Welcome to the mending trauma podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Amy Hoyt. And along with my sister Lena Hoyt, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, we want to help you recover from trauma, whether it's childhood trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, or any other trauma sustained from abuse or narcissistic relationships. We want to help you develop skills and ways that can help you to recover from the symptoms and the effects of trauma. We are so glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, Amy here, are you feeling stuck or overwhelmed by things that pop up in your daily life. And perhaps these are because of past traumas or toxic stress? Have you tried traditional therapy and found that it wasn't enough? I know that was the case for me. That's why we developed the whole health lab. Mini trauma has put together a program that combines the latest research with proven methods to help you recover from trauma and move forward from these daily stressors and triggers. We use somatic therapy EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy and internal family systems therapy. We use nervous system regulation, and many other tools so that we can combine the best methods that are identified in the research to help you recover without being completely overwhelmed. So you can work on trauma on your own pace, your own time. And still with the mentorship and support of a highly trained certified staff. That's us no more waiting for appointments or sitting in traffic driving to see a therapist with our online program, the whole help lab, you can access it from anywhere, anytime, even on an app, visit mending trauma.com backslash whole health lab and learn more, get your questions answered, we've got a Frequently Asked Questions section, and sign up so that you can have this life changing program in your world today. Don't let your past hold you back any longer take control of your future. And we can't wait to see you in the whole health lab. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode. We're excited to be here today. Today we're talking about polyvagal theory and depression. And before we get started on the depression part of our podcasts, we're going to do a little bit of a dive into polyvagal theory, what it is and the different states of our nervous system. So polyvagal theory is a theory that Steven Porges came up with. And he proposed that the vagus nerve is a nerve that actually helped communicate between our brain and our body. And that it really influenced our nervous system in terms of our emotions, our social behavior, our threat response. And the key to this is that it's all subconscious, we have no awareness what's happening. So when you hear about the body, keeping the score, right from Bessel Vander Kolk book, this is the body part where the body is deeply involved in how we process emotions and threat response, as well as breaking it down into different states of how our nervous system reacts. And to remind you the nervous system is a system that runs all through our body. It is responsible for things like our heart rate, and
it's responsible also for like our sweat glands are breathing, all the things are blinking. That means that we don't have to think about
exactly all the things that keep us alive that we never think about. It is also responsible thanks to this work with polyvagal theory, we know that it's also responsible for processing emotions as well as threat response. And so polyvagal theory has been very, very revolutionary in Trauma Recovery, because it's helped explain how the body ends up as part of web of trauma that happens. It's not just in our brain, it's also in our body. But the way he explains the nervous system and how we got to where we are or where we have these emotions processed in the body. He looks at it through an evolutionary model. And he points out that the very first way that mammals used to basically process threat was by collapse, and that's called dorsal vagal. So he has three different states that help us understand where we're at when we get into a threat response. So dorsal vagal was something that was a very primitive Nervous System, and that would be collapsed. And we'll go into that in a little bit. And then we have, what developed evolutionarily is the sympathetic nervous system. And that's our fight or flight response. And then finally, evolutionarily, as humans, we now have our ventral vagal response. And that is where we're rested and connected. So basically, polyvagal theory says that we develop these threat responses over time as a species, and that our nervous system is really very involved in processing emotion and threat.
Yes, thank you, Amy. And I love one of the things I love about this theory is that it really explains the collapse as a form of immobilization. And if you think about animals that are being preyed upon, and they get captured, and then they played dead, that's the immobilization or the collapse. And I, I think what I've found for myself, and what I've found with other people that I've worked with, is that if you've had trauma and you weren't able to fight or flee, it really helps you to understand why you froze that it was not yes, it was not a voluntary reaction, it was a survival reaction.
That's right. And so this, these three states that we're going to go over, and then we're going to link them to depression. The first one is the dorsal vagal. State. And as Lena mentioned, that is where we, we don't run, and we don't fight, we just are immobilized, we're disconnected. And Lena, you talk about how it can also show up as disappearing.
Pretty self protection. Yes. And that would be after the trauma. Yes. And also during the trauma, the sense of dissociation of floating above your body, that also is part of the dorsal vagal state. So it's this ability to detach and to respond to a threatening environment by becoming smaller, less noticeable. In in cases where there was a lot of chaos in our childhood home environment, we become less needing of anything from the parents, because if we can avoid attention, then we have less negative interactions with the parents. So that's, yeah. That's part of what happens.
