As we’ve established in the previous articles of this series (starting here), our autonomic nervous systems possess the capacity to either be in “connection” mode or “protection” mode, and the two “flavors” of protection are hyper-arousal (fight-flight-freeze) and hypo-arousal (collapse).

These protective responses, we know by now, are superpowers. They’ve allowed us to survive and thrive as a species, and they’ve helped you navigate countless dangers over the course of your life.

But if we get stuck in protection mode, we suffer. When protection mode becomes our norm, we call this “trauma.”

Developing curiosity around and interest in our three primary autonomic states helps us to release old traumas and avoid new ones. Simply by playing with these states, we cultivate pathways between them, so that we don’t get stuck.

Notice that I say “playing” with these states. Playfulness is something we can only access through connection mode. So, if we frame these practices as child-like play, we’re already helping to shape our nervous systems in the direction of connection!

With that encouragement in mind, let’s start with connection mode:

1. Playing with ventral-vagal regulation.

• Ask yourself: What is it like to feel safely engaged with life? In other words, how do you know you’re in connection? What is your body like—your posture, your muscle tone, your breath? What is your mind like? What is your worldview like?

• When you notice that you’re in connection (that you’re operating within your window of tolerance), ask yourself which part of the wave you’re presently in—the up-wave or the down-wave?

• Explore how using the voice (singing, humming, chanting, laughing, even gargling) and regulating the breath help to calm your system, how they can provide security and ease.

• Notice how softly gazing about at your surroundings (especially if you’re in nature), connecting with the rhythms of your environment, can calm your nervous system.

• If you engage in team sports or communal hobbies, notice how the shared activity makes you feel.

• Notice how reaching out to others—expressing yourself—during periods of stress helps to defuse difficult situations.

• See how conjuring memories of people, pets, or places that you love helps you access states of ease and well-being.

• Try placing a hand over your heart (where the ventral vagus travels) or hugging a person or a pet or a stuffed animal (or a tree!) to accentuate a sense of heart-felt connection to your experience—to other beings, to your environment, and to your own inner aliveness.

• Pay attention to what your inner voice is like when you’re in connection mode. What is saying about yourself? What is it saying about the world?

• And notice what others are like when they are in connection mode. How does it feel to be around them?

2. Be curious about hyper-arousal when it arises.

• In hyper-arousal, our up-wave of arousal spikes above our zone of resilience. Look for increased energy; tensing muscles; accelerating heart rate; shortness of breath; and sweating. What other clues let you know that you’re in hyper-arousal?

• Feel the energy that this response affords you.

• See whether you can channel this state of sympathetic arousal into exercise, yoga, dance, physical work, or sexual or artistic expression. Or even spontaneous, intuitive movement—shaking, twisting, rocking.

• Allow for a sense of accomplishment after successfully completing a strenuous task. (Savoring your success helps to “complete” your sympathetic arousal, allowing you to fully return to a parasympathetic state, a.k.a. your “down-wave.”)

• Notice how uncomfortable it can be to reside “above” your zone of resilience for too long. This can include states of anxiety, anger, agitation, panic, fear, hatred, paranoia, worry, and mania.

• Notice how hyper-arousal speeds things up; how it affects your cognition (it can inhibit the learning of new things); and how it can make it difficult for you to distinguish danger from non-danger.

• Pay attention to what your inner voice is like when you’re in hyper-arousal. It’s likely that there will be an emphasis on “what’s wrong” instead of “what’s right” when you’re in this state. What is the inner voice saying about yourself? What’s it saying about the world?

• See if you can notice the difference in the experience of figh-or-flight and freeze? Maybe you can even sense the difference between fight and flight!

• You might just watch your hyper-arousal without doing anything at all; what goes up will inevitably come back down again!

• And pay attention when hyper-arousal is present in other people. What are they like in fight-or-flight? What are they like in freeze? And what is it like for you to be around them?

3. Develop an interest in hypo-arousal.

• In hypo-arousal, our down-wave has collapsed below our zone of resilience. Collapse can be more difficult to notice than fight-flight-freeze. After all, the whole point of this state is for us to go numb, to dissociate.

• Explore any experiences of immobility or dissociation—any instances where you’re “just going through the motions,” like you’re not entirely present. You might describe it as feeling “checked out,” “drained,” “foggy,” “depressed,” or “hopeless.” What are the body and mind like in this state?

• What’s the inner voice like in this state? It tends to be indifferent and defeatist, pessimistic and nihilistic.

• Pay attention to the effect that collapse has on your guts. When the dorsal vagus nerve is strongly activated (when it is “high-tone”), it tends to slow down peristalsis in the stomach and small intestine, while speeding up peristalsis in the large intestine. When experienced chronically, this can manifest with Irritable Bowel Syndrome symptoms like diarrhea, constipation, abdominal pain, and bloating. Through its affect on our guts, chronic collapse can inhibit our digestive transformation, absorption, and elimination; impair learning and memory; and distort our “gut sense” of safety.

• Remember that “low-tone” activation of the dorsal vagus is valuable and necessary; it allows us to rest, digest, sleep, and meditate. It’s delicious! Can you feel the difference between nourishing relaxation, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the alienating withdrawal of the collapse response?

***

It’s so very useful to be able to tease apart and play with these autonomic modes. When we’re clear about what’s happening in our bodies and minds, we can take better care of ourselves and those around us.

Many of us didn’t fully develop our connection-mode “architecture” as children. Instead, we learned to rely on protection mode. As I’ve mentioned, the beauty is that we can rewire our autonomic nervous system as adults. By practicing “toning” our ventral vagus, in particular, we’re setting ourselves up for connection instead of withdrawal, ease instead of anxiety.

The ventral vagus helps us feel safe while also keeping us in calm engagement with our environment. When we’re in ventral mode, we retain access to our frontal cortex, with its nuanced decision making, its creativity, its social intelligence. We retain our capacity for compassion—staying in relationship with others even when we disagree with them. For all these reasons, I consider “toning” the ventral vagus nerve to be an essential component of my sessions with clients.

Now, this is not to say that our protection-mode responses are “bad.” They are natural, inevitable, and, in certain cases, life-saving. They protect us! But we know that if these states become excessive and chronic, we suffer. Living with states of adrenal over-activation and dorsal collapse can severely compromise our health—disturbing our cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, cognitive, and immune systems.

And when a society is operating out of protection-mode dynamics, it is divorced from the thoughtfulness, creativity, and compassion of the ventral vagus; it tends to rely on control, coercion, and violence. It tends to “other” anyone that’s different. Whereas, when we’re collectively operating from a place of ventral vagal engagement, we’re recognizing our shared humanity, first and foremost.

***

Developing awareness of our neurophysiology gives us the opportunity to have a say in how we reside in our bodies. Through the process of listening to and familiarizing ourselves with our autonomic modes, we can transform our relationship to them so that they actually serve us, instead of only getting in the way. We can bring resilience to our nervous systems. With practice and tenderness, we can move ourselves—and, by extension, our society—from dysregulation to regulation. We can grow to feel more comfortable in our bodies; more confident in how we meet our challenges; and more connected to our own goodness and to the goodness in those around us.