Polyvagal Theory: Why You Feel So Anxious All The Time - Dr Stephen Porges

1. 0:00 – 5:54

   What is Polyvagal Theory?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      You've authored more than 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers and literally created Polyvagal 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 Polyvagal Theory to someone who isn't familiar with it?

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges0:19

      It's really quite simple. It's that our underlying physiological state affects how we perceive the world, how we interact with others, and how receptacle 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 'cause it will help us navigate through very-- a very complex world.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:57

      Mm. So we're responsive in that way to the local ecology, kind of like a plant.

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:01

      We are a plant in a way. Exactly. We are de- 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 thir- certain threshold.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:36

      Why is that adaptive? Why have we evolved to have that, uh, dynamic?

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:40

      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, [clears throat] and instead, we're trained by our culture to say, "You can do it." [chuckles] You know, it's like, it, it's like all, all-- I mean, that's a quote from The Water Boy, if you don't remember that movie. [chuckles] 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-

   7. CWChris Williamson2:20

      Hmm

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges2:20

      ... signals to our awareness, and now we're being told, "Don't pay attention."

   9. CWChris Williamson2:26

      I understand why, and this is a, a pivot in the world of nonfiction 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.

   10. SPDr. Stephen Porges3:03

       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 of what being a successful human being is.

   11. CWChris Williamson3:14

       Huh.

   12. SPDr. Stephen Porges3:14

       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-

   13. CWChris Williamson3:27

       Oh, that's so beautiful

   14. SPDr. Stephen Porges3:28

       ... for working is to, in a sense, get over those feelings of inadequacy. So we get kinda twisted and tricked by all this. And-

   15. CWChris Williamson3:36

       Mm

   16. SPDr. Stephen Porges3:36

       ... 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 neurophysiological 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, I'm stressed out. I burn out." But there's a physiology to that, and that is in part we're not listening to our body.

   17. CWChris Williamson4:09

       That's so wonderful. You're so right. Uh, 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?

   18. SPDr. Stephen Porges4:24

       Yeah. Now, as you say that, listen to what you said. [chuckles] 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 of-

   19. CWChris Williamson4:40

       I'm patient zero. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is ground zero right here.

   20. SPDr. Stephen Porges4:43

       Yeah. And the issue is, yeah, acquisition of 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, in, in a sense, what are our goals in life? And this is kind of a complicated and very personal question. So are our goals acquisition or are our goals, uh, curiosity, learning, or are our goals benevolent and compassionate? Now, 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.

   21. CWChris Williamson5:31

       Hmm.

   22. SPDr. Stephen Porges5:31

       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 mistranslated. Can we use that term? [chuckles]

   23. CWChris Williamson5:53

       So

2. 5:54 – 12:04

   Why It’s So Important to Focus On How We Feel

   1. CWChris Williamson5:54

      brilliant. So great. Okay. What was the actual problem that you were trying to solve in nineteen ninety-four? Like, what, what didn't fight or flight, rest and digest, what didn't that explain?

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges6:04

      Well, it, it gets... Okay, there are different levels. So you're sitting across from me, at least, uh, uh, in 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, uh, 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 tests or how fast was your reaction 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. S- 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.

   3. CWChris Williamson7:09

      Hmm.

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges7:09

      So the issue then was, if something's bothering you, just sit on it. Don't, don't let it percolate. Uh, 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, let's say, 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 intera- engaging is no longer there.

   5. CWChris Williamson7:46

      Hmm.

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges7:46

      Or what happened to me was I got pneumonia, and, uh, I had been extremely a social individual. And, uh, this was when I was, uh, a tenured, uh, 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. It started to bother me, my threshold. And you see this after COVID for many people. They are dealing-

   7. CWChris Williamson8:13

      Hmm

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges8:13

      ... with chronic illness, and they have words for like chronic fatigue syndrome, and people are literally marginalized when they say they have that. "Come on, get back into the flow."

   9. CWChris Williamson8:23

      Everybody gets tired as they get older.

