Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection

EXERCISE

Recognize

BACKGROUND

Autonomic awareness is a protective factor. Without the ability to recognize states and state changes, you are at risk for remaining stuck in dysregulation. The question, “Where am I on my autonomic map?” is a simple way to build autonomic awareness.

STEPS

1. Notice. Bring awareness to your autonomic state. Use what you learned about your autonomic states from the exercises in Chapters 4 and 5 to tune in.

2. Name. Stay out of your story and identify your state. Where are you on your autonomic map?

3. Repeat these two steps often. Create ease with this practice until you can quickly and accurately place yourself on your autonomic map.

EXERCISE

Reflect

BACKGROUND

Once the notice-and-name practice becomes easy and automatic, add the next step of turning toward your autonomic nervous system to listen for just a quick moment to what it is telling you. Don’t spend a long time hearing the full story. Just take long enough to get the general idea of what is happening.

STEPS

1. Be curious about what just prompted a mobilization of your sympathetic system, a descent into dorsal vagal conservation mode, or an experience of ventral vagal regulation.

2. Listen to what your state wants you to know.

•My sympathetic mobilization is telling me . . .

•My dorsal vagal state is letting me know . . .

•My ventral vagal system is inviting me to . . .

3. Listen for just a brief moment with curiosity and without judgment. Don’t spend more than a minute or so listening. This practice is a quick experience of listening to the outlines of your story and not diving deeply into the details.

EXERCISE

Regulate

BACKGROUND

Everyday navigation of daily living involves setting goals and then acting to make your goals a reality. Goals are helpful in identifying what you want to achieve and are often stated in the form of an intention.

STEPS

1. Consider the autonomic goals you want to set. Ask yourself:

•Where do I want my autonomic patterns to take me?

•What do I want to change?

•What do I want to deepen?

2. Write goals that address what you discovered. Begin each statement with the words “I intend to.” For example: I intend to not get stuck in dorsal vagal collapse. I intend to more quickly manage my sympathetic response. I intend to find moments of ventral vagal happiness to savor. Find the words that express your autonomic goals and write your personal intentions.

EXERCISE

Create “If-Then” Statements

BACKGROUND

Once you identify your autonomic goals, the next step is to translate your intention into action by adding what is called an implementation intention. An implementation intention is an if-then statement that identifies when, where, and how you plan to respond to a situation. Writing implementation intentions brings awareness to experiences by creating a link between cues and responses, making it easier for you to recognize situations and take action.

STEPS

1. Set goals for responding to cues of safety and danger in new ways. Set goals for all three states. Make sure your goals aren’t too big (unrealistic as a starting point), too broad (undefined and hard to put into action), or too bland (uninteresting and don’t keep your attention). Set goals that begin with small steps and lead to a larger change, are well defined with tangible ways to measure, and entice you to want to see what happens when you follow through.

2. Use the beginning statement, “If this happens then I will” to write if-then statements for each of your identified goals.

3. Write statements for external cues (response to certain people, places, or events).

4. Write statements for internal cues (response to autonomic state changes).

5. Read your if-then statements and check your autonomic response. Make sure each statement brings a neuroception of safety. Rewrite any statements that trigger a move into a sympathetic or dorsal vagal response.

6. Use your statements and track what happens. As your responses shift you may want to add new goals and write new if-then statements.

EXERCISE

Re-Story

BACKGROUND

Humans are meaning-making beings, automatically pulled toward story. Working with the skills of recognizing, reflecting, and regulating brings you to the important step of re-storying. As you integrate new patterns, you move out of your old stories and head toward new ones. This transition often brings with it discomfort and you can easily be pulled back into old familiar stories about yourself and the world. The re-storying process disrupts the habit of listening to an old story and encourages the development of a new one. Re-storying invites you to become an active author of your own autonomic adventure.

STEPS

1. What are the ways your autonomic nervous system is responding differently? Fill in the following sentences to bring awareness to the shifts that are happening.

•Instead of my expected sympathetic mobilization I . . .

•Instead of my familiar dorsal vagal disconnection I . . .

•I notice I am more . . .

•I notice I am less . . .

2. Write a story that speaks to your new pattern. Choose words that come from your ventral vagal state and keep that state online and active. For example, “I’m strong when I interact with other people” might bring sympathetic mobilization while “I have inner strength that serves me when I’m interacting with others” could keep you anchored in ventral.

3. Write about qualities and not behaviors. Use sentences that begin with “I am” (a quality) rather than “I do” (a behavior). I am kind is a different story than I do kind things.

4. Create a story that illustrates your new autonomic responses.

•Use I am beginning to or It is possible that as the opening line to the new story.

•Write in small increments. In the re-storying process, a short story is more effective than a long essay.

