What is Polyvagal Theory? Understanding your nervous system

May 22
3 min read

By Lenka Bilik

If you have ever thought to yourself ‘I should be able to calm down’, ‘I don’t know why I shut down’ or ‘I’m just bad at coping’, Polyvagal Theory may hold important clues.

What is Polyvagal Theory? Understanding your nervous system

Polyvagal Theory is a framework developed by neuroscientist Dr Stephen Porges in the 1990s that helps explain how our nervous system responds to safety, danger, and connection. It is widely used in trauma-informed therapy, anxiety treatment and therapy with stress, eating difficulties, chronic pain and emotional overwhelm.

Have you ever noticed that when you are stressed, your thinking gets fuzzy? Or when you feel safe with someone, your body softens without you trying? That’s your nervous system at work. Polyvagal theory helps us understand that our reactions are not just psychological, they are biological.

Our nervous system is always asking the question of ‘Am I safe right now?’ It answers that question below conscious awareness, through body sensations, heart rate, breathing, muscle tension and more. Based on that answer, your nervous system shifts into different states.

The three main Nervous System states

Polyvagal theory describes three states that our nervous system moves through, throughout the day:

Safe & connected (Ventral Vagal State): this is when your system feels ‘safe enough’. You may experience calm but alert energy, an ability to think clearly, feeling social, open and present, and your digestion and breathing as ‘easy’. This is the state where we learn, connect, problem-solve and feel like ‘ourselves.’
Fight or flight (Sympathetic State): this is when your nervous system senses danger or high demand and it mobilises. You may experience irritability, anxiety or anger, a racing heart with shallow breathing, restlessness or a sense of urgency, trouble sleeping as well as strong urges to fix or control things. This state isn’t ‘bad’, it’s your survival system trying to protect you. The problem comes when we get stuck here.
Shutdown / freeze (Dorsal Vagal State): if your nervous system feels overwhelmed or that it can’t escape, it may move into shutdown. This can feel like numbness or emptiness, low energy or heaviness, brain fog or dissociation and feeling disconnected from yourself and / or others. This is another survival response - your system conserving energy when things feel too much.

So where does this come from?

Polyvagal theory builds on our understanding of the vagus nerve, a major nerve connecting the brain with the heart, lungs, gut and face. Porges’ work highlighted that this system isn’t just about relaxation - it also plays a key role in social engagement, emotional regulation and how safe we feel in relationships. In other words, connection and safety are biological needs, not ‘nice-to-haves’.

How Is Polyvagal Theory used in therapy?

A psychologist using polyvagal-informed work isn’t just focusing on thoughts, feelings and behaviours. They’re also paying attention to your nervous system state.

Therapy may include:

Understanding your patterns: for example, what anxiety feels like in your body, what shutdown feels like and what helps you feel more settled.
Building regulation skills: you may practice grounding techniques to help you experience safety and move out of shutdown when needed.
Building resilience in the nervous system over time: learning that you can feel stress and return to calm.
Using the relationship as part of the work: because safety in relationships is central to the nervous system, the therapeutic relationship itself matters. Feeling safe with another person is often part of the healing work.