Neuroscience of Safety
Have you ever been driving in a car and suddenly heard sirens coming up behind you? Did you notice how quickly your sense of safety changed at that moment, from feeling relaxed to completely on edge and aware of everything all in a single moment?
In today's episode, Laine introduces us to the science behind feeling safe and just how easily (and frequently) we bounce between feeling safe, escalated, and numb. We're moving out of our brains and into our bodies, studying the vagus nerve and how it acts as the highway system that keeps our bodies functioning and how it even protects us from danger.
General Outline of Episode
Empathy - and survival
To survive we have to survive in groups - and we live in a world where most other things are faster, stronger, and deadlier than we are
Empathy - how to be in groups and the value of that - what are the side effects of trying to live in a world where living in groups is needed and everything is better at killing you
Steven Porages - psychophysiology - psychophysiology mind-body relation body provides the brain feedback that we need to deal with the brain –brain gives body tools to do with situations and surroundings but because safe so many tools are wrong
Porages ``orienting in a defensive world - mammalian modification of our evolutionary heritage” - Porages summarizes - “mammals had evolved in a hostile environment in which survival was dependent on the ability to down-regulate states of defense with states of safety and trust - states that support cooperative behavior and health” - in other words… brain has to split to be really good at connecting and really good at being alert to things trying to kill you
Brain notices something before you ever feel that fear
So thus it must also notice when to feel safe - Deb Dana “the science of feeling safe enough to fall in love with life and take the risks of living” Neuroscience of Safety
What is it/Why do we have it?
“If we are not safe we are chronically in a state of evaluation and defensiveness” -Porages
First episode Amygdala - vagus system - adrenal gland, pituitary gad - small house natural disaster
Porages research -
Vagus nerve (means wander) -10th cranial nerve - not one nerve but a lot of them all clumped together with several branches - 80/20 afferent vs efferent (Afferent neurons carry information from sensory receptors of the skin and other organs to the central nervous system (i.e., brain and spinal cord), whereas efferent neurons carry motor information away from the central nervous system to the muscles and glands of the body.) Vagus - originates in the left and right side of the brainstem - but is asymmetrical with both sides performing different tasks
The vagus nerve originates from the inside of the brainstem. It exits the cranium via the jugular foramen, with the glossopharyngeal and accessory nerves (CN IX and XI respectively)
Within the cranium, the auricular branch arises. This supplies sensation to the posterior part of the external auditory canal and external ear. Vagus - brain stem (base of the skull) two directions - down through the heart, lungs diaphragm, stomach and upward to connect with neck, throat, eyes, and ears
Organs do not float - and do not operate completely independently - anchored to the central structure by means of efficient pathways and are continuously signaling to a central regulator structure along their abundant afferent pathways - thus bidirectional connections- Porges quote
Hess Quote ““every living organism is not the sum of a multitude of unitary processes, but is, by virtue of interrelationships and of higher and lower levels of control, an unbroken unity.” neuro cardiology
Medullary “inner region” Nulclie and Nucleus Ambiguous which is in your forebrain dorsal motor nucleus (dmnx)-
NA - respiratory sinus arrhythmia - change your breathing - change your heart rate
DMNX - heart rate
looking at the larynx, esophageal, and parasympathetic innervations around the heart
Ingestion - expulsion, facial expressions, and emotions
Emotions- defined by shifts in regulation of facial expression and vocalization - will produce changes in your brain
Emotional are neurally based - understood across cultures
Facial muscles interact with the vagus - Darwin - facial expression as the primary defining characteristic of emotions
Feed and breathe actively and voluntarily
Nerves connecting the ventral vagal (heart) and the striated muscles of the face and head (facial expression), how we listen (auditor), and how we speak (vocalization)
“Focused on understanding how the autonomic nervous system influenced mental, behavioral and physiological process”
Neuroception
Neuroception - devised by Porages - the way our autonomic nervous system (oxford dictionary- part of the nervous system responsible for control of the bodily functions not consciously directed - such as breathing, heartbeat, digestive system—personal surveillance system ) respond to cues of safety, danger and life
“Before you understand it - you assess it
“Neuroception proceeds perception, story follows state” - getting cues (body is participating in an unconscious evaluating of safety - sights, sounds, sensations and before your brain understands or makes sense of it - your autonomic nervous system responds and initiates a response - example making you anxious but you don’t know why (walking over my grave) think of music in a horror movie or music in a romance movie - yes you’ve heard those sounds before and that impacts (oh this is a horror movie) but those sounds were shaped off of sounds that our ancestors found scary or calming - - ted talk on horror vs romance music - AND is also idiosyncratic - so cued to us and our own experiences
Important to differentiate perception (awareness) and deception (automatic)
Neuroception - gut feelings- somatic signals that influence decision-making and behaving without conscious awareness
Actions can be automatic and adaptive- generated by the autonomic nervous system well below the level of conscious awareness - not always making a conscious choice - moving in patterns of protection
A working principle of the autonomic nervous system is every response is an action in service to survival. No matter how incongruent an action may look from the outside from an automatic perspective it is always an unadaptive survival response. The autonomic nervous system doesn't make judgments about good or bad; it simply acts to manage risks and seek safety.