   10. SPDr. Stephen Porges8:25

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:25

       Everyone's a little bit underslept.

   12. SPDr. Stephen Porges8:26

       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 quest- 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 vagal or 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... You know, 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, uh, interesting model until I worked in a neonatal intensive care unit where you have these preterm babies, and of course, they have a fight-flight response frequently to high heart rates and tachycardia. 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 vagal paradox. How could the 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 neonatologist 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-

   13. CWChris Williamson10:24

       Ah.

   14. SPDr. Stephen Porges10:24

       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, in a sense, uh, evolved or wired." And I started to get deep into the anatomy and then into the, uh, uh, evolution. Basically, it's called phylogeny, where you look at species changes in autonomic regulation. And then there was something that became very mammalian, something of which we are mammals, and we start to have a very different type of autonomic nervous system.

   15. CWChris Williamson10:57

       Hmm.

   16. SPDr. Stephen Porges10:57

       A nervous system that enabled us to be safe in proximity of another. So it was reading cues, you know, when, uh, mothers talk to their babies or if you have pets. Do you have a pet, a dog or a cat?

   17. CWChris Williamson11:09

       No, I am on the cusp of getting a dog, but not yet.

   18. SPDr. Stephen Porges11:13

       Okay. Yeah. Well, you have friends at least. [chuckles]

   19. CWChris Williamson11:16

       Yeah.

   20. SPDr. Stephen Porges11:18

       And-

   21. CWChris Williamson11:18

       I treat them like dogs sometimes, actually, so that-

   22. SPDr. Stephen Porges11:20

       True

   23. CWChris Williamson11:20

       ... that probably works.

   24. SPDr. Stephen Porges11:21

       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, prosodic 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, let's call it 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 mammalian and using the preterm baby as this window of an opportunity to see a system that was not fully developed, and I could see it coming on board.

3. 12:04 – 18:08

   How the Nervous System Adapted Over Time

   1. CWChris Williamson12:05

      Can you just give me the adaptive explanation for those three states as you conceive them?

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges12:09

      Sure. They're, they're... Everything is adaptive in the, in the model. Nothing is wrong, nothing is bad, nothing is pathological. They're adaptive in certain contexts.

   3. CWChris Williamson12:20

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges12:20

      So in a sense, the-- we have, because the system basically for, uh, vertebrates, and those are all the species with backbones, as they evolved into amphibia, and then basically mammals and reptiles broke off at the same time and had basically pav- 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 matured, 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 'cause they could just survive. They could scamper off and survive.

   5. CWChris Williamson13:30

      Hmm.

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges13:30

      So you needed this new signaling system. And ironically, what that signaling system did was enabled social behavior to act positively on our physiology. So that's why I asked if you had a dog.

   7. CWChris Williamson13:46

      Yeah, yep.

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges13:46

      And when you have a dog, you realize that the dog's engagement to you and the way you vocalize with the dog is gonna be a great regulator of both your physiological states. And that made us uniquely mammalian, and that's why dogs and humans, or if you look... Let's see. Can you see my cat?

   9. CWChris Williamson14:06

      Yes. Yeah, we will be able to.

   10. SPDr. Stephen Porges14:08

       Yeah. 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 au- autonomic nervous system, the system that regulated your organs, and that's fine. It had basically a primitive vagal system, and it had a bunch of n- chemicals, like adrenaline or chemicals like that in the body, so it could mobilize and had a neural system of calming. But 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 neural 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." [chuckles] You know, "Just don't attend to it." So the vagus initially was fine when we were in-- we could rest and restore with it in peaceful comfort. But when we had a fight-flight mobilization, we interfered with that rest and restore.

   11. CWChris Williamson15:25

       Hmm.

   12. SPDr. Stephen Porges15:26

       But what happened now with mammals, they had a very, let's say, nuanced vagal system that became a vagal system that enabled social engagement, enabled its even mobilization without fear, and we call that play and dance.

   13. CWChris Williamson15:43

       Hmm.

