As discussed previously, the state of fight or flight, controlled by the sympathetic nervous system, and the state of tonic immobility, controlled by the dorsal vagal nervous system, are both survival mechanisms and can be incredibly helpful. But both are supposed to be engaged short term. Ideally we want to live as much as possible of our life in the happy place controlled by the ventral vagal system, where we can eat, sleep and enjoy our lives to the full. It interacts with the hormones released by the endocrine system when the body is relaxed and calm and regulates cardiac output leading to engagement and disengagement with the social environment.

Unfortunately, many people today are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociation from their bodies and their self. Thousands more are suffering from chronically elevated levels of stress and dis-ease, a state of hyper-vigilance, leaving themselves open to infections and viruses as their immune system is operating at a reduced level. And cortisol is directly neuro toxic. It shrinks the hippocampus, so really stressed people have memory issues.

And unfortunately the more often people are subjected to stress or trauma, from the womb onwards in their lives, the more their brains rewire to anticipate needing to act from the hyper or the hypo place in order to survive. The space in between, the ventral vagal space, was named by Allan Schore as the window of affect tolerance. The more stress or trauma you have suffered, the more that window narrows. So what might not impact someone else sends you into a state of hyper-vigilance, or has you flattening yourself on the ground, striving to be unseen.

Much of the somatic work that I do with clients, is to first of all help them understand these mechanisms, and secondly to help them widen the window of affect tolerance again, so that the hyper and hypo survival mechanisms are only activated when truly necessary, rather than being learned default behaviours. This widening however can only happen when the client feels truly safe in the space, and a trauma informed approach to holding a safe space is what I will talk about next time.