Our Polyvagal World: How Safety and Trauma Change Us

by Stephen W. Porges

Introduction: What Is the Polyvagal Theory?

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How safe we feel is crucial to our physical and mental health and happiness.

When we feel safe (notice it says “feel” safe and not that we actually are safe—this is an important distinction we’ll come back to repeatedly), our nervous systems and entire bodies undergo a massive physiological shift that primes us to be healthier, happier, and smarter; to be better learners and problem solvers; to have more fun; to heal faster; and generally to feel more alive.

6 Trauma and Addiction

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But trauma is not defined by the event. Rather, it is a function of how our nervous system responds to it. And those responses can linger with us for a very long time.

shooting. Some people activate to fight or flee, while others completely shut down. Whichever way we respond is a natural and involuntary reflex, and ultimately not up to us.

Trauma is not defined by the actual event, but by how our nervous system responds to it. One more time: Two people can endure the same horror, and one can come out relatively unscathed while the other relives it every day of their life in every part of their body.

Our individual ability to endure hardship without it traumatizing us is our capital-R Resilience, and it’s different for everybody.

having higher HRV is associated with better performance on metrics such as reaction time.

HRV is actually a very accurate indication of our innate ability to handle stress and maintain homeostasis.

HRV—that is, how much our heart rate differs over a period of time—turns out to be a really good metric of our resilience and our ability to handle stressors such as traumatic incidents.