   14. SPDr. Stephen Porges15:43

       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 fight-flight system and not only a older dorsal, the back of the brainstem vagal system that regulate your organs, but also had this newer ventral vagal that was locked to our voice and the muscles in 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.

   15. CWChris Williamson16:19

       Hmm.

   16. SPDr. Stephen Porges16:19

       So the whole, in a sense, the, in a 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, uh, the social cues become more and more, uh, separate from-

   17. CWChris Williamson16:40

       Mm-hmm

   18. SPDr. Stephen Porges16:40

       ... the actual interaction. So the mammal had this remarkable system that enabled it or us to control our fight-flight and actually co-opt it as play and to control our immobilization to support our health growth and restoration by being safe in the arms of another.

   19. CWChris Williamson17:00

       And to also signal w- uh, that we needed help, that we needed care, that we needed support.

   20. SPDr. Stephen Porges17:06

       Yeah, signal is, 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, in a sense, inferring. Or is that a person you would like to spend more time with?

   21. CWChris Williamson17:37

       Hmm.

   22. SPDr. Stephen Porges17:37

       Or do you look at your watch or your phone and say, "I gotta 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?

   23. CWChris Williamson17:52

       Hmm.

   24. SPDr. Stephen Porges17:52

       Does that person, in a sense, make you feel uneasy, you wanna get out of there? And you may have those same feelings doing podcasts [chuckles] and say, "Wow, is the hour almost up?" Or, you know, "What am I gonna talk about?" Or-

   25. CWChris Williamson18:06

       Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

   26. SPDr. Stephen Porges18:06

       ... "Can I move on?"

4. 18:08 – 19:59

   Is Safety Our #1 Goal?

   1. CWChris Williamson18:08

      Mm-hmm.

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges18:08

      Yeah, yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson18:09

      Yeah, you say that we come into this world with a quest to be safe.

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges18:13

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson18:13

      Why?

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges18:15

      Because we can't survive by ourselves. So, I mean, it-- there's a function to all this. It's, 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.

   7. CWChris Williamson18:36

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges18:36

      And for many, uh, especially those who survived trauma, people have great difficulty moving into their worlds, or they have difficulty moving to others, so they often gravitate to horses or dogs or cats. They want some type of co-regulation from a social mammal.

   9. CWChris Williamson18:54

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5. 19:59 – 21:28

   What Feeling “Safe” Really Means

   1. CWChris Williamson19:59

      at checkout. What does feeling safe actually mean neurologically?

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges20:03

      Okay. It, it means basically we can... Okay, so let me flip it on you. What does feeling stress mean to you?

   3. CWChris Williamson20:12

      Um, high heart rate, sweating, um, tightness in the body, ruminating thoughts-

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges20:18

      Hmm

   5. CWChris Williamson20:18

      ... intrusive thoughts, concern-

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges20:21

      Hmm

   7. CWChris Williamson20:21

      ... um, lack of creativity.

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges20:24

      Lack of ability to access your capacities.

   9. CWChris Williamson20:28

      Yes, yes, constrained capacity. Yep.

   10. SPDr. Stephen Porges20:29

       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?"

   11. CWChris Williamson20:40

       Yeah.

   12. SPDr. Stephen Porges20:41

       That's a d- 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, it's, it's just taking care of itself. That's why when we start to block the feedback loops, 'cause 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.

   13. CWChris Williamson21:27

       Mm. Mm-hmm.

6. 21:28 – 23:31

   The Most Powerful Signals of Safety

   1. CWChris Williamson21:29

      What's the most powerful force of safety in the human world?

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges21:33

      Let's reframe it. What are the most powerful signals-

   3. CWChris Williamson21:36

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges21:36

      ... of safety? And they would... You know, you, you could identify them. That would be maybe a, a smiling face, uh, a, a voice that's prosodic. Prosodic 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 kinda 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 with that melodic voice.

   5. CWChris Williamson22:24

      No way.

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges22:25

      Yeah. So when you get your dog, you can try this all out.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:30

      [laughs] Yeah, I will do. I'll sync this.

