You've authored more than 400
peer-reviewed scientific papers and
literally created poly vagal theory.
It's sort of rare that you get to ask
Mike Tyson about how to throw a jab uh
or the founder of a really impactful
theory about what it means. So I guess
how do you describe polyagal theory to
someone who isn't familiar with it?
>> It's really quite simple. is that our
underlying physiological state affects
how we perceive the world, how we
interact with others and how receptical
we are to others engaging us. So in a
sense we we kind of got dropped into a
world where we think that all our
behaviors are intentional and but we
don't acknowledge that some days we feel
basically quite constrained and some
days we feel very energetic and
engaging. The bottom line is that we
have to start paying attention to our
own underlying physiological state
because it will help us navigate through
very a very complex world.
>> So we're responsive in that way to the
local ecology kind of like a plant.
>> We are a plant in a way. Exactly. We are
be we're detecting signals just like
plants. We're responding. The difference
is that with our great intelligence we
think it's all our uh we caused it all.
We create narratives of uh control when
in reality we're being swept away by the
challenges of the environment in which
we are in. And when we feel swept away
and overwhelmed at that point, we start
acknowledging things. But we don't
acknowledge it until it really gets over
over a certain threshold.
>> Why is that adaptive? Why have we
evolved to have that uh dynamic? because
the world was a dynamically changing
place. That's as simple as that. But
we've lost some of the I would say
innate and intuitive skill sets and
that's being aware of when our body
loses that resilience. And instead we
are trained by our culture to say you
can do it. You know, it's like
it's like I mean that's a quote from the
water boy. If you don't remember that
movie, it's but the issue is we live in
a world in which everyone thinks we can
suppress our feelings or we can get over
something when in reality our body is
just percolating and broadcasting
signals to our awareness and now we're
being told don't pay attention.
I understand why. And this is a a pivot
in the world of non-fiction,
communication, personal development, uh,
self-growth that I've been really
fascinated by the um, forget your
feelings, just work harder approach. I
understand why because maybe for a lot
of people, they're too at the mercy of
their feelings. They actually could do
with a little bit more agency. They
could do with I can do it. We're in a
meritocracy and we want to uphold
people. But as you say, it's denying the
real dynamic that we are a system that
is interacting with our environment.
>> There are certain things that you're
like skimming across the top of because
implicit in what you're saying is you
have some idea what being a successful
human being is. And and what I'm saying
is our markers of success may be
somewhat uh confounded because part of
being a successful person is feeling
good about being a person. And part of
the motivation beautiful
>> for working is to in a sense get over
those feelings of inadequacy. So we get
kind of twisted and tricked by all this.
And the other part is that we don't
truly acknowledge that as we numb our
body out or don't listen to it, we're
literally turning off neuroysiological
feedback loops. A feedback loop is the
part of us that monitors our functioning
and the part of us that now creates the
motor actions. And so in a way we are
destroying our own bodies. And those who
work hard acknowledge that. They said I
I'm I'm stressed out. I have burnout.
But there's a physiology to that and
that is in part we're not listening to
our body.
>> That's so wonderful. You're so right.
How many people are uh chasing success
to give themselves the sensation of
feeling good but in the pursuit of
achieving the success they have denied
themselves of the feeling of being good.
>> Yeah. Now, as you say that, listen to
what you said [laughter] and and there's
a circularity there and then you're, you
know, then you accumulate and listen,
you're in Austin, so you're you're in
the midst of a lot of what is now the
success track,
>> patient zero. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is
ground zero right here.
>> Yeah. And the issue is, yeah,
acquisition,
uh, wealth, influence, these are
wonderful things, but wonderful things
for what? So how do you leverage that
successes of acquisition of respect and
accumulation to become more to do more
to be uh you know it in a sense what are
our goals in life and this is kind of a
complicated and very personal question.
So our goals acquisition or our goals uh
curiosity learning or our goals
benevolent and compassionate? So, we can
set our goals, but they're not really
the here and now. We we as a species
like to do things that are different. We
like exploration. We like curiosity. We
like humor.
>> And you know, we like to meet people as
well, which is part of that whole bit.
So, you could accumulate resources
without having in a sense a type of
curiosity that enables our nervous
systems to thrive. So in a way the
manual for living a good life has been
mistransated. Can we use that term?
[snorts]
>> So brilliant. So great. Okay. What was
the actual problem that you were trying
to solve in 1994? Like what didn't fight
or flight rest and digest? What didn't
that explain?
>> Well, it gets okay. There are different
levels. So you're sitting across from me
at least uh uh metaphorically and you're
asking me those questions but there is
really decades before that as well like
who was I what were the types of
questions that I personally was asking I
was asking what was going on basically
behind the smiles of people what was
going on in their mind what was going on
what were they feeling I was asking
different level questions not levels of
what were your scores on your test or
how fast was your reaction action time.
I was kind of more interested in what
was going on inside of them and it but
didn't have really an area of science.
Science was really very uh mechanistic.
So behaviorism was big and then uh you
don't uh so behaviorism was to explain
everything. certain types of
physiological conditioning was to
explain everything and then the other
part what was going on in the mind like
psychoanalysis mental health that was
something else totally independent of
the body.
>> So the issue then was if something's
bothering you just sit on it don't don't
let it percolate. There was no
understanding that the way we feel which
was a kind of like was was anything
other than optional until something
catastrophic happens in people's lives
like loss of a loved one or a severe
injury or it's a a traumatic event where
uh someone is raped or mugged on the
street and suddenly everything is
different in their world and what used
to be comforting and inter engaging is
no longer there or what happened to me
was I got pneumonia
>> and uh I had been extremely a social
individual and I this was when I was a
tenure actually I was probably a full
professor at that time and uh the issue
was I I basically no longer could be
around crowds of people and start to
bother me my threshold and you see this
after COVID for many people they had a
chronic illness and they words for like
chronic fatigue syndrome and people are
literally marginalized when they say
they have that. Come on, get back into
the flow.
>> Everybody gets tired as they get older.
Everyone's a little bit underslept.
>> Yeah. Or fatigue. But those who suffer
really get very upset because they're
being dismissed and they're trying to
explain to you that they had a body that
listened to them and now their body
doesn't. And that's the interesting part
that I started to ask. Why doesn't your
body respond? What was going on? But
let's get back to your question going
back to 1995.
I was starting to do work in intensive
care units with preterm babies
and I was building this in a sense of
veagal related theory about
parasympathetic nervous system was very
important. I was basically trying to
describe the other side of the world,
the other side of stress. What are the
uh systems that calm you down? Where
does yeah let's say in a sense even
meditative aspects where do these
insights what state supports that and so
you had fight and flight and stress and
then you had this parasympathetic this
wonderful system that was a rest and
restore system and that was kind of a
interesting model until I worked in the
neonatal intensive care unit where you
have these preterm babies and of course
they have a fight-flight response
frequently high heart rates and tacoc
cardia. But you know what? Their
defensive systems were shutting down a
lot of this vagal slowing heart rate,
but slow so slow that it could actually
compromise their ability to get oxygen
to the brain. And I couldn't quite
understand what I later called the
veagal paradox. How could this same
nerve which was really associated with
uh basically uh good states health
growth restoration how could it kill you
in a sense how could a good in fact a
neatlogist wrote to me after I wrote a
paper in a in a journal and said maybe
too much of a good thing is bad
>> that was and that you know that was the
way most people think you know too much
of a good it shuts down and I said that
doesn't make any sense That's not how
systems are is all evolved or wired. And
I started to get deep into the anatomy
and then into the uh uh evolution
basically was called fogyny where you
look at species changes in autonomic
regulation. And then there was something
that became very mamalian something of
which we are mammals and we start to
have a very different type of autonomic
nervous system. a nervous system that
enabled us to be safe in proximity of
another. So was reading cues. So you
know when uh mothers talk to their
babies or if you have pets, do you have
a pet, a dog or a cat?
>> No, I am on the cusp of getting a dog
but not yet.
>> Okay. Yeah. Well, [snorts] you have
friends at least.
>> And
>> I treat them like dogs sometimes
actually. So that that probably works.
>> But when you don't you probably don't.
This is the secret of it. the way people
treat their dogs, they use very melodic
protic voices. It's the way that mothers
talk to their babies. And that's when I
started to realize that we as mammals
have a whole collection of it's called a
behavioral repertoire of broadcasting
signals of safety to others and those
seem to affect their physiology.
And so that's where this whole story
started was trying to identify what was
uniquely mamalian and using the pre-term
baby as this window of an opportunity to
see a system that was not fully
developed and I could see it coming on
board.
>> Can you just give me the adaptive
explanation for those three states as
you conceived them?
>> Sure. There there everything is adaptive
in the in the model. Nothing is wrong,
nothing is bad, nothing is pathological.
they're adaptive in certain contexts.
>> So in a sense they we have because the
system basically for uh vertebrates and
those are all the species of backbones
as they evolved into amphibia and then
basically mammals and reptiles broke off
at the same time and had basically have
parallel evolutionary pathways. The
mammal had a very unique pathway because
it needed to nurse. It needed the parent
to take care of it and it also when it
when it mature when it was born it
needed to be taken care of. Now the
other species laid their eggs and walked
away. So the what happened was that you
had a very special need to survive for
this type of vertebrate which we became
which we are part of mammals and they
needed to broadcast their underlying
physiological state in their
vocalizations in their facial
expressivity. They needed to broadcast
to signal. Everything's about now
signaling and other species didn't need
that because they could just survive.
they could scamper off and survive.
>> So you needed this new signaling system
and ironically what that signaling
system did was enabled social behavior
to act positively on her physiology.
So that's why I asked if you had a dog.
>> And when you have a dog, you realize
that the dog's engagement to you and the
way you vocalize with the dog is going
to be a great regulator of both your
physiological states and that made us
uniquely mamalian. And that's why dogs
and humans or if you look and see can
you see my cat?