Summary of Polyvagal
“Three basic neural energy subsystems underpin the overall state of the nervous system and correlate behaviors and emotions. The most primitive of these three spanning about 500 million years stems from its origin in early fish species. The function of these primitive systems is immobilization, metabolic conservation, and shut down”. Its target of action is the internal organs. Next - the sympathetic nervous system - this global arousal system has evolved from the reptilian period about 300 million years ago. Its function is mobilization and enhanced action (fight or flight) targets the body and the limbs. Finally the third and phylogenetically most recent system 80 million years ago - exists only in mammals - neural subsystem shows its greatest reinemetin in primates where it mediates complex social and attachment behaviors. Branch of the parasympathetic nervous system that regulates the so-called mammalian or ‘smart’ vagus nerve -neuroanatomically linked to the cranial nerves that mediate facial expressions and vocalizations, This most recently acquired system animates the unconscious mediated muscles in the throat, face, middle ear, heart and lungs which together communicate our emotions both to ourselves and others. - emotional intelligence - I won’t say this - but this is what will remind me to say the other things
starts in the cranial nerves - directly from the brain -
12 pairs of cranial nerves and the vagus nerve longest of cranial nerves.-
the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system. Both our system of immobilization and our system of connection - not a single nerve but a bundle of nerve fibers woven together inside a sheath. - (brain to hear to stomach to face- called ‘conduit of connection’ -communicates bidirectionally between body and brain - 80% sensory sending information from the body to the brain and 20% sending action information back from the brain to the body - place a hand on your cheek and over your heart- move out your abdomen- move hands between these three places -
two distinct pathways (dorsal and ventral) -diversion at diaphragm - both are branches of the same cranial nerve - dorsal avala and ventral vagal are very different - dorsal and ventral aspect of the vagus originate in neighboring parts of the medulla oblongata (brainstem connects to the spinal cord) dorsal vagus (oldest) arises from dorsal nucleus of the vagus. Ventral vagus - newest - originates from the nucleus ambiguous - (in front of the dorsal- exits the brainstem together and travels its individual routes above and below the diaphragm Imagine your lungs and your abdomen - the diaphragm is the muscle that separates these two body regions diaphragm downward territory of dorsal vagus - diaphragm upward is the realm of ventral vagal
Dorsal - affect organs beneath the diaphragm (digestion) (immobilization)
Ventral - affects heart and breathing rate (social engagement)
Dorsal vagal -
means back
ancient vertebrae ancestors - oldest pathway - 500 million-year-old came first -
protects through immobilization, shutting down the body system to conserve energy next
Evolution of responding to danger- can’t fight/can flee ‘just survive somehow’ -playing possum or ‘lie back and take it’ (seems extreme until you think of how much our body responds to things like taxes, cops, the parent or boss yelling -
can’t flee/can’t fight/just take it
Numb- analgesic - protection from both physical and psychological pain
fatigue, low blood pressure, difficulty thinking/remembering/focusing/processing - reduced flow and oxygen to the brain- causes fainting - changes in cognitive function and disassociation
disassociation - “I am lost and no one will find me” - or for other people “Where did you go”
Dorsal -the path of last resort -stillness as survival, conserving energy, (because of the lower area subdiaphragmatic trauma - abuse, sexual trauma, medical procedures, injure- dorsal - fainting “
- without options, feel trapped, feel unimportant, am criticized, feel as if I don't matter, feel as if I don’t belong -frozen/numb/not hear
Sympathetic nervous system -
400 million years ago -middle of the spinal cord
prepares for action -
triggers adrenaline which fuels flight or fight
originates in the spinal nerves (spinal cord) -mobilization - located in the middle of the back in the thoracic and lumbar regions of the spinal cord -
move your hands around to your back - one hand gently reaching from your neck down and other waist up -