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges22:32

      I, I would say if you have a child or if you have a spouse or a partner, you can try it out as well.

   9. CWChris Williamson22:37

      Yeah. Child, child soon cometh. Just give me... I need a little bit more time on that one.

   10. SPDr. Stephen Porges22:41

       [laughs]

   11. CWChris Williamson22:41

       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?

   12. SPDr. Stephen Porges22:56

       I think that-

   13. CWChris Williamson22:56

       Feeling safe enables curiosity and empathy and social engagement.

   14. SPDr. Stephen Porges23:01

       Yeah, I think that's quite accurate. I would kind of reframe one word. I would say our capacity to, which is not necessarily our ability, so our capacity is-

   15. CWChris Williamson23:11

       To connect with others

   16. SPDr. Stephen Porges23:12

       ... yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson23:12

       Yeah, yeah.

   18. SPDr. Stephen Porges23:13

       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, is, is too aggressive, too noisy, too overwhelming, I can't access my capacities.

7. 23:31 – 25:21

   Can You Ever Truly Feel Safe?

   1. CWChris Williamson23:31

      Why do some people never truly feel safe even when objectively everything's fine?

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges23:36

      I think that's the greatest... That was the question that got me going, uh, because I said, you know, we use this word safety, and it's not like there's a metal detector. That's not gonna 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.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:10

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges24:10

      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.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:24

      Yeah.

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges24:24

      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 our voice, were linked to how that mammalian vagus was working. So as the mammalian vagus 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.

8. 25:21 – 30:05

   Why Safety Feels Different for Everyone

   1. CWChris Williamson25:22

      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-

   2. SPDr. Stephen Porges25:50

      Well-

   3. CWChris Williamson25:50

      ... and how much do people differ in terms of what it is that they need?

   4. SPDr. Stephen Porges25:53

      Well, we could actually kind of build a model and say, before we think that it is 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 prosodic 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 and that face, and it goes, "Wow." Then the body starts feeling those feelings inside the body, and those feelings for healthy, uh, or say, healthy is not the right word. For a typical nervous system are feelings you feel good. But if those feelings of feeling good are associated with being abused, what happens?

   5. CWChris Williamson27:04

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   6. SPDr. Stephen Porges27:05

      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."

   7. CWChris Williamson27:13

      That feels-- S- sorry for interjecting. That feels a little bit, uh, Skinnerian. 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-

   8. SPDr. Stephen Porges27:26

      Yeah, yeah

   9. CWChris Williamson27:27

      ... to, into how the conditioning occurs?

   10. SPDr. Stephen Porges27:28

       It, it's so, so we have in the sense of reflex, which is no cognitions necessary.

   11. CWChris Williamson27:33

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SPDr. Stephen Porges27:34

       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.

   13. CWChris Williamson27:56

       Yes. Yes.

   14. SPDr. Stephen Porges27:57

       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.

   15. CWChris Williamson28:06

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SPDr. Stephen Porges28:07

       You know, we, we can get triggered. It's like, uh, this, this reason I have to smile is that my wife used to say to me, "You should be above it," [chuckles] you know? And I'd say, "I'm human. I can get triggered. We all get triggered."

   17. CWChris Williamson28:19

       Yes.

   18. SPDr. Stephen Porges28:19

       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?

   19. CWChris Williamson28:40

       No.

   20. SPDr. Stephen Porges28:40

       Or do you say, "Wow, I gotta change?" [chuckles] People are gonna say, think you're weird, but you say, "Oh wow, I must have been triggered. Where did that come from?"

   21. CWChris Williamson28:48

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   22. SPDr. Stephen Porges28:50

       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.

   23. CWChris Williamson28:58

       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 sort of shows just how adaptive, not only across time, right, human evolution adapting to the environment-

   24. SPDr. Stephen Porges29:18

       Mm-hmm

   25. CWChris Williamson29:18

       ... 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-

   26. SPDr. Stephen Porges29:27

       Yeah

   27. CWChris Williamson29:27

       ... your, your system had adapted to see an old stimulus-

   28. SPDr. Stephen Porges29:34

       Yeah

   29. CWChris Williamson29:35

       ... in a new light.