>> Yes. Yeah, we will be able to.
>> Yeah. So the cat back there loves for me
to talk to her and if I don't talk to
her, she will talk to me. And that's her
broadcasting that she is there and she
wants this comforting back. So let's go
through the three. The old vertebrates
had a very primitive autonomic nervous
system. The system that regulated your
organs and that's fine. It had basically
a primitive vehicle system and it had a
bunch of chemicals like adrenaline or
chemicals like that in the body. So it
could mobilize and had a neural system
of calming. That neural system was not
merely acting on the organs. It was also
reflecting what the organs were doing.
And this becomes really critical here is
that we tend to focus on the brain neuro
regulation of the organs when most of
the neural traffic is the body sending
signals to the brain.
And that's what our culture has said
forget it. Yeah. Just don't attend to
it. So the Vegas initially was fine when
we were in we could rest and restore
with it in peaceful comfort. But when we
had a fightlight mobilization, we
interfered with that rest and restore.
>> But what happened now with mammals, they
had a very, let's say, nuanced veagal
system that became a veagal system that
enabled social engagement, enabled even
mobilization without fear, and we call
that play and dance. And we didn't
merely have to be immobilized and
intimate to in a sense have this
physiological calming. We could be
interactive. So the mammal basically had
not only a fightlight system and not
only a older dorsal the back of the
brain veagal system that regulate your
organs but also had this newer
vententral veagal that was locked to our
voice and the muscles of our face and
head. basically we were broadcasting
that visceral state and we were in a
sense encouraging others to co-regulate
with us to come closer. Yeah. So the
whole in a sense the and in sense in
Austin where you're seeing you know
startup businesses and all this the
question always will become the degree
of cooperation within a workplace and as
we become more and more remote that type
the social cues become more and more uh
separate from the actual interaction. So
the mammal had this remarkable system
that enable it or us to control our
fight flight and actually co-op it as
play and to control our immobilization
to support our health growth and
restoration by being safe in the arms of
another
>> and to also signal uh that we needed
help that we needed care that we needed
support.
>> Yeah, signaling is the magic word here.
We are a nervous system that is looking
for signals. Signals literally of safety
and connection. And what you really were
saying is so if you go and meet someone
and you engage them and have a drink
with them, you make face to face
contact, you smile with them and you
start now creating a almost a template
of what that person is like. you start
is inferring or is that a person you
would like to spend more time with or do
you look at your watch or your phone and
say I got to go and you're picking up
all those signals and those signals are
really signals of whether that person is
accessible to you and are you accessible
to that person or are you defensive?
>> Does that person in a sense make you
feel uneasy? You want to get out of
there and you may have those same
feelings doing podcasts.
have to say, "Wow, is the hour almost up
or what am I going to talk about or can
I move on?"
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. You say that we come into this
world with a quest to be safe.
>> Yeah.
>> Why?
>> Because we can't survive by ourselves.
So, I mean, it there's a function to all
this. So, it's not like it makes it
unimportant because it's pragmatic.
It's just how we evolve. We not we
didn't evolve as a independent
self-controlled or self-contained
system. We needed others in our world.
>> And for many especially those who
survive trauma, people have great
difficulty moving into their worlds or
they have difficulty moving into others.
So they often gravitate to horses or
dogs or cats. They want some type of
co-regulation from a social mammal. 95%
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o.com/modernwisdom
and modernwisdom a checkout. What does
feeling safe actually mean
neurologically?
>> It it means basically we can Okay, so
let me flip it on you. What does feeling
stress mean to you?
>> Um high heart rate, sweating,
um tightness in the body, ruminating
thoughts, intrusive thoughts, concern,
>> um lack of creativity,
>> lack of ability to access your
capacities.
>> Yes. Yes. Constrained capacity. Yep.
>> Right. So now let's flip it and say,
when do I feel I have options to access
my capacities? When do I feel
exploratory? When do I feel expansive?
>> That's a they're basically two different
physiological states. One supports our
physiology of health growth and
restoration and one is very constrained
and is costly to us. And we know that we
call it burnout or exhaustion. And we
also know that there are benefits. So
safety really is is the child of a
physiology that is homeostatic. is is
taking care of itself. That's why when
we start to block the feedback loops
because when we talk about homeostatic
or the body regulating itself, it has to
assess itself and act on itself. So,
it's a feedback loop. But if we numb our
own feelings, those feedback loops
become less effective.
>> What's the most powerful force of safety
in the human world?
>> Let's reframe it. What are the most
powerful signals
>> of faith?
>> And they would, you know, you you could
identify them. That would be maybe a
smiling face, uh, a a voice that's
protic
voices, melodic voices are powerful. And
just ask that crying baby who feels
isolated, out of control. and how
rapidly that baby will calm down when
the mother's if if the mother has a good
engagement, good voice. In fact, we
actually did research on this where you
kind of like disrupt the baby and then
you talk to the baby and see what
happens. And if the mother's voices were
more melodic, the baby's heart rates
dropped almost immediately. The mother
engaged without a melodic voice.
No way.
>> Yeah. So when you get your dog, you can
try this all out. [laughter]
>> Yeah, I will do. I'll sing.
>> I would say if you had a child or if you
had a spouse or a partner, you can try
it out as well.
>> Yeah, child child soon cometh. Just give
me I need a little bit more time on that
one. Okay. So, to to sort of recap to
recap where we're at, is it right to say
that your position is our ability to
connect with others is fundamentally a
biological state and not just a
psychological choice. Feeling safe
enables curiosity and empathy and social
engagement.
>> Yeah, I think that's quite accurate. I
would kind of reframe one word. I would
say our capacity to [snorts] which is
not necessarily our ability. So our
capacity
>> to connect with others.
>> Yeah. And so part of I view my goal in
life is to navigate in a let's say
complex world that has lots of signals.
So my capacities can be expressed. So if
I'm in a world that is too aggressive,
too noisy, too overwhelming, I can't
access my capacities.
>> Why do some people never truly feel safe
even when objectively everything's fine?
I think that's the greatest that was the
question that got me going [snorts]
because I said, you know, we use this
word safety and it's not like there's a
metal detector that's not going to make
me feel safe. It's something different.
And it's because our culture sees threat
and the removal of threat as obviously
being safety. It's not. Safety requires
signals just like threat. So it's not
like take away the signals of threat and
everything's fine. No, you can take them
away, but we really really want signals
of safety
>> and they will be uh you know watch
children playing uh and and actually you
think that like when we mobilize as
fight flight when you watch children
running in play they're still smiling
and when you look at them you feel good.
But if you see children running from a
school or something else, your body gets
a totally different response to that
signal because the faces are telling you
everything. So that was the part that
really got me going. This is now we're
in the 1990s because the nerves that
control the face, the smile, nerves that
control the intonation of her voice were
linked to how that mamlian Vegas was
working. So as the mamleian Vegas was
really sending signals of calming it was
triggering social engagement.
So it was like this is the broadcasting
part of what we can see physiologically
and the mammal social mammal when it
evolved it literally gave a window to
that underlying physiology. So we know
by people's voices and faces whether
they're safe to come to.
Do some people just
naturally in terms of disposition before
conditioning,
do some people require a different
dose of signaling in order to feel safe?
I've I've read a little about uh HSPs,
highly sensitive people. I'm trying to
think about how much of how much of
personality and how much of safety is
really nervous system state and how much
do people differ in terms of what it is
they need.
>> We could actually kind of build a model
and say before we think that it's a
locked in temperament or a personality.
Maybe it's a physiological state that
got retuned and got locked into this
more defensive mode. And so let's kind
of look at things optimistically. The
interesting thing or one of the
interesting things you're bringing up is
that if a person has a history of not
having safe individuals in that person's
history, when someone tries to engage
them even with protic voices and those
signals, they may actually react
adversely to it, especially if there's a
a real abusive trauma history. And you
can actually read what's going on in
their nervous system. The nervous system
is getting triggered and it hears that
voice, that face and it goes, "Wow."
Then the body starts feeling those
feelings inside the body and those
feelings for healthy I say healthy is
not the right word for atypical nervous
system are feelings you feel good. But
if those feelings of feeling good are
associated with being abused, what
happens? Mhm.
>> So you get the feeling and then the the
brain remembers says been there. This is
what happened to me. I'm out of the
room.
>> Sorry for interjecting. That feels a
little bit uh scenarian. That feels a
little behavioristy that we have this
stimulus response. What is it that we
have associated? Is that fair? Is that
fair for me to sort of add that little
bit of a twist to into how the
conditionings occur? So, so we have in
the sense of reflex which is no
cognition is necessary
>> and you talk with to me or I talk to you
or you you talk to your dog and the dog
just kind of relaxes. Uh that's a
reflex. It's not an awareness. Now the
body responds and so you have that
feeling. That's an awareness. Now that
awareness becomes conscious and then you
can associate that with good and bad
things.
>> Yes. Yes. So there are two different
parts of this sequence. One, my nervous
system has a propensity to react. I
can't change it. That's who we are.
>> You know, we we can get triggered. It's
like
this this reason I have a smile is that
my wife used to say to me, you should be
above it, you know. And I say I'm human.
I get triggered. We all get triggered.
>> Yeah.
>> And so the real issue is being triggered
is not the real issue. The issue is what
happens when you get triggered. And when
you get triggered, your body shifts
state. And what is your awareness of
that state? So when you get aware that
your body shifted state, what do you do?
Do you scream at the other person across
the table from you, or do you say, "Wow,
I got
people going say think you're weird, but
you say, "Oh, wow. I must have been
triggered. Where did that come from?"
>> Very few people have the patience to
stop, get in the way of that
physiological shift. They want to create
the narrative to get out of there.
>> What's interesting, you used the example
of when you got pneumonia and uh
preferred to be around smaller groups of
people, didn't want as much social
stimulus.