space between is where neurons of your sympathetic nervous system start before extending out to target organs - eyes, heart, lungs, and bladder
SAM - sympathomedullary Pathway - adrenal medulla system and the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis - adrenaline -
startle response within 100 milliseconds - short term rapid followed by regulated -
HPA (Hpyothalmic -Pituatiry-Adrenal axis) takes over when quick adrenaline doesn't relieve distress
HPA releases cortisol - stress hormone -
takes longer - slower or effect -
minutes rather than seconds -
both of these will cause pupliation, vasodilation - an increase of breathing and great rate because of connection to lungs -
Muscles of the middle ear control the ability to focus-
Work to regulate frequency and support listing to and for voices
sympathetic - middle ear shifts away from listening to the human voice and listening for predators or dress (high or low tones) -
ability to read facial cues is affected-
sympathetic we misread cues - neural faces appear angry. Neutral is dangers
Cortisol makes it hard to sit still - heart rate speeds up, breath is short or shallow, scan environment, fidgeting unsettled, stiff poster, disorganized- confrontation - antagonist -
Sympathetic nervous system- feel pressed for time, am ignored, am confused, am pushed to make a choice feel responsible for too many people and too many things
Vagus -
Ventral vagal - smart vagus or social vagus - 80 million years ago
Neurological foundation for health, growth and restoration
Ability to soothe and be soothed. To talk, to listen, to offer and receive, to fluidly move in and out of connection. Reciprocity - mutual ebb and flow that defines the nursing relationship
‘wired to care’ – slows heart rate, softens eyes, kinder tone to voice -
supports self-compassion - reaching in to be with our own suffering with kindness - reduces in stress enhanced immune functions - - connection - groundedness send and receive cues of safety
If a baby is born at 30 weeks of generation or earlier - the protective part of the vagus - the ventral vagus has not yet fully developed and myelinated. Without a fully functional ventral vagal system, the baby is dependent on the dorsal vagal - conversion and sympathetic activation to rule states. The many machines, wires, and tubes in a neonatal intensive care unit are doing some other work of the ventral vagus while the abyss autonomic nervous system continues to develop
Ventral Vagal
Sympathetic
Dorsal Vagal
Safe/Social
Mobilized/fight or flight
Immobilized/collapse
Heart regulated/breath full
Heart speeds up- breath is short/shallow
Heart rate can drop very very low- breath is not enough
Tune into conversations - tune out distractions
Scan for danger
I am alone in my despair and escape into not knowing, not feeling, not being
Big picture and how we are connected
Angry or anxious
Hopeless, abandoned, foggy, too tired to think
Worlds, Safe, fun peaceful
World is out to get me at any time - chaotic - need to protect myself from harm
Dark - empty - dead
I am lost and no one will find me
Being organized, following through with plans, taking care of myself, having time to play, doing things for others, feeling proactive, regulated sense of management
Anxiety, panic attacks, anger, inability to focus, difficulty following through, easily distracted, jumpy, irritable
Problems with memory, depression, isolation, no energy, disassociation, withdrawal, flat affect
Blood pressure, immune, digestion, sleep, etc
High blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep problems, weight problems, memory impairment, headache, chronic neck shoulder and back tension, stomach problems, sick often
Chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, stomach problems, low blood pressure, diabetes, weight gain
Dorsal - not enough energy to run the system
Sympathetic - too much energy to run they steam
Ventral - just enough
Dorsal vagal - utilities -’no one is home’
Sympathetic ‘- home alarm
Ventral - can tell basic utilities are running, know the alarm is on standby - explore the world
Day example - Dana describes this like a ladder you move up and down
