Stick with me on this one – it will be worth your time to understand you better.
Polyvagal Theory looks at how the vagus nerve works and how as humans, we care most about our survival and helping others survive too. We are at our best when we are calm and safe, and when connecting with others. This is when we are socially connected to our world around us and we are open and curious to new experiences. Sometimes our Central nervous System gets overstimulated, and we can feel more fear and disconnectedness from ourselves and our world around us.
Fight or Flight Response
As our awareness of perceived challenges increases (when we perceive threats in our environment through obvious and not so obvious ways) and the demands on our perceived resources grow, we become activated and start to feel fear, anxiety, and frustration. This is a state of hyperarousal. We don’t connect as well with others, our defenses are high and that cytokine and inflammatory response is triggered. This is the fight or flight response we have talked much about. I hope you are now starting to wrap your head around it and recognize it within yourself.
Freeze or Fawn Response
There is also the freeze response and the fawn response too. If the fight or flight state remains for some time, we can get hypo aroused. Where we can end up shutting down and collapsing as if to save what little energy we have left to survive. This is often when you feel numb, dissociated, and hopeless. When this happens, endorphins are released to help numb and raise a person’s pain threshold, and facial expressions and eye contact are at an all-time low. A person’s speech can become monotone and expressionless. Muscle tone and sexual arousal responses decrease. The body and brain know what is of vital importance (survival of self) and what is not (creating a new life dependent on yours).
The fawn response is where people see their best way of surviving in people-pleasing, and quickly deferring to the other person or people, going along with others in the room, and denying their own needs and feelings. All these responses are automatic and involuntary. So drop the guilt. You don’t choose this for yourself. None of us do. You do not consciously control the fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. It is all involuntary.
When you catch yourself feeling overwhelmed, pay attention to what your body sensations are doing. Is your heart racing? Are you numbing out? And then think about what you need. Do you need to know what you feel? Are you hungry? Do you need to cry, or laugh? Be alone or with someone?
Ask yourself, “What do I need right now?”