That that shows just how adaptive not
only across time, right, human
evolution, adapting to the environment,
creating these different capacities and
signaling that means that it's more
likely that you'll survive, but even
within a single organism's lifespan,
your your system had adapted to see an
old stimulus.
>> Yeah.
>> In a new light.
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's who we are.
You know, we're flexible species. And
the problem is that when we have things
like pneumonia or chronic fatigue or
long COVID, that flexibility gets
reduced. And that tends to be a shock to
many of us when it happens. And we the
the up part of it is that there's
pathways of rehabilitation. There are
ways in which you can signal the system
to slowly uh gain confidence in itself.
Again,
>> it feels I need I need to break the
fourth wall a little bit for a second,
so bear with me. Uh it feels very
timely to be speaking to you. So, you
probably won't be aware of this, but a
lot of the a lot of the audience will.
Uh, I released a a health vlog about uh
nine months ago or so, tracking a
journey that I'd been on from long
COVID, chronic fatigue, uh, lime, uh,
CMV, EBV,
uh, I lived in a house that had mold
with every different polymorphism that
you don't want in order to have mold
toxicity. Uh, heavy metal, like just
this laundry list of of of challenges.
It had meant that I was tired at 7:00 at
night every night. It meant that uh no
matter how much I slept, I never felt
recovered. Uh I hated the smell of
standing water. I couldn't stand
silence, but I also couldn't stand
music. This real sort of big mess.
>> We get to the back end of of last year
and I'd made a some good progress. I' I
I'd improved all while doing this,
right? bits of the brain that are
associated with word recall, working
memory, being in a good mood. All of
those were the ones that were being
slammed while I was trying to put on a
good show and be a professional for a
few million people a week and and and to
try and do this well. So that that felt
like a big tension. Uh I go and do a
tilt table test
>> in February.
>> I failed my tilt table test or succeeded
depending on how you looked at it. um 11
minutes full vasovagal syncopy fainted
uh heart stopped for 5 seconds. So for
the people that don't know this is a a
test for autonomic flexibility autonomic
response they strap you onto a table
you've got blood pressure cuffs
everywhere heart rate sensors on your
feet on your hands there's an IV in case
you faint and need to come back around
and after you've laid down and done some
breathing exercises they raise you up
>> to sort of 70°
>> and they see how your body responds.
something about that 70° angle that um
that your body doesn't like it. And
after 5 minutes, I felt a little sweaty.
I felt a little uncomfortable. I started
to feel a little bit sick. But I've done
a lot of meditation, a lot of breath
work. And I was like, "Right, okay.
Well, this is the time to apply some of
your meditation and breath work. You're
not allowed to move at all. You can't
wiggle your toes even a bit. You can't
move your calves. You're on this special
bed. you're all strapped in, not moving,
cuz you don't they don't want you to
help your circulation to to get a full a
fully valid test. So, I start breathing
through it and it gets a little better
and then it gets quite a bit worse and
then my vision starts to go blurry. It's
9 minutes in and then I start to sweat
and it's 10 minutes in and then the next
thing that I knew I was flat on the bed
and the nurse had come over me. this
small Filipino nurse. There was a really
lovely guy. He came over me and the
first sentence that came out of his out
of his mouth after I sort of came back
around was, "Okay, so your heart stop.
Your heart's no worries, buddy. Your
heart stop." I was like, "Hey, dude. If
I've just if I've just passed out, okay,
I don't want the first words out of your
mouth when I come back around to be your
heart stop." Um, anyway, all of this
together, I've got about as
strong of a personal investment in your
work and in the world of nervous system
regulation as as I think I could. This
has been unbelievably personal to me
over the last
>> two years and specifically the last nine
months. And you're catching me today.
>> This week coming up, I'm going away on
my first ever meditation retreat for 7
days. And a big part of the motivation
for that has been to try and get my uh
autonomic system back in check to be
gentle with myself. So anyway, I just
appreciated you opening up about your
about your case with the pneumonia thing
because it it it felt like it gave me
license to talk about
>> license to talk to me about anything. So
the the interesting part is first of all
it's a slow journey back. Don't I I
thought we could just throw a switch. I
had optimism about these things as well.
basically listen to your body. It is
telling you things. I will I will tell
you a similar story when I was getting u
a heart checkup. They did they were uh
basically put a IV in me and the IV
start to get loose and so I started to
uh told them that they say twiddle it
and I went to vasovagal syncopy as well
and they they then looked at me and they
said what are you scared of? I said not
scared you're basically tweaking with my
bowel receptors.
>> Yes. basically are playing with the
blood pressure receptors but they don't
think of it in that way.
>> So they see like this this autonomial
which is what they're looking for
>> uh with that and they uh actually for
many of the people who fail those tests
they start they have a broad uh let's
say array of symptoms and they tend to
be treated by the medical community as
if there's nothing wrong with them yet
these symptoms keep coming out. What I'm
saying to you is be patient. Your
nervous system is on a recovery track.
And long COVID is the story that I want
to tell you is a metaphor for you to
think about. You survived a pathogen.
You had COVID and your COVID is for some
people lethal. As you know, and the
other part is that when our body wins
the war kills the pathogen, it doesn't
always inform the entire nervous system.
>> You know what? You know what my Filipino
friend said to me? He said, "Um, this is
what I do. I'm a technician for the the
tilt table test, and prior to CO, I
would maybe do between three and five of
these a month."
>> Yeah.
>> And now I do between three and five of
these a day.
>> Wow. I think long CO or the consequence
of the pandemic have been so
underestimated. I've just completed a
study on long co. I was part of a
interesting uh government funded project
uh basically doing it remotely and we
basically the intervention was a veagal
nerve stimulator um which was developed
by a colleague of mine and another
intervention a sound intervention that I
had developed with a with a basically
it's called sonacea or son sonic
augmentation technology it's a new stuff
that I've developed with a colleague
called ethne gori and what it does first
of veagal nerve stimulator you know what
it does
>> it's sending a signal to the vagus and
it's basically trying to tell the vagus
that everything is okay in your body and
if it tells you that then it may start
connecting to the organs of your body
and you feel better so it's a signaling
system it's not regulating the motor
part of the vagus is sending a signal in
the sound does the same type thing it
basically sends signals of literally
that you're floating in a rhythmic sea.
>> So it's just like think of the tilt
table but not like that. Think of it as
rocking.
>> Mhm.
>> Slow.
>> More like a cradle than a tilt table.
>> Yes. Yes. And we all have that visual
image like babies. Kind of like coming
away and floating in space but with no
fear of falling off. And basically the
sounds had the same effectiveness
>> as the veagal nerve stimulator. was very
profound in terms of what it did over a
4-week period. And so basically we had
massive effects on all basically all the
parameters we had were measuring on they
were all uh questionnaires in symptom
arrays. There were no uh blood samples
but symptom of rays of how people felt
and whether they had fatigue and whether
they were anxious or depressed and
basically all the indicators improved in
a very let's say powerful way which
provided the whole model whether it's a
veagal nerve stimulator or the sound is
that if you know what the signal profile
is that your nervous system is looking
for
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wisdom. Why would it be the case that a
disregulated nervous system
would cause people to feel more anxious,
people to feel more depressed, them to
have lower energy, them to be Why would
this huge suite of things occur? First
of all, let's let's let's tap you on the
back and give you a congratulation for
observing and calling out that it is a
suite of systems that are effect. It's
not one it's not really is
>> not just tired, not just sad, you're not
just and it's not just you have poor
sleep. It's not that your gut isn't
working. It's not that you have tacoc
cardia. It's everything about your
autonomic nervous systems regulation. So
it's a regulatory disorder and we have
difficulty in I say we I'm talking about
modern medicine in seeing a system and
seeing the system and its function. The
system is disregulated. It doesn't it's
not coordinated in the way that it
should and and we're picking up on it.
And so the issue is yes and I'll give
you a word that fits in with all this.
Your body is in a chronic state of
defense.
It's as simple as that. It's like the
you killed the pathogen, but that
information, the success of that war
didn't retune how your nervous system
worked.
>> So, it's still prepared for war.
>> Oh, you're locked into this price. Oh,
that's interesting. And so in the same
way as a uh traumatic emotional event or
physical event,
>> a traumatic pathogenic event,
>> yeah,
>> does something similar
>> is all the same.
>> But the difference is when something has
occurred consciously, you know, people
can talk back to, well, I got into that
car crash, so getting into cars, it
makes sense that that would make me feel
nervous. Now, the same thing we don't
draw because it's it's below the
conscious threshold. We don't draw the
same analogy to
>> pathogens
>> because we're numb to our body. We don't
have the language. So, our narrative
isn't saying, "Look, it doesn't matter
whether it was a car wreck or a pathogen
or whether someone humiliated me in
public. It doesn't matter. My body
reacted to it as if I was going to die."
>> And this is what bodies do when they
think they're going, they don't think
when all the signals are that that death
is eminent. Imminent. So I actually uh
uh gave a couple recent talks I call
sentinel trauma and that is what the how
does the body react to the single events
of mortal threat and I'm actually saying
that COVID can be a mortal threat to the
nervous system and that's the
consequence it gets hardened as a
response pattern and you're you're
living through it. I I I would say
optimistically
uh these you're doing well and even your
curiosity so where you're going with it
is and you're going to end up on that
journey about understanding about the
body's own feedback loops and how they
got challenged and that's exactly what
they're assessing in the uh tilt table
test. They're assessing whether the
feedback loop is working on your blood
pressure,
>> meaning your vascular bed, the vagus,
the sympathetics, you know, blood flow.
Now, I will tell you one of my exercises
every morning.
>> Yes.
>> I have a back swing, basically a tilt
table in the basement. Yeah. Ever see
one of the back swings? So, it tilts
down like that and you can go upwards
like that
>> to in like an inversion table.
>> Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't go 100. I can't
rotate, but I can go like 70 degrees
down, 70 degrees up.
>> Yep. Yep. Yep. I have seen that. Why?
>> I'm challenging my bowel receptors. I'm
doing a neural exercise on them every
morning.
>> How long are you doing that for?
>> I'm doing first of all, I tilt downward
and do basically situps and about
basically about 10 five minutes or so of
exercises in the inverted position. Mhm.
>> Then I do tilts on each breath, 30 of
them.
>> They're quite rapid. You would pass out.
>> Yeah, I bet I would.
>> Yeah. And but I'm not passing out. And
look, I'm 81, so it's not like I What
I'm saying is I'm trying to stay here
for a while. And if I were totally
seditary, my body might think it's uh
you're too old to do those things.
>> How fascinating. Okay. I I I think this
is important to get into. Across all of
your research, what interventions have
you found to be most impactful for
improving autonomic function?
>> Okay, so first of all, if we go back,
we're going to go back into the '9s. I
actually was playing around with the
tilt table. I had a motor on it where I
rocked people up 21° and then back down
to horizontal. It took 7 seconds up. So
1 2 3 4 5 6. So you can start feeling
that it's kind of like a very nice
rocking
even slower than what you're doing much
slower.
>> Yeah.
>> And suddenly no one wanted to get off
the table.
>> That was the first. So the research
showed that I could entrain rhythms
associated with literally vascular bed
activity. I could actually get into that
system and exercise those. But the
subjective response, how people felt was
to me the most interesting part of it.
No one wanted to get off the table.
>> And I never forgot that. And that's when
I started to develop the acoustic one. I
was mimicking what the tilting was
doing.
And so the the issue is that the
acoustic interventions, I've developed
two of them. One has been used by a few
hundred thousand people now. It's called
the safe and sound protocol. And what it
does is basically mimic the acoustic
features of a mother's voice. So it's
broadcasting calmness and engagement.
And they're finding that it works quite
well with, you know, pediatric
populations. But the trauma population
people have used it with other therapies
and it's been uh intertwined with EMDR
and with uh various uh cognitive
behavioral therapy and all forms of it.
It says to make the client more
accessible to the therapy.
>> So what it's doing is priming a system
to be more connected with the therapist.
So what I'm doing so both and then the
new one I developed which is called uh
sonic augmentation technology and the
intervention was called rest and restore
protocol and that was dealing really
with visualized basically floating in a
wonderful sea without having any need to
connect you feel so safe you don't have
to look for someone you don't have to
listen you're just there basically I
called it stealth meditation
And when you deal with when you deal
with it, meditation is too hard. Okay.
And and the issue is if you deal with
meditation for traumatized individuals,
they run out of the room.
>> Yeah.
>> Because that immobilization now is a
signal to the nervous system of
vulnerability.
>> Fascinating. So, okay. You've managed to
isolate frequencies of a mother's voice.
I think it's like 1500 to 3500 hertz. Is
that right?
>> You read real well. Yes.
>> Can I say I do my research also?
obviously like unbelievably personally
invested in getting this right. Um but
then that's why uh layering it into
music making the connection that that's
enough to signal safety cues to the
>> nerves. Yeah, but it's actually even
broader. So anything it's like 500 to
3,000 will be fine or
>> y
>> uh basically it enables the frequent
actually all mammals even little mice
like animals they vocalize in a certain
area of the auditory spectrum that is
very similar if you looked at their full
spectrum. So dogs, cats and horses
overlap with our uh band of social
communication. So you can calm a dog or
a horse or a cat by talking to them.
>> Is that part of the reason that we have
>> Yes.
>> collaborated and partnered with those
animals? So a that's so [ __ ] cool.
Okay. So part of the reason that humans,
cats, and dog cats, dogs, and horses,
>> yeah,
>> have bonded so well is that our
frequency of calm
>> when vocalized
>> Yeah. is in a similar range to the one
that they use.
>> Absolutely. That is so cool.
>> It's totally amazing. It's so
interesting to watch how people talk to
their pets. It's like they have a
manual, you know? It's like,
>> have you ever seen uh there's a a video,
a short video of a a golden retriever
and there's two hands down in front of
it. It's on a couch somewhere and the
golden retriever is going from dad to
mom. And with dad, the golden retriever
is used to play fighting. So he bears
bears his teeth and sort of pretend
bites at the hand as he's putting the
hand down. And then when he goes to mom,
he just rests his chin on the top of a
hand. But the dog does it two seconds,
two seconds, two seconds, two seconds,
bite, rest, bite, rest, bite, rest. And
um I just thought that was it's so
funny. It's so funny how um quickly
adaptive that that is to be able to have
>> there. Listen, there's my cat does
something similar. My cat likes likes to
mouth me, my hands, not my wife's.
>> It's okay. So, if that if this is the
case, right, and safety cues can be cued
through uh auditory um input. Why not
just play this music all the time? If
it's that simple, why not just play the
music permanently? Okay. Interesting.
And so I had that idea and I decided to
play it in a preschool to see what would
happen.
And I was playing in the preschool and
guess what? The kids were talking to
each other. They were gravitating near
the speakers and they were very
socialized. I played the same music
without the algorithm uh modulating it
the way I wanted. And they were they
were solitary. This very solitary. And I
played other music and nothing happened.
[snorts] So the the part was that our
nervous system recognizes it. But here
is the problem and this is a massive
problem. And I thought that we're just
there sitting there waiting for love
sounds and sounds of connection to occur
and wouldn't the world be so much nicer?
M
>> I forgot that if you come out of a
traumatized environment,
someone who is broadcasting those same
frequencies is a predator to their
nervous system.
So the history, their own history
retunes them and keeps them out of
social settings. And again in the world
that we both live in, we know people who
have had very bad relationships and we
also know that they talk about finding
the right person but you know after
meeting them there will never be a right
person.
>> They're because their nervous system is
not broadcasting signals of
accessibility.
>> That's interesting. Okay. So
[clears throat]
what about um Vegas nerve stimulators?
That's something else that you mentioned
earlier on. How much is real and how
much is bunk with regards to that?
>> Oh, I mean number one, it's real. Uh the
question is for what and what reason are
you do you want to use it? A lot of
people want to use these things because
they think it's a simple way out that
[snorts] they can change the context of
their life by stimulating a nerve. And
the answer is the nervous system is
smart. If you stimulate the system to be
calm and accessible and you abuse it,
the nervous system will cut off that
feedback. It will just adjust. So terms
like hacking the nervous system is not
the right concept. You want to make the
nervous system available and then you
want to exercise it to expand its range
and increase its flexibility.
>> What does exercise it, expand its range,
increase its flexibility look like? For
me, it's like challenge it and let it
let it calm down. Challenge it again.
It's like my oscillating tilt in the
morning. I'm challenging the system. So,
one might say this is stressing the
system, but it's exercise if I allow it
to recover. So, the issue is I'm aware
that if I stress the system, it's going
to change. It's going to pull off its
inhibitory or slowing up aspect. So, the
heart rate will go up, but then my heart
rate will come back down. and now I can
do it again. It's like saying to people
who have high heart rate and they're
concerned about exercising, their system
has been retuned and they're locked into
a fight flight. And if they now try to
exercise, they can get into a syncopy
situation where the the body just can't
adjust. It can't give anything else more
out and it just will shut down.
>> So we have a real problem in how we
conceptualize even our own physiology.
So it's not only our heart rate level,
it's the neuro regulation of our heart
rate. And that's where heart rate
variability
uh actually what you don't know is that
in the 60s I was the first person to
quantify heart rate variability.
>> That's something that I do know because
I did my reading.
>> Ah that was your first paper, right?
1969.
>> Right. But here's the the real you're
you're you're on my good list. uh so
uh so the real issue is I'm
extraordinarily disappointed in the dis
in the area of heart rate variability
because what I was working on was once I
observed the phenomenon the question was
what is causing what were the underlying
mechanisms what was I really measuring
and if I could measure it better and it
says get closer to the neural
intervation then the measurement would
have much greater and better generaliz
more useful
>> and What happened is that it went back
to very descriptive. So like I have a
Fitbit and the Fitbit is just giving me
measures of uh variance which is a
descriptive statistic and I worked on
this for decades to develop technologies
to pull out the specific veagal
influence in the heart rate activity and
that's basically swept under the carpet.
>> Speaking of that, what do you make of
resonance breathing?
>> Well, there's something very interesting
there. uh it it well first of all there
is a when we start understanding that
the brain stem's respiratory rhythm is
not just affecting heart rate but
affects other things we start getting
into this notion of what would be called
resonance I have a very simplistic view
of it I think a lot of people think that
a lot so the theory is really that
there's individual differences in what
your resonant frequency is I don't think
is that tailored that neatly. I think
our bodies like certain slower
rhythmicities
>> and and when that's even like with the
music I was really working on. I don't
think it has to be as that specifically
designed and with resonant frequency
they were going at 0.1 hertz or 10
seconds.
>> I think the body wants to gravitate
slower. Yeah.
>> And it wants to go to like 0.12 which is
really what I was tilting people at.
Actually, I think it wanted to be moved
out of our normal breathing frequency.
It wants correct a different experience.
Yeah. It wants a a frequency that is
closer to our normal vascular
oscillation. And breathing is tends to
be quite a bit faster than a vascular
oscillator.
>> My uh I I I did a bunch of assessments.
I I love this product. It's called
M.alth. And um it's it's a HRV resonance
breathing uh lamp. And you you grab this
thing. Anyway, my uh my frequency is 4.5
breaths a minute.
>> It's 4.5 and um
>> that's good.
>> That's that's where I get the highest
>> oscillation between top and bottom.
That's where that's where mine is. Okay.
So, um veagal nerve stimulator is good
but being used in the right context.
Resonance breathing uh interesting and
may may also play a good role.
