerves into your lane → sympathetic activation
The shock is too overwhelming → possible dorsal vagal shutdown

Or, after a stressful work meeting → you go into fight/flight → later you may feel flat and disconnected (shutdown) without knowing why.

Why Is This Helpful to Know?

Understanding Polyvagal Theory can help you:

Recognise what state your nervous system is in
Understand why you’re reacting a certain way
Shift toward greater safety and connection
Respond to yourself with more compassion

Instead of thinking, What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just feel okay?
You might begin to ask, What does my nervous system need right now?

Polyvagal Theory & Trauma

For those with trauma histories, this theory is especially powerful.

Trauma can sensitise the nervous system — making it more likely to detect threat where none exists, and more likely to move quickly into fight/flight or shutdown states.

Over time, this can lead to patterns like:

Hypervigilance
Anxiety and panic
Chronic pain or digestive issues
Emotional numbness or depression

The good news is the nervous system is changeable. Through safe relationships, therapy, and body-based practices, you can help your system become more flexible and resilient.

You can spend more time in the ventral vagal state of connection and more easily return there when life knocks you off balance.

A Compassionate Path Forward

You are not broken.
Your nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do — to protect you.

By understanding how it works, and learning to work with it rather than against it, you can create a greater sense of safety, connection, and vitality in your life.

Therapy grounded in Polyvagal Theory, along with approaches like EMDR, body-based work, and relational healing, can help you build this new path one gentle step at a time.

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