   30. SPDr. Stephen Porges29:36

       Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's who we are. You know, w- we're a 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 the, 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

9. 30:05 – 39:20

   What Stephen’s Work Means to Chris

   1. SPDr. Stephen Porges30:05

      in itself again.

   2. CWChris Williamson30:06

      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-

   3. SPDr. Stephen Porges30:30

      Mm

   4. CWChris Williamson30:30

      ... chronic fatigue, uh, Lyme, 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, a just this laundry list of, of-

   5. SPDr. Stephen Porges30:46

      Mm

   6. CWChris Williamson30:46

      ... 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-

   7. SPDr. Stephen Porges30:55

      Yeah

   8. CWChris Williamson30:55

      ... you know, recovered. Uh, I hated the smell of standing water. I couldn't stand silence, but I also couldn't stand music. So this, this real sort of-

   9. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:04

      Yeah

   10. CWChris Williamson31:04

       ... big mess. We get to the back end of, of last year, and I'd made a some good progress. I'd, I, I, I'd improved all while doing this, right? The, the-

   11. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:13

       Mm

   12. CWChris Williamson31:13

       ... 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 d- 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.

   13. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:27

       Mm.

   14. CWChris Williamson31:27

       So that, that felt like a big tension. Uh, I go and do a tilt table test-

   15. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:32

       Mm

   16. CWChris Williamson31:32

       ... in February. I failed my tilt table test, or succeeded depending on how you looked at it. Um, 11 minutes, full vasovagal syncope-

   17. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:41

       Mm

   18. CWChris Williamson31:41

       ... fainted, uh-

   19. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:42

       Yeah

   20. CWChris Williamson31:42

       ... heart stopped for five seconds.

   21. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:44

       Mm.

   22. CWChris Williamson31:44

       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.

   23. SPDr. Stephen Porges31:52

       Mm.

   24. CWChris Williamson31:52

       Heart rate sensors on your feet, on your hands. There's a, 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-

   25. SPDr. Stephen Porges32:01

       Yeah

   26. CWChris Williamson32:01

       ... to sort of 70 degrees, and they see how your body responds. There's something about that 70-degree angle that, um, that, uh, your body doesn't like it. And after five 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 and a lot of breathwork, and I was like, "Right, okay. Well, this is the time to apply some of your meditation and breathwork." 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 'cause 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 nine 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.

   27. SPDr. Stephen Porges32:54

       Mm.

   28. CWChris Williamson32:54

       This small Filipino nurse that was a really lovely guy, he came over me, and the first sentence that came out of his fe- out of his mouth after I, 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-

   29. SPDr. Stephen Porges33:18

       Yeah

   30. CWChris Williamson33:18

       ... 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-
10. 39:20 – 44:00

    What Causes Nervous System Dysregulation?

    1. CWChris Williamson39:20

       Why would it be the case that a dysregulated nervous system would cause people to feel more anxious, people to feel more depressed-

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges39:29

       Mm

    3. CWChris Williamson39:29

       ... them to have lower energy, them to be... W-why would this huge suite of things occur?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges39:33

       Yeah. 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 affect... It's not one. It's not really is-

    5. CWChris Williamson39:47

       Not just tired. You're not just sad.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges39:48

       No.

    7. CWChris Williamson39:49

       You're not just distracted.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges39:50

       And, and s- and s- it's not just you have poor sleep. It's not that-

    9. CWChris Williamson39:53

       Yeah

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges39:53

        ... your gut isn't working. It's not that you have tachycardia. It's everything about your autonomic nervous system's regulation. So it's a regulatory disorder, and we have difficulty in, I would say we, I'm talking about modern medicine, in seeing a system and seeing the system and its function. The system is dysregulated. It doesn't-- It's not coordinated in the way that it should. And the, 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's 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.

    11. CWChris Williamson40:44

        Mm.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges40:44

        So it's still prepared for war.