Okay, so that's our dorsal vagal state. And when you think of a hierarchy, you can think of dorsal at the bottom of the ladder, but not because it's really only because it was developed first, evolutionarily. Next is the sympathetic response. And that is our mobilization to either fight or flight. So we're either going to fight or we're going to run. And let's talk about that a little bit. Lena? How does that show up?
Sure. That shows up with a mobilization of the body so you'll get a flood of stress chemicals that helps to activate your body so that you can either run away or fight and it is adaptive because it's designed to protect us through taking action. And it helps us to actively escape a situation.
Yeah, it's very effective. Okay, and then the third state which developed last is the parasympathetic, ventral vagal and ventral vagal is where we feel safe and connected and social. We want to we feel creative, I always remember this by rest and connect, we feel rested. It also, when our digestion is normal, that's a ventral vagal effect when we are under a serious threat response and afterwards if we are stuck in sympathetic or dorsal we can have digestion issues. So with parasympathetic ventral vagal it's very much rest and digest as well. It absolutely our system of safety. You know, that feeling that you that overcomes you every once awhile and you think everything's right in the world. That to me encapsulates being in ventral
Yes, that's a great description. It's it's the state in which we have a sense of health and we can grow and we can restore and repair and I'm It allows us when we're in that state to engage socially and to make healthy connections. And we've talked before about on our podcast about how we have these two primary drives. One is the drive for connection, and one is the drive for safety. And so we can have a drive for connection. But if we don't understand that we need to be in the ventral vagal. State, we don't understand why we're having a hard time connecting with people. And it's because our nervous system is too reactive, either in immobilization or fight or flight. And when we're in those states, we can't be in a place of connecting, it's too dangerous.
Yeah, let's give some examples, some concrete examples, because this is a pretty high level theory. And I would love to kind of break it down for the listeners. So what what's a story or an example of a ventral vagal regulation?
Well, I think you described it beautifully is when we have these opportunities. It's for me, it's about kind of like settling in and being at ease and at peace in my world. And you described it really well. And I'm wondering if you have an example of a time when that's happened for you?
Yeah, um, you know, it happens frequently. For me, I'm very, very fortunate that I'm in a place in my life where this is not unusual, but most evenings at some point, or mornings at some point when I get to sit on my front porch. And usually, my husband is with me, sometimes one or two children. And I'm just literally rocking on my rocking chair on the front porch. I think everything's right in the world. Now, that took, you know, many years of trauma recovery to get there, but I prefer to find my ventral vagal in these really small, inconsequential moments. I can have them when we're traveling as a family, I can have them when I'm on a, you know, at a great restaurant with my husband, but truly, they show up in really small moments as well.
And I love Amy, that you've trained your brain to notice, because it's hard to notice small, pleasant things because of the negativity bias in our brain. So I think that's really powerful.
Thank you. If fireflies are out, then that it's over. I am ventral vagal all the way. Watch out people,
you know, talked about rocking on the porch. And I was reading a couple of books by Steven Porges. Earlier this week, getting ready for this podcast and he talks about the benefit of rocking.
Whoa, I didn't even I was reading a somatic practice and didn't even realize it.
Yes, it is. So when you said like rocking on your front porch. I was like, Oh, that is so cool, because it's one of the things that he recommends for coming out of sympathetic or dorsal vagal states and into ventral vagal state. Well, no one can cheer you got it all going on. outside in nature.
That's true. That's true. Love. Yep, yep. Okay, so if you don't have a rocking chair, or a porch, definitely, there's lots of tricks to get us back into ventral. And we'll go over those in a little bit. But let's go into another example of the sympathetic state. So what would be an example of being in a sympathetic state?
It's really interesting, because we use the work of Deb Dana and Steven Porges, as we prepared for this podcast. And Deb Dana calls it the story of protection. That's the our sympathetic state. And she identifies that some of the things that show up in the state is a drive to compete. We also move into judgment, and we're critical of others. And I think about, we all know somebody who's so competitive that they cannot regulate themselves if they don't win. Okay, that is a sympathetic state where you're in competition, and you have to be better than everybody else.
And it's a fight, but it's a physical fight.
Exactly. Yeah. And so, for me, sympathetic mobilization oftentimes comes in to a type of flight, like I want to leave and get out and avoid. And it's different for every person. But those are some of the things that can happen in when we're in a sympathetic state.
I think these are such good examples because whenever we hear fight or flight, what I picture personally, is someone actually hitting with their fist or running away. Right? Yes, that does happen. However, as adults, we see it show up in very different ways. And I love that you're pointing out competition, judgment, criticism. Those are great concrete examples of how this shows up when we're not throwing punches and running
away. Yeah, that's a really good point. And that to understand that, for me, part of my flight is disappearing, like walking away, avoiding it doesn't necessarily mean I'm running down the street.
