A clear walkthrough of polyvagal theory: the nervous system organized as a survival hierarchy. There's the social engagement system — facial expression, vocal prosody, the muscles that tune our ears — run by the ventral vagal nerve. There's the sympathetic system physicians know well: adrenaline, fight-or-flight. And there's the dorsal vagal, running below the diaphragm into the gut, aiding digestion when we're safe but pulling us into a shut-down, dissociated state under threat. All of these are adaptive. The trouble comes when trauma moves us into a "home away from home," where we spend too much time in sympathetic activation or shutdown.
Part of Roots of Care, a series on whole-person, trauma-informed primary care. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVtaeaNoZCQ4