    13. CWChris Williamson40:48

        Oh, you're locked into this price. Oh, that's interesting. So in the same way as a, a traumatic emotional event-

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges40:55

        Mm-hmm

    15. CWChris Williamson40:55

        ... or physical event-

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges40:56

        Yeah

    17. CWChris Williamson40:56

        ... a traumatic pathogenic event-

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges40:59

        Yeah

    19. CWChris Williamson40:59

        ... does something similar.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges41:00

        It's all the same. It's all the same.

    21. CWChris Williamson41:02

        Uh, but the difference is when something has occurred consciously, you know, p-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."

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges41:13

        Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson41:13

        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.

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges41:19

        We, 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.

    25. CWChris Williamson41:35

        Mm-hmm.

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges41:36

        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 that I call sentinel trauma, and that is what the-- how does the body react to the single e-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. Uh, I, I would say optimistically, uh, these-- y-you're doing well, and even your curiosity, so where you're going with it is... And you're gonna end up on that journey about understanding about the body's own feedback loops and how they got challenged.

    27. CWChris Williamson42:26

        Mm-hmm.

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges42:27

        And that's exactly what they're assessing in the, uh, tilt table test. They're assessing whether the feedback ... a loop is working on your blood pressure-

    29. CWChris Williamson42:36

        Yeah

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges42:36

        ... meaning your vascular bed, the vagus, the sympathetics, and you know, blood flow. Now I will tell you what are my exercises every morning.
11. 44:00 – 50:49

    Are Humans on the Same Frequency As Animals?

    1. CWChris Williamson44:00

       Across all of your research, what interventions have you found to be most impactful for improving autonomic function?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges44:06

       Okay. So first of all, if we go back, we're gonna go back into the '90s. I actually was playing around with a tilt table. I had a motor on it where I rocked people up 21 degrees and then back down to horizontal. It took seven seconds up, so one, two, three, four, five, six. So you can start feeling that it's kind of like a very nice rocking. Even slower than what you're doing.

    3. CWChris Williamson44:32

       Yeah.

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges44:32

       Much slower.

    5. CWChris Williamson44:33

       Yep, yep, yep.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges44:34

       And suddenly, no one wanted to get off the table. That was the first... So the research showed that I could entrain, uh, 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.

    7. CWChris Williamson44:57

       Hmm.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges44:59

       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 that... 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 in a sense to make the client more accessible to the therapy.

    9. CWChris Williamson45:53

       Hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges45:53

        So what it's doing is priming a system to be more connected with the therapist.

    11. CWChris Williamson45:59

        Uh-huh.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges45:59

        So what I'm doing, al- so both of the... And then on 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 visualize basically floating in a wonderful sea without, um, 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's too hard, okay? And, and the issue is, if you deal with meditation for traumatized individuals, they run out of the room-

    13. CWChris Williamson46:40

        Yeah, yeah

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges46:40

        ... because that immobilization now is a signal to the nervous system of vulnerability.

    15. CWChris Williamson46:46

        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?

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges46:53

        You, you read real well, yes. [laughs]

    17. CWChris Williamson46:55

        What can I say? I do my research. Also, obviously, like unbelievably personally invested in getting this right. Um, well, and that's why, uh, layering it into music, making the connection-

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges47:05

        Yeah

    19. CWChris Williamson47:06

        ... that that's enough to signal safety cues to the nervous system.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges47:08

        Yeah, but it's actually even broader. So anything, it's like 500 to 3000 will be fine or-

    21. CWChris Williamson47:14

        Yep

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges47:14

        ... 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.

    23. CWChris Williamson47:39

        Hmm. Is that part of the reason that we have-

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges47:42

        Yes

    25. CWChris Williamson47:42

        ... collaborated and partnered with those animals so-

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges47:44

        Yes.

