The Neuroscience and Power of Safe Relationships
My lone psychophysiologist hero, Steve Porges seems to think so. Some of you will recognize him as the creative force behind Polyvagal Theory. This extended Youtube interview with him is worth watching for sure (possibly in ten minute chunks for those of us who are attention-challenged like me). In it you’ll see and understand just how much of each day we spend walking through the world in self-protection mode.
The Pied Piper of Polyvagal Theory
If you’ve been looking for someone to explain Polyvagal Theory in ways that don’t require an advanced degree in neurophysiology, Deb Dana is the translator you’ve been looking for. With great humility and compassion, she takes Steve Porges’s work and makes it accessible to anyone who has the ability to pay even a little bit of attention to how their body feels when it’s under stress. I wish she’d published this video 10 years ago! It would have saved me a LOT of time and confusion.
Can Polyvagal Theory Foster Resonance Consciousness?
In this article two UC Santa Barbara professors argue that the “hard problem of consciousness” all comes down to how we resonate. Or more specifically, vibrating at specific frequencies. All of the physical world vibrates and things in proximity long enough often begin to sync up, spontaneously self-organize and vibrate together so long as there is no interference patterns are present. The unconscious, neuroceptive presence of threats, Polyvagal Theory would posit, would be one such interference. At that point we’re less and less conscious and no longer getting Good Vibrations.
The Link Between Your Insanity and Mine
41% of college freshmen feel overwhelmed. That’s up from 18% in 1985. It’s unlikely to get any better for them after college. In this piece exploring Johann Hari’s book, Lost Connections, we discover three of the main drivers of overwhelm and depression: Social stress, lack of community, and childhood trauma. “With a fuller picture of his mental health, Hari realized he focused too much on himself and self-promotion. He began making a conscious effort to spend time helping others and to just be present with the people I love. Really, it was a radical transformation.”
The Neurobiology of Loneliness
The good news: it’s not you, it’s your dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN), a small cluster of cells at the top of your brainstem. The bad news: it’s lonely at the top. If you like being the life of the party and easily engage with groups of people, when the party’s over and the crowds have all gone home, your DRN is much more likely to activate deep feelings of loneliness than it does for the rest of us.
And if I haven’t bugged you enough about The Science of Social Safety (Polyvagal Theory) and how it impacts every area of your life for better or worse, simply click HERE and consider yourself sufficiently bugged.
Finding safety as a neuro polyvagal issue more and more useful Just read this article on political position that seems firmly based on this. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/11/22/at-yale-we-conducted-an-experiment-to-turn-conservatives-into-liberals-the-results-say-a-lot-about-our-political-divisions/?utm_term=.f27e1815bb01
Thanks, Mike. The more I study and pay granular attention to my stress hormone levels, the more I find it easier and easier to move off the Ignorance side of the Wisdom/Ignorance dichotomy. Invariably … “in this moment everything is all right.” Best, Mark
On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 10:20 PM The Flowering Brain wrote:
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