“I am driving to work in the early morning listening to the radio and enjoying the beginning of the day at the top of the ladder when a siren sounds behind me quickly moving down the ladder. I feel my heart racing immediately worried that I've done something wrong staying in my spot on the ladder. I pulled over in a police car and rushed past me. I pulled out and resumed driving to work and felt my heart begin to return to its normal speed moving up the ladder. By the time I get to work I have forgotten about the incident and I'm ready for my day at work back at the top of the ladder. I am having dinner with friends and enjoying a conversation and the fun of being out with people I like at the top of the ladder. The conversation turns into vacation and I start comparing my situation to my friend's situation. I begin to feel angry and I can't afford a vacation that my job doesn't pay enough and I've so many unpaid bills I will never be able to take a vacation moving down the ladder. I sit back and watch as my friends continue to talk about trips and travel planning. I disconnect from the conversation and begin to feel invisible as the talk goes around me shutting down and moving to the bottom of the ladder. The evening ends with my friends not noticing my silence and with me feeling like a misfit in the group stuck at the offspinner of the ladder. I go home and crawl into bed. The only place I know now is at the bottom of the ladder. The next morning I wake up and don't wanna go to work still at the bottom of the ladder. I worry I'll get fired if I don't show u a bit of energy and begin to move up the ladder. I'm late to work. My boss comments on my lateness and I have a hard time holding an angry response, continuing to move up the ladder with a more mobilized energy. I've decided I have enough of this job and will seriously look for a new one still moving up the ladder. I began to consider the skills I can bring to a new job with the right job. I will be able to pay my bills and maybe even take a vacation. I have lunch with a coworker when we talk about jobs and dreams for future back up the top of the ladder”
Start with connection -
if that doesn’t work - sympathic uses fight or flee to resolve danger and return to safety.
When this is unsuccessful - dorsal vagal collapse - disconnected - wait feeling lost and unable to find our way back into connection -
'moments of messiness’ sympathetic nervous system -
adaptive survival styles don’t result in a sense of connection to self or other
the exhaustion of the unremitting mobilization response turns back into a necessary conversation of energy through collapse ,. - to navigate out of collapse - we need to feel a real or imagined ‘and on our back
Mental Health -Interpersonal neurobiology - siegel - hyperarousal or hyperarousal -
mental health dx can be viewed as hyperarousal or hypoarousal
Pharmacology targets the autonomic nervous system in an attempt to either calm overactive parts or excite unreactive parts and move the system back to regulation
Psychotherapy- natural capacities of the nervous system - provides safe opportunities to experiment with coregulation and add skills for individual regulation and to practice exercising the neural circus of engagement
Vagal Break -
heart doesn't beat in an even unchain pattern -
ventral vagal influences our heart rate - slowing it during exhalation allowing it to speed up during inhalation.
Change of heart rate called respiratory sinus arrhythmia. -
responsibility of the ventral vagus is to suppress heart rate around 72 beats per minute through its influence on the heart's pacemaker (sino-atrial node) without this - heart would break dangerously fast -
coined ‘vagal break’ as you release breaks our speed increases - And as you apply breaks you slow down -
the vagal break is relaxed but not fully released - regulates the call to action, allowing a more sympathetic energy into the system while inhibiting the release of cortisol and adrenal - danger - full release of vagal brake and sympathetic nervous system takes over - discharging cortisol and adrenaline and triggering fight or flight.
Too much and Dorsal can take over - sending them into shutdown
to come back autonomic nervous system needs to feel your ventral vagal presence - take in cues of state, climbing back automatic hierarch - gentle call to action
Depend on the vagal break to relax and reengage
Trauma affects this - loss of vagal brake and yielding of control first or sympathetic nervous system and then to the dorsal system takes a toll - small moments of distress to be too great a challenge to vagal break
The vagal brake can change through the course of your every day - becomes customized to you
Patterns are built over time - responses to personal relationships - develop a personal neural profile with habitual patterns of recognition. It's important to see these patterns.