Right, right. Okay, so let's go into an example of a dorsal vagal collapse. And Deb Dana calls this a story of disconnection. And remember, dorsal is the very first part of the nervous system that developed
comes out of the brainstem. And this in this state, we tend to be very self critical, we have a loss of hope. And we tend to think I'm never going to measure up. It's not enough, the kind of thoughts that have us in a place where we are stuck in a narrative that things are never going to get better. And we're never going to be able to do enough, and we're never going to be lovable enough and that kind of thing. And so, when I'm in dorsal vagal, you'll see me read for six hours in a row. That's one of the things that I do when I'm in dorsal vagal. I want to be by myself, so I can kind of slide don't have my reactivity affecting anybody else. And then like, do something that's pretty mindless. For me. That is a type of collapse.
That's interesting. Yeah, because I don't think anyone would ever think reading for hours at a time would be a problem. But if it is, if it's reading to actually disconnect, because of self criticism, or loss of hope, then I think that's, that's where we know it's a dorsal reaction and not just you want to finish your book.
Exactly. Yes, it's it's a, it's a type of, well, she calls it a collapse. And to me, it's a type of collapse. Yeah, so.
So let's talk about depression, and how depression shows up and how this relates to polyvagal theory.
Sure, depression is actually a downregulation of the social engagement system. And it is when we are unable to gather energy, unable to think in a way that is helpful towards perspective or movement. And the depression in polyvagal theory is described as adaptive. And the way it ties in to trauma is that when we've been in a situation in which we've been operating at high sympathetic levels, and we haven't been able to move into the ventral vagal, or the connecting state, then at some point, the the nervous system shuts down. And that's depression. And those of us who've had childhood trauma, and relational trauma are, according to this theory, we're more susceptible to depression, because we experienced this period of time where we couldn't get away and we couldn't find our way through. And the reason why I say it's common with childhood stuff is because we have no power as a child. And so the idea behind that is that if you have had childhood trauma, then you need to understand that the dorsal state is actually a way for your body to do what it needs to do, to come out of fight or flight.
Yeah, we talk a lot in our recovery program about resting, that our body gets very, very tired when we start to recover from trauma. But what And what this is doing is even before you start your recovery journey, this is your body's natural way of getting you to rest. It's like you've had a motor revving for years and years and years. And you need to come back down to like a low idle. And, and if we can't come back down on our own, the body is going to force us to come back down. It just stinks. Because having, you know, suffered from depression since I was a child. It's a horrible illness. Absolutely. And it is a is a really hard consequence for growing up in, in a environment of trauma.
Absolutely, yeah, it. Depression is really it's hard to describe if people haven't experienced a depressive episode. And I think one of the things that makes it even harder for us is the way that depression is perceived by the medical field, by us culturally in America, by our own family culture. And if you think about that, saying pull yourself up by the bootstraps. misunderstand and
you don't even have boots on when you're depressed. Like I'm feeling
I got yellow boots. Gone first. Exactly.
What alone straps? I mean, come on.
Exactly. Yeah. So one of the things that understanding this perspective can do is it can take the shame and guilt away from those of us who just who struggle with depression. And instead of thinking about it as a weakness, or a fault, or as a problem, we can change our perspective to see it as something that is exactly what our nervous system needs to do to help us survive long term.
Yeah, you know, the other day. I was I carry maybe it was a week or two ago, but I was really feeling flat. And, you know, doing polyvagal work in somatic therapy, and so forth. For the last few years. I recognized it as a dorsal state. And I was talking to Elena and I, she, she said, what's going on? I said, I'm just really, and I went to say, dorsal and she said, depressed? And I said, Well, I say dorsal because it helps my brain, not spiral. Because if I start to feel like I'm going into depression, I get panic, like, oh, my gosh, I'm going to be depressed. How long is this gonna last? What if I can't get out of it? Whereas dorsal it's very logical, I understand that it's just part of my nervous system. It's one state, and I'm going to get out of it. But secondly, not only does it help me, not spiral, but it allows me to actually rest. Previously, before I understood this concept, when I felt what I now know, is a dorsal state coming on, which I would identify as depression, I would try and fight through it, like you still got to get up, you still got to do everything, you have to show up for everything. And now I recognize it's my body asking for rest. And so yes, I have children, I am going to continue to take care of them, but some of the extra stuff. When I'm feeling really dorsal, I'm going to move to another day. And that gives me I know now that there's hope it's just a different nervous system state.
