A deeper Dive: Polyvagal Theory
Throughout the website and when receiving care at Reclamation, you may start to hear words you have not encountered before. This blog post is a launching point to start your own learning and exploration process. It’s designed to offer you a deeper understanding of some of the concepts and language we use here, to explain how the nervous system impacts healing, pain, and body regulation. These ideas are rooted in the Polyvagal Theory and are foundational to the work we do, whether you're here for pelvic floor PT, Somatic Experiencing®, dry needling, or any other aspect of our holistic practice.
What Is Polyvagal Theory?
Understanding the Science of Safety and Connection
Polyvagal Theory, introduced by neuroscientist Dr. Stephen Porges in 1994, offers a revolutionary framework for understanding how our nervous system shapes our responses to the world around us. It helps explain why we feel calm and connected in some moments and reactive or shut down in others. This theory has become foundational in trauma recovery, somatic therapy, and even physical rehabilitation, especially in practices like Somatic Experiencing® and trauma-informed physical therapy.
The Vagus Nerve: A Pathway for Healing
At the heart of Polyvagal Theory is the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the body. It influences many automatic bodily functions like heart rate, digestion, and breath. What Porges discovered is that the vagus nerve actually has two main branches that contribute to very different physiological responses:
The Ventral Vagal Pathway (social engagement): Promotes feelings of calm, safety, and connection.
The Dorsal Vagal Pathway (shutdown/immobilization): Activates when we’re overwhelmed or perceive threat, leading to freeze or collapse states.
Understanding which pathway is active helps us recognize how and why the body responds to the world in certain ways (Porges, 1995; 2009).
The Autonomic Ladder: A Hierarchy of Response
Polyvagal Theory outlines a hierarchy of three primary states that the autonomic nervous system moves through in response to cues of safety or danger:
Ventral Vagal State – When we feel safe, connected, and socially engaged. This is the optimal state for healing, growth, and connection.
Sympathetic State – The classic “fight or flight” response. We feel mobilized to act, often with heightened energy or agitation.
Dorsal Vagal State – The “freeze” response. We shut down when something feels overwhelming or hopeless, often leading to numbness or disconnection.
This ladder-like model is useful for understanding how we fluctuate between states throughout the day—and how we can support the body in moving back toward regulation (Porges, 2011).
Importantly, these states are not always black and white. The nervous system can experience blended states, like feeling energized and engaged (a mix of sympathetic and ventral vagal), or socially withdrawn but calm (a mix of dorsal and ventral). Recognizing this complexity helps us approach healing with more compassion and flexibility.
Ventral Vagal vs. Dorsal Vagal: The Difference Between Soft and Hard Brakes
One of the key insights from Polyvagal Theory is the myelination difference between the ventral and dorsal vagal pathways. The ventral vagal pathway is myelinated, which means it has a protective coating that allows for faster, more efficient communication between the brain and the body. It serves as a “soft brake” that can gradually modulate and calm the nervous system when we are in safe, social environments. This pathway is activated when we feel safe, connected, and curious—it helps us engage with others, communicate, and be in healthy relationships.
On the other hand, the dorsal vagal pathway is unmyelinated, which means it’s slower and more primitive in its function. This pathway is associated with the body’s emergency brake—it’s a “hard brake” that activates in extreme stress situations, typically during life-threatening events. When the body experiences overwhelming danger or helplessness, the dorsal vagal system triggers a freeze, shutdown, or immobilization response—often leading to dissociation or collapse. This response is harder to reverse and often takes longer to recover from because of its more primitive, survival-based nature (Porges, 2009; 2011).
Neuroception: The Body's Subconscious Safety Scanner
A key insight from Polyvagal Theory is the concept of neuroception—the body’s unconscious ability to detect safety, danger, or life threat. Unlike perception, neuroception happens without conscious awareness. Your nervous system is constantly scanning your environment for cues: a friend’s smile might bring ease, while a sharp tone might trigger vigilance.
This explains why we might feel tense in a situation that “should” feel safe or relax unexpectedly around a certain person or in a certain place. Our bodies are reading signals before our brains have had time to catch up.
Interoception & Proprioception: The Senses Behind the Sensing
To deepen our understanding of nervous system regulation, it’s important to include interoception and proprioception—two lesser-known but essential sensory systems.
Interoception is the sense of the internal state of the body. It includes awareness of signals like heartbeat, hunger, thirst, breath, and internal temperature. This internal sensory information plays a vital role in emotional awareness, decision-making, and self-regulation (Craig, 2002; Mehling et al., 2009).
In trauma-informed care and body-based therapies, enhancing interoceptive awareness can help clients reconnect with their physical experience, regulate their autonomic states, and build a felt sense of safety from within.Proprioception is the sense of where your body is in space. It helps you know the position, movement, and orientation of your body parts without looking. Proprioceptive feedback comes from sensors in muscles and joints and is crucial for coordination and balance (Proske & Gandevia, 2012).
In physical therapy and movement-based somatic work, proprioception helps us improve posture, reduce injury, and create grounding sensations that support nervous system regulation.
These two senses work together with neuroception to inform how we feel ourselves from the inside and how we orient ourselves in the world. Therapies that support interoceptive and proprioceptive awareness—such as breathwork, slow movement, gentle touch, and guided somatic tracking—can significantly improve both physical symptoms and emotional regulation.
Why It Matters in Clinical Practice
Polyvagal Theory has shifted how many practitioners—physical therapists, somatic therapists, psychologists—approach healing. At Reclamation, we integrate this understanding into how we support clients physically and neurologically.
In physical therapy, recognizing how stress and trauma affect breath, posture, and movement patterns allows us to work not just with muscles and joints, but with the whole person.
In somatic bodywork, we support the nervous system to move toward regulation through manual techniques, breath work, imagery, orientation, and subtle movement—often engaging the ventral vagal system.
We also recognize that true healing requires the body to access and strengthen pathways of safety, not just reduce symptoms.
Regulation Is Not One-Size-Fits-All
One of the most empowering takeaways from Polyvagal Theory is that what supports nervous system regulation is unique to each person. What brings someone into a state of ventral vagal connection—safety, joy, curiosity—might not work the same for someone else.
For one person, that might be time with animals. For another, it’s being in water, or enjoying a shared meal with friends. A flower arrangement, a favorite song, or a meaningful memory—these small experiences can serve as powerful anchors of regulation. As we deepen our awareness of what brings our own nervous system into ease, we can begin to seek those moments more intentionally.
In Summary
Polyvagal Theory teaches us that healing is not just about controlling symptoms or “doing more.” It’s about shifting our state of being by supporting the nervous system to feel safe, connected, and at ease. And by reconnecting with the internal (interoceptive) and positional (proprioceptive) experiences of the body, we can create more sustainable and embodied healing—moving closer to vitality, strength, and a deeper sense of self.
References
Porges, S. W. (1995). Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A polyvagal theory. Psychophysiology, 32(4), 301–318. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1995.tb01213.x
Porges, S. W. (2009). The polyvagal theory: New insights into adaptive reactions of the autonomic nervous system. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 76(Suppl 2), S86–S90. https://doi.org/10.3949/ccjm.76.s2.17
Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Craig, A. D. (2002). How do you feel? Interoception: the sense of the physiological condition of the body. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 3(8), 655–666