Co-regulation And Relationships
Empathy - group response - look to others in danger - regulate one another - attachment behaviors - “Attachment is virtually the only defense young children have, as they cannot usually protect themselves by fighting or feeling. Attachment for security is a general mammalian and primate survival strategy” - dealing with threats in quantity
We are born wired to connect -
Coregulation - A key component for Porages is also co-regulation as a ‘biological imperative’ required for the sustainment of life - we feel safe to move into connection and trusting relationships - agues your nervous system will reach out for contact and co-regulation - will reason to safety or danger
Attachment - secure attachment - a touchstone for exploration - Porages would argue this is because the autonomic nervous system guides who we explore the world - being active, backing away, connecting with others, or isolating. Safe = co-regulation = resiliency. Unsafe = misattunement = survival. Dana “in each of our relationships, the autonomic nervous system is ‘learning’ about the world and being toned towards habits of connection or protection
In empathy “The dependence of an infant on the mother is an archetypical example of this dependency and even illustrates the bi-directionality of the social interaction; the mother is not only regulating the infant, but the infant is reciprocally regulating the mother. The features of co-regulation, reciprocity, connectedness, and trust resonate through the mammalian nervous system and optimize homeostatic function providing a neurobiological link between our mental and physical health”. Porages
Default hierarchies ‘Huhlings Jacksons - When people don’t feel regulated - we can go from connection to fight/flight and if that doesn't work - brain thinks death is imminent and we freeze - first episode - parts of your brain are older and get dominance
Porges coined the term “biological rudeness'' when social connection is interrupted and neuroception changes from safety to danger - cell phones - we expect connectedness and that is violated - feel unsafe. Violations can also be positive - expecting discomfort, receiving connection - eye contact! (to long, to harsh, softened) - smile vs social smile - sounds (soothed by certain sounds, activated by others) not just words but rhythm, sound, duration, intensity
To feel safe we are trying to resolve what made us feel angry and bring in cues of safety - resolving is crucial because otherwise will continue to activate defensive survival responses
Being aware of autonomic response adds influence of perdition to experiencing - awareness - move from a state of being into being with - can interrupt ingrained response pathways - connect to yourself with compassion from there can move to curiosity. Dan Siegal calls this COAL - curiosity, openness, acceptance, love
Trauma
Trauma therapists - perception is more important than reality
Polyvagal - Before the brain makes meaning of an incident, the autonomic nervous system has assessed the environment and initiates an adaptive stress response.
Neuroceception precedes perception.
Story follows the state.
because humans are into meaning-making - making sense of things- automatic action and then the internal justification of what happened
What does all of this mean for trauma - after experiencing a life-threatening event/s “their neural reactions were returned towards a defensive bias and they lost reliance to return to a sense of safety” IE affects the ability to regulate and feel safe in relationships
“Patterns of connection with patterns of protection” and “early survival responses become habitual automatic patterns”
Chronic neglect - immobilization shutdown
“Humans are driven to want to understand the why of behaviors. We attribute motivation and intent and assign blame. Society judges trauma survivors by their actions in times of crisis. We still too often blame the victim if they didn't fight or try to escape but instead collapsed into submission. We make a judgment about what someone did that leads to the belief of who they are. Trauma survivors often think it's my fault to have a harsh inner critic who mirrors society's response. In our daily interactions with friends family colleagues and even the casual acquaintances with strangers that define our days, we evaluate others by the way in which they engage with us
Historical Trauma/Minority Communities
Why are queers so mean to each other - Kai Cheng Thom “How Brain Science explain queer trauma, conflict, and call-out culture”
“trauma — i.e. exposure to stress or life danger that overwhelms the body’s capacity to cope — has a profound impact on the development of the brain and nervous system. Repeated trauma = particular effect on the ways that human beings process and respond to social interactions:
If bad things happen to us from humans - all humans are dangerous - primal instincts = humans as potential threats.:”
““what fires together, wires together,” brain creates pathways - each time you use this its stronger -neural networks (field - snow - pathway)
neural networks shaped around the deeply held physical sensation that we are constantly in danger, that we are bad and unloveable, that others are untrustworthy and violent.” - whenever we are harmed this is confirmed AND connections to feeling safe/loved/lovable - brain ‘blooms and prunes’ We become physically less capable of imagining a world where being with others is not synonymous with being unsafe.”