>> Also good. But remember what you were
doing. You were doing a lot of
introsception with your resonant
breathing. Y
>> you were not only looking at what the
numbers are, you were assessing what was
optimal, how you felt,
>> how you're really closing the loop of
the sensory part with the motor.
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and modern wisdom at checkout. I guess
that's a really good question. So,
there's a ton of different
interventions, uh, humming, chanting,
um,
a variety of other interventions that we
could use, but
how much of what we're trying to do
requires some relational aspect between
us and another person because there's
the physiological intervention, uh, vag
nerve stimulator,
um, using a tilt table up and down, uh,
breathing at a particular rate, but and
that uh perhaps um stresses and then
relaxes or relaxes and opens up
tolerance for your nervous system in
that window. Is that important beyond
just the interception thing to say,
"Hey, and now I'm going to start to
relate to the world around me like a a
social exposure therapy or nervous
system exposure therapy within that
newly calmed window."
>> Yeah. Well, that's exactly how the safe
and sound protocol is being used in
clinical interventions. It's not being
used by itself. It's being used to make
the client more accessible to the
intervention, which may be the therapist
uh herself or himself is maybe what the
actual the stimulus may make the
therapist more effective.
>> Mhm. So you're uh engendering a state.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is one of calm. Uh would you would
it be fair to say sort of a broader
flexibility within the nervous system
for a little while?
>> Absolutely. You're creating a window of
flexibility
>> of tolerance and then in that newly
expanded window that's going to exist
for a little time,
>> you're going to expose yourself to some
interventions
>> and then once that's closed off, the
goal is to increase that window of
tolerance from state to trait.
>> Yeah. Well, this is exactly what uh
several therapists are using the safe
and sound protocol with with
extraordinarily sensitive people. So, go
back to your initial interest which is
on hyper sensitive people
>> which is something you brought up. They
found or some of them found that just
listening for uh let's say a few seconds
or a minute uh has had effect but they
tend to react. They found that if they
start to expand over days how much they
listen to, they're creating a sense with
a tool, they're opening up the window
for longer and longer periods.
>> Yep. Yep. Okay. Uh why do singing and
humming and chanting commas so much?
>> It's a very easy answer. Uh it's because
they're they're recruiting. I could
actually say why does eating or
ingestion commas?
uh you have enough resources
to uh sit down and have this food that
suggests that there's not a threat.
Also, it's a reinforcement that there's
calories so you're not in starvation
mode.
>> No, let too smart. You have to go back
there.
>> It's a problem I have all the time. See,
it really is.
>> Well, yeah. No, you're trying to You're
building your narrative when all you
need to be was a simple observer and
that is you watch your baby suckling.
Okay. And what you realize is that the
nerves and the neuromuscular control of
suck, swallow, and breathing, that
coordination are the same of social
expressivity.
It's the same thing. So we're essence
using the same neural system when we
ingest than when we are in interacting
with others. And this becomes really I
in some of my talks I say we we try to
share ingestion but not digestion. And
digestion is a private matter. It's a
thorosal vagus. Ingestion is the
vententral Vegas which is our social
engagement system. So we say let's get
together and have something to eat.
That's a social act. And in fact, if we
start tracking the history of society,
ingestive practices or rituals,
literally are part of the history of
community.
You know what's uh interesting? I had a
a communication expert, a guy called uh
Chase Hughes on the show a couple of
weeks ago and he deals in micro
expressions and body language and and
and some interesting things. And he had
one insight around uh people who are
feeling uh anxious and uh unsafe. He
says that they tend to keep the inside
of their arms in close. They don't want
that brachial vein to be exposed. But
one of the other things I was I was um
got him to break down a killer who was
being sentenced. This guy this guy that
had done some pretty heinous crimes. and
he highlighted that as the uh sentence
was being given to him and the judge was
reading out what he' done and and and
sort of giving him his his his dressing
down. He was there and he his tongue
came out just a tiny little bit licked
his lips and then pushed back in. And I
said, "What's what's going on there?"
And he said, "Well, it's a vanity thing.
uh uh moistening the lips makes you look
better. But also as a baby who is
preverbal, the first no that you have is
because it's pushing whatever is in your
mouth, maybe a nipple out of your mouth.
And he he had that as the the a human's
first no. And I have no idea if it's
true, but I thought it was really cool.
>> All these things can be true, but there
are other parsimmonious strategies.
uh if you're getting a sentence are do
you think you're your mouth will be
drier than if you're getting an award?
So it can be really the body's uh
dehydration at that the the adaptive
reaction is to kind of relubricate your
your orifice.
>> Um I think
>> relubricate your orifice indeed. Yes.
>> Yeah. Okay. That's another point because
they they Anyway, another another time.
[laughter] But let's let's go to this
this bit. This is for me. I basically
talk about this is accessibility when
the arms pull out.
>> Mhm. Mhm.
>> Okay. That's showing the vententral
side. And like when my cat My cat loves
to do that. That That's not a normal
posture for a cat, but she loves because
she likes her belly to be rubbed. She
wouldn't be doing that if she was
underneath a foreign parked car out on
the street or a stranger.
But this is really we hold in we protect
we protect the vententral side. So the
issue of the evolutionary history is the
vententral side is a side of
vulnerability to injury and and it
becomes how we protect ourselves versus
not. So part of the bracing is symbolic.
I if I were to sit like this, you'd have
a different interpretation than if I
were like this.
>> What's the biggest myth about anxiety
from your perspective?
>> Anxiety is the body being in a defensive
state. Simple as that. We don't need the
word anxiety. We don't even need many of
the words that we associate as emotion.
[gasps] The characteristics of anxiety
are we're mobilized. Why are we
mobilized?
Now, what people like to say, I'm
mobilized because I have to get
something done. But what we notice is
that quote anxious people, it doesn't
matter if they get it done. If they get
it done, they're still anxious. So
that's just the narrative of how they
are explaining their feelings.
So the myth about anxiety is that it's
outside of us
when it really is we're really
broadcasting our physiological state. H
I guess a lot of people may feel and
obviously very self-s serving um they go
through periods of life where new
lower tolerance periods lower tolerance
uh abilities with regards to how much
stress they can put up with how much
energy they've got their startle
response their level of ambient anxiety
uh their capacity to deal with stress
and change and uncertainty and ambiguity
and where that gets constrained.
>> Yeah.
>> What's the difference between somebody
who gets locked in from that situation
and somebody who ends up bouncing back
and how much how much resilience can be
reinherited after it's potentially being
damaged.
>> Okay. So, you're living through a
recovery phase of post uh long co. So,
you know exactly that your range of
resilience is different than what it was
precoid.
>> Correct. But you also know that it's
getting greater than it was immediately
after COVID or during CO. So you have a
trajectory that you can assess. So the
the part of it is that uh we tend to
think that if we're not flexible,
we're not trying hard enough. And the
issue is we have to understand what it
is that is uh implementing the
constraint on us. Our nervous system
wants to blame something outside of us.
It tries to blame uh let's say
colleagues or bosses or spouses or let's
say fiscal demands or political issues.
It tries to create a whole set of other
issues to externalize feelings that are
really being generated inside our body.
I'm not saying that the external ones
aren't real. They are real. But the
issue is uh it's not that they're not
real or not that they are real. It's how
we deal with them. So we can't solve the
problems. We can't navigate in the
complex world if our body's in a state
of defense. So what I've been working on
is this whole idea of what optimizes our
ability to utilize or gives us the
access to our capacities. And that
should be really the real question we
should be asking not what is your
capacity but what gives us access to our
capacities. So what you experience and
are experiencing is that the capacities
that you know that you have
>> were being compromised and that creates
a conundrum. you don't understand why or
how you want it to be fixed. And the
answer is the nervous system is really
broadcasting a message that those
capacities are not accessible. It's not
that they haven't been taken away, but
they're just not accessible. So the real
question is what enables them to be
accessible. And that's where we move
into the concept that our physiological
state how we start the conversation. Our
physiological state is really giving the
uh boundary conditions a permission for
these capacities to be expressed. But
the problem is when it's giving us
constraints, how do we reverse that? And
that is that's part of our whole
dialogue. And that is it's all going to
end up with signaling the nervous system
that it's basically okay to come out.
and play again. [snorts]
>> It, you know, it's almost like the, you
know, it's almost like, is it safe
enough to come outside? You know, it's
like a horror movie. Uh, our nervous
system wants to be reassured. And this
is difficult because we do not know the
signals. Our culture is horrible with
signaling our nervous system. Just think
[clears throat] about the traumatic
events of schools with mass shootings.
And the solution is give guns to
teachers and principles and put metal
detectors. [laughter] Now what is that
doing to the nervous system of these
children?
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> I mean it's not like metal detectors
aren't useful and having someone with a
gun may be very adaptive in in complex
situations, but those are profound
signals to a developing nervous system.
It's so interesting how because people's
nervous system states aren't anywhere
near as visible as pretty much anything
else. If you if you had dirty dirty
drinking water and that impacted uh the
way that a child's digestion worked or
if you had uh loud music and it was
obvious how distracted they were, if you
can see stimulus and response quite
easily, the the fact that the push back
against that intervention would be quite
obvious. What we don't see, for
instance, like are humans built to see
uh assassinations live streamed on X,
you know, within minutes of it
happening, posted around the world? Are
we supposed to watch uh movies and car
crashes and and you know,
>> well, we you know the answers. You know
the answers. Of course
>> the but the question is you you start
with a very interesting and very
important question and that is if our
nervous systems were visible and I'm
saying they are to much more of an
extent than you think.
>> Yep. They because people's faces
broadcast, their voices broadcast, their
muscle tension broadcast.
>> Can you e explain what a uh low
tolerance nervous system expressing
person and a high tolerance nervous
system expressing person? How would they
show up differently?
>> Okay, they first of all, the face would
be flat and you've seen flat faces,
especially the upper part of the face.