EXERCISE

Exercise the Vagal Brake

BACKGROUND

The vagal brake is responsible for speeding up and slowing down your heart rate. The vagal brake allows you to feel more sympathetic nervous system energy while keeping your ventral vagal system online and in charge. As the vagal brake begins to release, the mobilizing energy of the sympathetic nervous system that is in the background begins to move into the foreground. Then as the vagal brake reengages, the process is reversed, sympathetic energy moving to the background and ventral vagal back to the foreground. Think about the vagal brake working similarly to the brakes on a bicycle. Imagine you are riding a bike down a hill and you want to go a little faster. Release the brakes a bit and feel the wheels spin faster. Gently squeeze the brakes to slow down.

When your vagal brake relaxes but doesn’t fully release, you have access to a range of responses, including feeling calm, engaged, joyful, excited, passionate, playful, attentive, alert, or watchful, while still safely anchored in the ventral vagal system. You can bring the energy necessary to respond to what is needed in the moment. When working well, the vagal brake supports flexibility in your responses and a creates sense of ease to transitions.

Using metaphor and imagery you can experiment with relaxing and reengaging the vagal brake and experience the ways this part of the ventral vagal system helps you safely navigate everyday challenges. With ongoing practice, you create more flexibility in your responses and feel the benefits of a resilient autonomic nervous system.

STEPS

1. Find an image of your vagal brake that brings to life your sense of regulating the increase and decrease of energy in your ventral vagal pathways. Look for an image that gives you the feeling of controlling the dimensions of something. Some commonly used images include bicycle brakes, a door, a bridge, a gate, a water faucet, a volume control knob, and a dimmer switch. Let your imagination guide you as you find an image that you can manipulate and measure the changes.

2. Write a simple story about your vagal brake using the image. Describe your image and how you use it to increase energy and return to calm.

3. Use a movement. Not everyone creates imagery to come into connection with inner experience. For some people movement is the preferred method. Find a movement that changes shape to illustrate the increase and decrease of energy.

4. Connect your vagal brake image and/or movement to your breath cycle. A subtle pattern of relaxation and reengagement happens with every breath cycle. With each inhalation, the brake relaxes just a bit, allowing a slight speeding up of the heart, and then reengages on the exhalation to bring a return of the slower beat. Take a moment and play with these two pathways. Feel your vagal brake relax, then reengage with each breath in an ongoing cycle. Move through several breath cycles until it begins to feel natural.

5. Use the image and/or movement to intentionally engage, relax, and reengage the brake.

•See yourself as an active operator of your vagal brake, shaping the rise and fall of energy. Bring the image to life—see it, hear it, feel yourself adjusting it, and feel your energy moving in synchrony with the changing image.

•Bring the movement connected to your vagal brake into awareness either in outward action or inward experience. Change the movement and feel the increase and decrease of sympathetic energy in your system.

6. Play with the experience of intentionally exercising your vagal brake.

•Start with a small challenge, perhaps something that is commonly experienced in your day-to-day life. On a scale of intensity from 1–10, choose something in the 1–3 range.

•Use your image and/or movement to relax the brake to meet your chosen challenge and reengage the brake when the challenge is over. Feel the influence you have over the ways your vagal brake works in service of managing the challenge.

7. Experiment with a variety of challenges. Build confidence in using your vagal brake to meet everyday challenges.

•Once you feel confident in successfully meeting small challenges, choose a slightly stronger challenge. Notice how your vagal brake relaxes, allowing your energy to rise to more intense challenges while maintaining the ventral vagal state of safety. Then reengage the brake and return to your ventral vagal starting point.

•Practice using your vagal brake with environmental experiences.

•Practice using your vagal brake with relationship stressors.

EXERCISE

Resilience Routines

BACKGROUND

Resilience is an emergent property of a ventral vagal state. As you build resilience, instead of responding to a challenge with an automatic move into a survival response, you are able to respond with more flexibility. And in the times when you are pulled into a survival response, rather than getting stuck there, you’re able to return to the state of ventral vagal regulation. As resilience builds, your capacity for flexibility of response deepens.

STEPS

1. Create resilience routines that draw from practices that engage your body and brain in a variety of ways. Revisit Chapter 6 and see if there are shaping exercises from the different categories that fit into your resilience routine.

2. Experiment with actions that bring moments of ventral vagal experience.

•Look inward to breath and reflection practices.

•Look outward into the environment of your home and nature.

•Look at the way you move in the world and the people who accompany you.

3. Choose experiences that feel nourishing and ones that feel a bit challenging. You want a mix of practices that feel comfortable and are easy to engage with and ones that take concerted effort. Building resilience is about both deepening into ongoing practices that feel sustaining and inviting in new practices that bring the right degree of neural challenge for your system.

4. Find a few core practices that will remain constant in your resilience routine.

5. Create a second category of practices that routinely change.

•Decide on the length of time you want to use. The time period can be anywhere from 1 week to 6 months.

•Choose a few new practices to experiment with over your chosen time period. At the end of that time some practices may become core practices while you let others go. As you try out new practices, your resilience routines continue to develop.

6. Regularly review and revise your resilience routines. Some practices will become lifelong, while others will serve you for a time and then be replaced with new ones.