“Traumatized communities struggle so profoundly with loving”
suspicion
terror of betrayal,
we come to believe that making a mistake — any mistake = someone bad and dangerous.
Need to punish people who are bad and dangerous, that some people are simply too bad and too dangerous to keep among us.”
Especially sensitive to those we trust - because there is vulnerability
“Caught in the terror of this awful double-bind, our bodies’ ancient survival strategies — fight, flight, freeze — take over to defend us.”
Symptoms of trauma - black and white thinking - all good or all bad. - quick assertive decision about safe or unsafe - much harder to live in vagus state of connecting/prefrontal cortex higher thinking
Without higher thinking/knowing how to feel safe again - way harder to resolve conflict or repair - much easier to flee or fight (ie call-out culture)
Traumatized communities - demand uniformity and perfect cohesion
Deviations and dissent are perceived as threats
Small betrayals are big betrayals when your body has experienced big betrayals
This is also now all of us - because we are all a more traumatized community
We lived with a real threat - whatever you determined that threat is - we lived in a threat space
We took action to be safe and there are side effects of every action
“The Covid-19 Pandemic is a Paradoxical Challenge to Our Nervous System: A Polyvagal Perspective by Porages -
How do we move from feelings of fear and danger to feelings of safety and trust within another
Realize that “threat reactions through definable and measurable pathways may have predictable effects on our mental and physical health.
What did social distancing and self-quarantining do to impact our nervous system
states of defense, which interfere with the neurophysiological states needed to both co-regulate with others
nervous systems are simultaneously being challenged by incompatible demands demanding both avoidances of contact with the SARSCov2 virus and the fulfillment of our biological imperative of connecting with others to feel calm and safe.
We have increased telehealth and telecommunication - exhausting! Share feelings and words through video conferences - video was for education/entertainment - video was distant to our experiences - we are often numb on video/when something is two dimensional- need to “retune our nervous system to be more aware of facial expression, vocal intonation, and head gesture. Although in the physical presence of another, while actively involved in spontaneous face-to-face interactions, our nervous system detects these cues intuitively and rapidly without involving conscious awareness.
We coregulated - we understand ourselves in connection to others - and all of that has been impacted
Kai Cheng Thom“My point here is not that we need to get rid of our trauma survival strategies or to doubt our own bodies, but that perhaps we might need to stop thinking of our trauma as individual and see it as collective. So that we are not suffering alone in our trauma, a community composed of “one-against-the-world” thinking, but rather a community based on “healing together.”
Change begins with the belief that change is possible
Connection is possible
Healing on a cellular level -if we can move back into a vagus state - can connect with others - if we can connect with others we get oxytocin
Move back into a space of connection and prefrontal context - RATIONAL thinking, imaginations and new and better ways of dealing with conflict. What fires wires together? Loving contact breeds loving contact. Mercy and forgiveness breed mercy and forgiveness.
Stopping and taking a breath
Internal connection when we feel angry/ activated if we see making ignorant or nasty comments online
Assistance from others -elders/peers/friends/family
Attune to self - we are good/whole/lovable/
Grounded we can reconnect, repair, De-escalation
De-escalation means proceeding from inner security and general good faith — not the naïve good faith that everyone is innocent and trustworthy, but that everyone has the potential to be.
Are there other options besides fight/flight
Take space rather than harm
“Speaking from a place of humility rather than angry righteousness when addressing someone’s problematic behavior, or acknowledging one’s own ego and capacity for making mistakes when processing a conflict.”
We hold within us the capacity to do this but it is hard
Can you love your own capacity to do harm and be wrong? Can I love mine?
Are we able to separate setting boundaries on harmful and abusive behavior — which is always our right and a necessary step — from punishment and revenge?
Boundaries are a necessary paper of love - “setting boundaries is the way that we create the space to love ourselves and others at the same time. There is a difference between setting a boundary and containing harmful actions, even ones as harmful as abuse and violence and punishing someone for the sake of vengeance. There is a difference between ending a relationship with an abusive person and demanding that the abusive person should be “disappeared” from society.