The lower part you have much more
control and so you can make false
smiles, but the upper part tells you
really truthful emotions or feelings.
The other one is intonation and again
this is from your seat as a podcaster
when it when you're uh
interviewe
is has a uh a monotone voice or high
that's a high pitch voice. It doesn't
show any flexibility. It's just
broadcasting to your ear and to your
body anxiety.
Uh so they're broadcasting their
physiological state. And I think when
you brought up your question about
anxiety, it is
know spend well it's not it's a
rhetorical question. If you spend time
with someone who's highly anxious,
there's no doubt that your body is
feeling their anxiety.
>> And what are you detecting? What are the
things that you feel? You basically say,
I don't want to be around this person.
that is you make a global statement and
you try to distance yourself. You
haven't really uh he says uh gave the
simple answer the physiological state
that that person is in is broadcasting
that state to me and it's bleeding all
over me.
>> Yep. Yep.
>> And and so what it does is it changes
our responsibility
in the world that we are in. We feel as
a species that we can say whatever we
want. It's all I shouldn't say it
doesn't matter how we say things. It's
what we say is important. And I'm saying
it's how we say it becomes as important
or more important.
>> How we utilize this wonderful apparatus
vocalization.
>> Okay. How do you advise people to
increase their window of tolerance and
build safety practically? Then we've
talked about a variety of in
interventions. What's something that's
uh high compliance, high impact?
>> Well, you actually brought up things
that people are doing. They're working
on breath. I would say when they do
breath, they start really working on
their own internal feelings of the
breath. So, they're helping the feedback
loops become uh more enhanced. I think
you know like resonance breathing is is
powerful. Yoga breathing is powerful. I
think part of what's missing again even
in the world of let's say elite athletes
and exercises people are not saying as
you exercise go into the exercise and
feel your body responding to it
you know so we put on a television while
we on treadmills we don't take the
exercise as a moment of zen
>> why is that important why is it
important to feel the thing that's
happening why is it not enough to just
do the
Ah, this is where the nervous system
comes in. If we're not feeling it, we're
in a down reggulating the feedback loop
of the feelings of the sensory
information coming in. We're dampening
the sensory information and I don't
think we appreciate the I would say the
power of what sensory information does
to our brain. And so even like with the
uh concept of the vagus which has a lot
of press 80% of the fibers of the vagus
are sending sensory information to the
brain. 80%. It's a it's an internal
surveillance system of our body. Our
body craves that information. So are you
suggesting that the because 80% is going
Vegas up and only 20% is going brain
through Vegas down.
that by paying more attention to the
breath as you're doing resonance
breathing to the sounds as you're doing
safe and sound protocol to your body as
you're exercising playing or dancing
that you're uh opening up the aperture
uh inside of your mind to pay attention
to that 80% that's coming back.
>> I'm saying it's not even paying
attention, it's allowing the feedback
loops to complete themselves. This is
all metaphoric by the way. There is
absolutely as far as I know no research
on this but is in a sense the whole uh
uh I would say underlying or implicit
theory behind meditative work meditative
breath uh that is that we can literally
travel or body scans where people
literally try to travel within their
body
>> that it may be sound like it's kind of
weird or woo woo but think about what
you're doing you're allowing the neural
circuits to send information into areas
of your brain to have a degree of
awareness and then to act on that to or
allow I would say act on it may be
merely be to be more patient and more
reduce your own muscle tone. So we think
of activity as skeletal motor but some
of our activity is visceral motor our
organs and cranial motor like the
muscles of our face is we have to start
to appreciate these different sources of
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How uh how important do you think
metabolic support is to provide a window
of tolerance to sematic interventions
>> in terms of mitochondria that or is that
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and and
>> Oh, I I think it Okay, now we start
talking personal information. Okay. So,
I had um um let's say I had radiation
and I had prostate cancer and I had
treatments and the treatments really
wiped me out and they wiped me out so
much that I couldn't walk up a flight of
steps and [snorts] I you know I just was
gone
>> and um in fact we went to Greece and I
couldn't even go to the banquet. We were
at my wife was talking at a conference
and the conference was on physiology of
stress. She's an endocrinologist. She by
the way she's the person who discovered
the link between oxytocin and social
behavior.
>> Sue Carter, that's my wife. So she uh
basically talked to the organizer who
was a very famous stress physiologist
and said, "What's the matter with
Steve?" You know, Steve
wasn't going to come. And so he said,
"It sounds like mitochondria.
Okay. And and then we talked to someone
else and we got the answer. The answer
was there are supplements that kind of
signal the mitochondria to come out and
play again.
>> And the the one I took was called LC
carnitine. It's it's it's off over the
counter. And I was now I couldn't go
even walk a flight of steps or walk to
my office. I took that and the next day
I did two miles on an elliptical. So it
was a switch change and actually it may
be helpful to you as you recover from
long COVID. So what it is doing is
signaling the mitochondria
to and the and the ATP production is
basically saying come out and be
productive again.
Right? So there is uh could it be the
case that you could be doing the work
doing the work um from a [snorts]
>> yeah you would be metabolically
incapable of the work having any impact.
>> Bingo.
>> Yeah. And the issue is you need certain
resources. So you need the the nerves
have to communicate. And there's another
thing about like neurotransmitters are
part of that and we haven't discussed
that at all. But I will tell you that
for I'll say decades I've been taking
lecithin which is a has
phosphatilylcoline a precursor for
acetylcholine because acetylcholine is
the uh used in bagel nerve transmission
and a lot of other neurotransmission
and I've been taking and fish oil. So
I've been taking a lot of precursors
that are useful in neurotransmission.
So which is yeah
>> I'm I'm interested in
the the sort of journey or what happens
if someone goes from having this narrow
window of tolerance to regaining safety
again. Why is it that the nervous system
seems to oscillate between hypoarousal
and to hyper arousal?
>> Okay. what you have and actually I I got
an email from someone from a a physician
from the UK who says the letter start I
have a client who's suffering from the
poly vagal syndrome which I had no idea
what he meant but I read through it and
what it really was exactly what you're
saying moving from hyper to hypo and
being poorly regulated in between that's
because access to that vententral Vegas
is not there so the system goes in one
direction then goes in the other. And
when you have a vententral veagus, it's
kind of like a choreographer. It creates
it enables us to repurpose fight flight
into play. Repurpose immobilization into
intimacy and restoration.
So it's like it's like this social net
that's over us and when it's there,
these other components really uh
basically serve our needs. But when
that's gone, we are basically
functioning like in a way almost
decorticate animals. You know, it's like
we're down in we don't have this master
regulator. So, we're a regulated system.
>> Oh, yeah. You're just much more at the
at the mercy of everything flip-flopping
from one side to the other. some like an
element that I wasn't aware of but
[clears throat] there's a paradoxical
relaxation and startle response where
the nervous system interprets
parasympathetic states as threats. So as
people start to relax
>> as the as they start to get below the
window of tolerance on the bottom end
that their system sees that as a threat
and bounces them out the top. Like why
would why would that be the case? Why in
a system that needs more relaxation why
would it bounce you out the top? This is
where we talked about the introsception
of that calm state is now associated
with vulnerability and injury.
>> Right?
>> So it's in a sense our higher brain
structures sabotage us. So the lower
brain says relax you need it. The higher
brain says can't relax in this
environment. It's it's to is prioritize
this threat. Mhm. Mhm. And I guess this
is where the safe and sound protocol
would come in
>> slowly slowly with those who have that
type of history. The I would say the
greatest surprise to me on this
interesting journey uh was that the safe
and sound could be a trigger for people,
meaning it could create defensiveness.
And I had no concept that in my
theoretical model. So I had how does
something that only is broadcasting
signals of safety or calmness.
>> How can it be responded to? Then you
start asking the question who are the
people responding? What are their
clinical symptoms? What's their history?
And then it becomes a script. the script
is that they were injured by let's say a
biological parent and and so the
vulnerability of to signals that are is
in our DNA become signals now of threat.
>> Why does tinitus often show up in highly
activated people and what is it about
the ear that's got I know some of your
research has gone into the ear
territory. Yeah, the issue with tinitus
is tinitus is just let's use it's not a
very descriptive diagnosis.
So with the history of tinitus is that
people thought it was in a sense uh in
the ear and they actually did such
things as aggressive surgeries and
remove the entire ear uh internal ear
structures. the tinus was still there
even though
>> God you would be really annoyed if you
had your ear structure removed and you
were still hearing ringing in your in
your head.
>> That's right. Because it was now uh the
solution to that is basically it's on
the auditory cortex that type of tinitus
and the solution now is actually they
put a a [clears throat] stimulator on
the auditory cortex to scramble those
sounds. [snorts] So it so that's one
type of tinitus. I have uh tinitus or
had it and it was I have something
called an acoustic or vestibular
neuroma. It's a non-malignant tumor on
the vestibular branch of the auditory
nerve and it was discovered because I
start to get severe tinitus. It was like
hearing sounds of being in the kitchen
and people throwing dishes. It was not a
calming humming. It was a lot. And then
I actually uh Okay, so there two issues
on that. They uh the medical community,
this is 2002,
said there's only one solution that is
you need to have surgery. And I said,
"What will that do?" They said, "We we
we're going to do we'll have to cut this
out, the tumor, and you'll be able to
have hearing. However, you're going to
lose hearing, which is really the
consequence of the surgery."
And you know, I I'm not your average or
your normal patient. So I went and did
my literature search and I started to
read the publications were not giving me
any information but the conference
papers which are done before
publications started to tell me about
what will be called watch and wait and
they basically said look a lot of people
don't get surgery nothing happens you
know it just they they live they so it's
not going to kill you
>> and if it grows big then you which is
extraordinarily rare
>> now what I found out was that when I was
quote stressed uh the the tenses would
bother me. Okay, this is where your
question is for the focus on
>> and in fact this is now 25 years ago or
20 years ago. I'm now in Miami visiting
my father and and I'm driving across a
railroad track and on the tracks as I go
over the tracks the tentis is going on
and off on and off. Okay. So there was a
physical component and what I was
dealing with was in the literature when
I read the material there was an
inflammatory component to to the
expression of the tumor. So I start to
take high doses of fish oil and it tends
disappeared.