Yes. And that conversation, we had actually prompted this topic for a podcast. After we I told you how great it was to think about I was like, That is so awesome, because I have major depressive disorder as well. And if I think about it as a state, then a state means it's not going to last forever. So it came in my room and wrote it down. So I wouldn't forget. Oh, I love that. I
didn't realize that was the big yes, for this cast.
Yeah, cuz I thought it was such an adaptive way of thinking of it.
What can we do? How can we help our listeners when they are feeling depressed or in a dorsal state? What are some of the ways besides honoring like, Okay, I'm in dorsal, and yep, that means I need to slow it down. today. I'm going to move a couple things or, you know, reduce my to do list. What else can we do? What else helps?
There are? I have three very specific ideas for coming out of dorsal Coming out of dorsal can be very difficult. I was explaining this to a client yesterday that when we're in a dorsal state, it affects the way we think. And for decades, we've focused on the idea that it's only the way we think that affects our emotions and our body state. And that is being explored as faulty or only part of the story right now and research. So when we're in a dorsal state, it's hard to think our way through it. Because we're, we are thinking is clouded by the sense of hopelessness or the sense of collapse. So one really great tool is the use of proprioception. And proprioception is the way your body is in space. I remember learning this years ago, from a training I went to, when we are in collapse, we typically are hunched over, or we make ourselves smaller subconsciously. And when we use on purpose, proprioception, we can actually change the physiological response in our nervous system. So if you are in dorsal vagal, one thing you can do is stand up straight, and put your hands on your hips. That's it. Smile, if you can, if you can't, don't worry about it, but make sure your shoulders are back and your head is up. And we're using the body. This is the bottom up approach that Porges talks about, we're using the body to shift the state of our nervous system, when I was being trained in some of this, what our trainer would say to us, okay, I want everyone to close your eyes. And then I want you to think of something that makes you really excited. And when I count to three, open your eyes and put your body in the posture of being really excited. And it was wildly effective. And we we also have talked a lot about how your brain doesn't know what's real and what's not. And so if you're showing up in body posture, that's excited, your head is up, you're you're grinning, it will change your nervous system state. So proprioception. The second one is to imagine the faces of people that you know, that are not shadowed by trauma. So we're not going to imagine the face of somebody who's perpetrated trauma against us. And sometimes people will say to me, Well, I really don't have anyone that I'm close to who's nice to me. And so, if that happens, we want a picture. Have you ever smiled at the grocery store clerk, have you ever said hello to your mail person, you're going to picture them, anybody that you've seen, you're going to picture yourself smiling at them. And imagine them smiling back at you. Okay, so that will help move you out of dorsal vagal. And then the third one, which is much more major, but is to get somewhere outside of your house, that you that where there are people that you can walk past with a smile on your face. So what you're doing is you're engaging your social engagement system. And connection is what brings us out of dorsal vagal. So if I can just go to the grocery store here, I know, I'm gonna see a lot of people, I can just try to make eye contact with one person or I can say hello to somebody or I can smile at somebody. And then I have more ability to connect. And it helps spring Mallard dorsal.
Those are great suggestions. And we know that connection does bring us out of dorsal and so even connecting with, I mean, just any connection, even texting. Um, it's not as effective because the eye contact is very helpful. But whatever you can do, we love microsteps. And so remember that connection is going to help move you out of dorsal. And you can connect
with a pet as well. That second idea you can imagine the face of a pet as well. That's a great idea. Mm hmm. So there's lots of smaller ways that you can do this, depending on how much and dorsal vagal you are, and what you have the ability to do.
Yes. Well, thank you so much for joining us. And if you You struggle with depression, you are not alone. We identify and are here in so many ways. And just know that there is always hope. I mean, I think that's anytime I think about depression, major depressive disorder, I think there is hope. And it is a dorsal state, and it will not last. So and if it does last for an extended period of time, we highly, highly suggest that you talk to your doctor and explore options such as medication. There is no shame in using all of the tools that we need when we have depression. That's perfect. Thanks again for joining us.
Thanks, Amy.
We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of The mending trauma podcast. Elaine and I are really grateful that you spend time with us each week we know you have a choice and that time is currency. We would love if you would share this episode on social media and tag us so we can reshare if you feel so inclined, go and give us a five star review wherever you listen to pod so that we can get the word out and help more people. We know that we are all working hard on our mental health and we wish you great success this week in implementing these new skills we'll check in next week.