Fish oil has a anti-inflammatory.
So, so what I'm saying is that that the
what I was getting that my type was due
to the actual nerve being inflammator
inflamed and I could control that with
fish oil. So, I was very fortunate and
now I don't even know that I have
tenitus.
>> Why would it be the case that a
disregulated or a lower tolerance system
would worsen tinitus?
>> Why is that? No, because it it just
because inflammation is part of that uh
defensive system.
>> Oh, okay. Yeah.
>> Okay. So, let's go back uh rewind the
tape and we're talking about clusters of
symptoms that are together. Inflammation
is one of them.
So, the whole family of things happen.
It's not merely your heart rate gets up,
your regulation of heart of heart rate
and sweating. the inflammatory component
is there as well.
>> Yeah, that makes complete sense. I'm
interested in the link between the
veagal nerve and the gut mic microbiome
biome. What do you make of that
connection?
>> Well,
just remember that 80% of the veagal
fibers are and where's the vagus going
is in your gut. It's really monitoring
your gut as I would think most of or
many of the veagal apherins are really
gut receptors. So
>> why would that be the case? Just because
digestion is really important.
>> Yeah, it's not digestion. It's is
toxins.
And the other thing you got to think
about what your gut is. It's not it's a
farm. It's a farm for molecules that
your body needs. Think of it that way.
You are you're raising all kinds of
things in your gut. the floor of your
gut is complex. Mhm.
>> So uh so basically uh uh I've actually
been doing uh the past decade quite a
bit of work in gastronenterology
and was showing that most a lot of of
these syndromes within GI which uh is
also another one of these uh disciplines
where it's very hard to document
pathophysiology with the symptoms that
the autonomic nervous system is highly
disregul ulated in many of the
individuals who have gut problems
including chronic uh uh vomiting
syndromes and symptoms like that.
>> What direction is that going from? Is
that low tolerance nervous system giving
you bad gut? Is that bad gut giving you
low tolerance nervous? Like what do you
make of the gut biome's effect on the
nervous system? Okay, you you need to
take some do some resonant breathing now
[laughter]
and realize that when we talk about a
system, it's birectional.
It's really sending up signal and we
know we can influence by how we feel. So
we know our gut reacts to things happen
in our environment and we know if we
have a stomach ache, we're really our
capacities become very very limited. So
we know that the sensations from the gut
can disrupt our daily life and we also
know that our daily life can disrupt how
our gut works. Now we start talking
about what it is to be having a system.
Another thing that tends to be missing
from our own narratives of explaining
how our body works.
>> Is there a sex difference in how nervous
systems operate?
>> Well, for decades I've tried to neglect
that question. My wife is always uh
informing me that there are sex
differences. Uh the answer is probably.
I mean I think we can say that there are
some basic mechanics that are in a way
asexual and said systems work the same
way but there are different demands on
let's say different sex as a subspecies
different demands on women than on men
and at different times of their lives.
So there's a time course it's going to
be different. I think it's so
underststudied
because most of the research on health
has been done on males because females
had more variability
and especially when it comes to clinical
trials.
>> Variability kills you in clinical trials
because people wanted cause and effect
relationships.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think what I'm
interested in around the sort of sex
difference for for nervous systems is
male socialization uh antisocial
behavior uh situations, loneliness,
stuff like that. Um certainly seems to
show up in men more than in women for a
variety of reasons. But I'm I'm
wondering whether male socialization is
partly a nervous system challenge
uniquely. [snorts]
>> I don't know. I mean, I haven't thought
of it that way.
>> I keep thinking of our socialization
process of males and females and the
history of humanity which was you know
different social circuits uh for men and
for women historically
>> and and the issue and also the notion of
birthing and how that was really a
communal event. Uh I'm actually more
interested now in the other part of the
lifespan and that is how poorly we as a
species are doing with end of life
um which is not really discussed or
worked on and so I'm getting very
interested in paliotative medicine and
with the with a desire that uh we have
tools that enable us to literally smile
and wave goodbye at the end of our
duration. here uh as opposed to trying
to preserve life and make people fearful
of the dying process.
>> That's interesting.
>> Yeah. I mean, think about it because uh
how many how many uh episodes have you
had interviews on?
>> 1,150
maybe.
>> Okay. How many have talked about
paliotative care, end of life?
>> Less than 10.
>> Yeah. And we're all going to die, right?
I think [laughter]
>> and and it just gives you a glimpse into
how we are so unprepared for the essence
the whole life uh the passage.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I think it makes at least a
little sense about why what especially
around nervous system people understand
that something which impacts you at the
beginning uh lays the foundation and can
be an echo which is heard throughout the
remainder of the journey. We don't talk
about uh grandparent trauma. We talk
about childhood trauma because the
trauma doesn't tend to move backward in
time. It tends to move forward in time.
So I I understand why it feels like um
investing in an early stage startup as
opposed to a company that's very mature
because well how much more is there to
go but you're right I mean like
everybody is going to pass away and the
fact that we haven't looked at
paliotative care with the same level of
uh of uh scrutiny
>> compassion let's use the word compassion
>> well it's it's the one type of
discrimination which is still almost
universally accepted is aism
>> right like it's the one thing that
you're never going to get pulled up for.
You can say on a daytime TV show. You
can say it on a comedy show. You can
shout it at somebody that cuts you off
on the street. Like very Has anybody
ever stepped in and said, "Hey, hey,
don't talk about his age like that,
man." Like no one's stepped in to do
that. People have said it about race,
about sexuality, about gender, like all
of these different things. Agism is this
one that Arthur Brooks told me this is
the one that is affected me directly is
understanding that the world that I had
lived in for so many decades is not very
uh accommodating for people who are
getting uh frail.
>> Yeah. Well, you are spinning yourself
upside down a couple of times every
morning. So [laughter]
>> I'm I'm in I'm doing fine. I was gonna
say the frail the frailness thing I
wouldn't say.
>> No, but the the issue is uh when you're
doing fine is when you should be
exploring the future is really what I'm
saying.
>> Yeah. Just going back to the um sex
differences thing. You've said that
co-regulation is is the biological basis
of love that we literally regulate each
other's nervous systems. Yeah.
>> What do you think are the implications
when a man has never experienced
consistent co-regulation like
potentially especially from a father?
>> Um
I think we can see that in in in let's
say our the politics of today. Uh so
that our culture is not uh okay. So
there's a lot of okay the consequence
what we're really saying is uh uh with
the experience of being vulnerable is
part of the experience of having
relationship
and if we can't cope with our own
vulnerabilities then we have difficulty
navigating the world we're in. Um, and I
think
there's times when uh being bold or
being impervious to or not acknowledging
vulnerability serves us well,
>> but there's also other periods where it
basically locks us out of community.
And uh I'm I'm kind of watching this
because to me it's the the script of
life is becoming uh I think what you
were saying about things that happened
early in life. We can see it moving on.
>> I think that script is uh now be to my
to my mind or my eyes and my ears become
quite predictable. You know, it's like
saying I can see the consequences and uh
the issue is uh it doesn't fit with my
view when I was young. My view was a we
can all be what who or whatever we want
to be. I was quite an idealist and I
basically felt that options that I could
do everyone else could do. I didn't have
an appreciation of let's say the uh
permiss the permissiveness that was
given to me uh through my you know
through whatever uh lineage I had or the
opportunities I had.
>> Um I didn't see them as as special and I
didn't see the skill set or the insights
as special. And I think part of what
because we're trained in sense to have a
type of humility. What I'm saying is
that the concept of really being
compassionate and benevolent is really
an understanding that others don't have
what we have.
>> It's such a good point. I I had a
conversation with a friend in Bali
earlier this year and you know I
explaining to him about this journey
that I've been on. I've spent two years
trying to piece myself back together
after mold lime EBV CMV long COVID
stuff. And then just as I've got myself
to where I felt I'd made really great
progress, this disordia kicks in and now
I've got this new fight and and I I'm
>> I'm so I'm irritated. I'm tired. I'm
agitated of having to do this. I'm
starting to get apathetic. I'm like I'm
just constantly having to be strong and
having to show up and I'm I'm even
trying hard at not trying hard. I'm
trying hard at being empathetic. I'm
trying hard at doing this stuff. He gave
me this big long voice note in response
and it I think it speaks to what you're
saying and he said I don't know of a
single person who has fully and truly
understood humanity without going
through a long period where they didn't
know if they were ever going to get
better. He said this is the difference
between just having a hard time and
having a life-changing difficulty that
you face because in one of them
everyone's been through a hard time.
Everyone's lost a job, everyone's lost a
parent, everyone's lost whatever. But
the difference he said is not knowing
whether or not you'll get better. And
that that is so true that now when I
look around at I've got more compassion
for people who are ill. I've got more
compassion for people who are uh
struggling with addictions. I've got
more compassion for people who are
seemingly annoying. Like even stuff
that's that that's that's uh you think
is elective. Everybody's got compassion
for somebody that was born disabled.
Everybody's got compassion for someone
that was abused as a child. But what
about that person who just never seems
to stop is never able to stop talking
about themselves or their
accomplishments? And I'm like, I see so
much more now. Hey, something's happened
at some point in this person's past.
Either something's happened to them or
they were born and this is something
that they their predisposition, right?
They didn't get to choose either of
these things. Like, [ __ ] Like, as
annoying as you are, I should give you a
lot of compassion. And that has been
>> that's been born out of this experience
the last two years of of really trying
to sort of grapple and battle with this
thing. That's that's been the the
biggest takeaway. Humility and and more
compassion.
>> Yeah. Chris, the as I you know listen
and hear the array of of vulnerabilities
that have hit you to me. They're all the
same. Even the hypers sensitivities
sensitivity to mold the system does not
have resilience. That's what you're
saying.
>> Now, this is where the beautiful big
cortex is useful.
>> So, we evaluate, okay, my system does
not have resilience.
I can move my system into places where
it's going to be less vulnerable. Now,
what does that mean? It means different
things to different people. it all based
upon whether your daily demands like
doing podcasts are nourishing to you at
this stage of your recovery or they're
not.
>> And I think that becomes the first
question to ask yourself. I mean, I'm
just talking to you as a person, not as
a therapist, but as the observer. And I
think that's really the first question
that you really have to come to grips
with because that is in a sense
containing or uh containing you is the
work and this is what you do. This is
how you define yourself. And the
question is if you didn't have that to
define yourself, what is your how's your
body going to feel? So the issue is you
can't deal with the vulnerability of the
uh disease entity that has invaded you
unless you can deal with how you can
feel without the container that may now
be uh contributing to the expression of
the symptoms
>> dependent on whether it feels nourishing
or sapping.
>> That's right.
>> Very interesting. One thing I haven't
mentioned, what do you make of stellate
ganglen blocks? What do you think of
SGBS?
>> Yeah. Well, so Eugene Lipoff, who I know
quite well, he's is really one of the
originators of that and I'm very okay.
From my view, it's turning Okay, it is
actually something that we alluded to
implicitly. If you if your sympathetics
are now overextended,
uh you're going to be locked in fight
flight and you're going to continue to
do that. And if you downregulate them,
the parasympathetic calming has an
opportunity to express itself. That's
what I think is happening. I think the
stoic ganglia is actually uh dampening
that whole limb of the sympathetic
sufficiently that the parasympathetic
vagus can start to express itself.
>> Okay. But the utility of it has been
really uh in terms of the world of
trauma or PTSD as far as I can tell. And
PTSD
is manifest in different ways. There are
people who are locked into a state of
fight flight. And I think that's really
the great uh toolkit to help treat it.
But there are those who are kind of
locked into a shutting down, withdrawal,
and immobilization.
And I'm not sure if that's going to be
helpful for that group.
>> Yeah, that's interesting. Some I've seen
some research that says deeply
traumatized baby mice require three
generations to get back to a normal
nervous system state. Do you feel like
that's true for humans?
>> Well, you're you're asking what I call
um Okay. So, they talk about
intergenerational trauma. I'd like to
use the word transgenerational
because I think uh the country where we
live and I imagine the UK as well
historically is a trans uh
generationally traumatized environment
and what it doesn't okay a lot of it you
don't have to assume that's epigenetics
so the genes have been modified and
transmitted all you need to think about
is what is the culture so think of the
UK and the private or the boarding
schools and the you know basically
stripping kids from childhood
and uh and then making this the elite
you know this is uh and totally
>> these are the trends setters moving
forward culturally
>> yeah or they were the leaders so I I met
a actually became a friend he's written
a book called the basically about the
damaged elite of of the UK because they
become the prime ministers and all these
other people and he's really saying
Their bodies are locked into states of
defense. So their ability to be
compassionate
is quite compromised.
>> Oh, that's so fascinating. And then you
you you're in an environment which
probably makes that worse. It rewards a
stoic stiffness. I am not affected by
this. I'm a safe pair of hands to drive
this organization forward.
>> Yeah. Or even, you know, the bit about
uh the English uh view of sexuality.
They do it for the queen or [laughter]
uh or
>> I've never pulled that one out, but I
will.
>> If the line was it will be over in a few
minutes, just don't worry about
>> Yeah. Think of [snorts] think of queen
and country and just keep going.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's it's not one of love and and
engagement and connection. It's
something else.
>> Duty. It's closer to duty. Right.
>> Okay. Um,
obviously this you you you've been
working on this theory for a long time
and it's unbelievably influential. What
are the strongest criticisms of poly
vagal theory in your opinion? Which
criticisms do you think are fairest
>> there? Okay. So my view is this is quite
a a trigger to me because the criticisms
are not of the theory. the criticisms
have been misrepresentations of the
theory and and so I don't mind criticism
because they will improve articulation
of what this is. Every criticism that
I've seen has been really a
misrepresentation of what the theory
said and really what you have are people
who think they know what the theory is
and who are making statements. And I
>> I'm interested what are the most common
misconceptions?
>> Oh,
>> when criticisms are being lodged then
>> they they don't understand the evolution
of the veagal system. Uh the fact that
it the nucleus that where the vagus
comes from in the vententral vagus is an
older nucleus long before mammals is
fine, but that didn't have a
cardioinhibitory fibers until mammals
had it. So they don't understand the
distinction between an anatomical
structure and its actually components uh
neurohysiologically
they basically don't understand that
polyagal theory was never about the
nerve. It was about the organization of
this integrated brain stem system. They
just don't understand what it's about.
>> And what what what does that lead them
to wrongly conclude? What are the
implications of not understanding that?
What's the criticism that's levied
because of that error? Oh, well they say
it's not based on physiology
and what they've done is misrepresent
every point of it and then they would if
I and what they may quote accurate
physiology but it's not relevant to what
the theory actually states. So it's been
to the in fact I created a AI poly
veagal scholar and it has one basic rule
be uh you have to have fidelity to the
theory and I have not gotten a criticism
that it doesn't basically kick out
because the theory has not been
accurately represented the theory in in
a sense the theory has evolved over
decades with more clarification and I'm
just finishing two papers one is on an
architecture of the theory, but it's not
of the Vegas. It's of this whole
mamleian organizational system that
enables us to co-regulate. It enables
our social behavior now to impact on our
health and physiology
>> and they miss all of that. They get
stuck into something that doesn't exist.
And and this has been going on for
almost 30 years. So it's like you know I
basically have said this uh uh read the
papers and if you can't read them you
know don't tell people that uh they you
have I mean it's like
>> that's a micro
>> but I would also say that it's
double-edged the more people uh
criticize it the more lights that are
shining on it.
>> It's like it's not unknown. And it's
really interesting because the clinical
world which really gave it um traction
uh it it works for them. The interesting
part is the uh neuroscience world is too
uh let's say siloed to understand the
organizing principles of it. So it's
kind of like uh ahead of its time or
pulling things together because it
requires an understanding of the
interaction of too many components. So
you can't criticize a theory based upon
the Vegas.
You can't criticize it based upon any
single pathway because it's not about
that.
>> And by criticizing on it, you're not
understanding what the theory is
stating. So uh I'm actually
extraordinarily confident that time time
is I may not be here but it will survive
me by far and the issue is because what
I am now writing about is giving people
a toolkit to understand what the theory
is so they don't get pulled into let's
say uh false arguments. uh what I would
say if someone criticizes, show my one
basic statement. Show show me in the
literature where I made that statement.
It's as simple as that. And I mean
that's all I'm asking. Uh and the bottom
line is it doesn't really matter to me
if you want to argue with me. It matters
to me if you represent my work
accurately. That's my
>> I'm going to use your statement when
somebody misques me on the internet as
well.
>> Yeah. Uh
>> well that see that's the world you're in
and to me the internet world and the
social media world is so vulnerable
because people can say anything
>> but they can also say that you've said
anything which is uh the the false
accusation equivalent. All right we
spent we spent an entire episode talking
about when uh people's nervous systems
are uh too disregulated too sensitive a
window of tolerance which is too
constrained.
Can a person's nervous system be too
safe lead to uh risk aversion, lack of
ambition, inability to tolerate
challenge? Like the pacification of
people is there such a thing as too
safe?
>> Okay. So So what I see I wouldn't my
interpretation was what if a nervous
system feels too safe? Does that make
them too vulnerable?
>> See I'm actually going to the other
side.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> And I actually was very concerned about
that. I was actually thinking that that
was a possibility. Um, and the issue is
so it's like if I feel safe, am I going
to be not detect signals of danger? That
was my concern.
>> Mhm. And I'm basically I feel much
better after pondering this for quite a
few years that our nervous system, the
healthy nervous system that has the
capacity to connect and to basically
love and share and trust is usually the
nervous system that can detect threat as
well.
>> Mhm. So, so it's like we're talking
about a well- reggulated system that
enables this co-regulation to occur
tends to be the same system that can
adjust and navigate to this complex
world. Unreal. Steven Porges, ladies and
gentlemen. Stephen, you're so great. Uh,
I've got I have a million more things I
want to talk about about relating, about
child rearing, about uh pediatrics and
stuff, but we can we can save that for
another time. Um, I just really I really
appreciate you. I really appreciate you
giving me uh and and everybody a
language with which to experience or to
understand the way that we experience
the world. As far I've been on the the
front lines of this, so to speak, with
my own uh sort of priorities over the
last two years or so, I've come to
basically believe that
our nervous system,
we are our nervous systems when it comes
to the way that we interact with the
world around us. and it's the single
most influential thing in terms of how
we experience the world and how the
world experiences us. So giving us
language and and and insights about how
to how to navigate that and understand
it is awesome. So I just wanted to give
you your flowers there.
>> Oh, thank you Chris. And my summary of
what you just said is that you're poly
vehicle informed. U I mean that's when
you see the world through the way that
you described it. That's what the theory
was for. for us to understand that what
the nervous system or what I'm basically
saying our physiological state
>> is really a a major component of our
behavior and who we are and our feelings
>> in my world that's the world of academia
would be pol poly vagal informed in my
world of the internet and degenerate
culture it would be poly vagal pill but
we'll we'll we'll allow us to do one or
the other pes ladies and gentlemen
Stephen you're great I appreciate you
and I can't wait to speak to you again
soon
>> oh thank you Chris thank you very
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