    27. CWChris Williamson47:44

        Oh, that's so fucking cool. Okay, so part of the reason that humans, cats and do- like cats, dogs, and horses-

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges47:53

        Yeah

    29. CWChris Williamson47:54

        ... have bonded so well is that our frequency of calm when vocalized-

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges48:02

        Yeah
12. 50:49 – 54:05

    Don’t Hack Your Nervous System, Challenge It

    1. CWChris Williamson50:49

       interesting. Okay. So what about, um, vagus nerve stimulators? That's something else that you mentioned earlier on. How much is real and how much is bunk with regards to that?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges50:59

       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, a simple way out, that 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.

    3. CWChris Williamson51:43

       What does exercise it, expand its range, increase its flexibility look like?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges51:47

       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.

    5. CWChris Williamson51:55

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges51:55

       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 sync-syncope situation-

    7. CWChris Williamson52:34

       Hmm

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges52:34

       ... where the, the body just can't adjust, it can't give anything else more out, and it just will shut down.

    9. CWChris Williamson52:40

       Yep.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges52:40

        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 neural 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.

    11. CWChris Williamson53:02

        That's something that I do know because I did my reading.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges53:05

        Ah.

    13. CWChris Williamson53:05

        Yes.

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges53:06

        But, okay.

    15. CWChris Williamson53:06

        That was your first paper, right? 1969?

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges53:08

        Six... Right. But here's the-

    17. CWChris Williamson53:10

        Hey

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges53:10

        ... the real, you're, you're, you're on my good list.

    19. CWChris Williamson53:13

        [chuckles]

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges53:13

        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 a phenomenon, the question was what is causing it? What were the underlying mechanisms? What was I really measuring? And if I can measure it better, in a sense, get closer to the neural innervation, then the measurement would have much greater and better generalizing, more useful.

    21. CWChris Williamson53:43

        Hmm.

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges53:43

        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, in a sense, pull out the specific vagal influence in the heart rate activity.

    23. CWChris Williamson54:03

        Hmm.

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges54:03

        And that's basically swept

13. 54:05 – 57:15

    Does Resonance Breathing Actually Work?

    1. SPDr. Stephen Porges54:05

       under the carpet.

    2. CWChris Williamson54:06

       Speaking of that, what do you make of resonance breathing?

    3. SPDr. Stephen Porges54:09

       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, uh, individual differences in what your resonant frequency is. I don't think it's that tailored that neatly. I think our bodies like certain slower rhythmicities.

    4. CWChris Williamson54:47

       Mm-hmm.

    5. SPDr. Stephen Porges54:47

       And, and when-- that's even like with the music I was really working on. I don't think it has to be in a sense that's specifically designed. And with resonant frequency, they were going at point one hertz or ten seconds.

    6. CWChris Williamson55:00

       Yeah.

    7. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:01

       I think- The body wants to gravitate slower.

    8. CWChris Williamson55:05

       Yep

    9. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:05

       It wants to go to, like, .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-

    10. CWChris Williamson55:14

        Correct

    11. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:15

        ... a different experience.

    12. CWChris Williamson55:16

        Yep.

    13. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:17

        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 oscillation.

    14. CWChris Williamson55:27

        My, uh... I, I d- I did a bunch of assessments. I, I love this product. It's called Om, om.health, and, um, it's, it's a, a HRV resonance breathing, uh, lamp, and you, you grab this thing. Anyway, my, uh, my frequency's four point five breaths a minute.

    15. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:40

        Hmm.

    16. CWChris Williamson55:41

        It's four point five. And, um-

    17. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:42

        That's good

    18. CWChris Williamson55:43

        ... that's, that's where I get the highest oscillation-

    19. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:48

        Yeah

    20. CWChris Williamson55:48

        ... between top and bottom. That's where, that's where mine is. Okay, so, um, vagal nerve stimulators, good, but, uh, being used in the right context. Resonance breathing-

    21. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:56

        Yeah

    22. CWChris Williamson55:56

        ... uh, interesting and may, may also play a good role.

    23. SPDr. Stephen Porges55:58

        Al- also good, but remember what you were doing. You were doing a lot of interoception with your resonance breathing.

    24. CWChris Williamson56:04

        Yep.

    25. SPDr. Stephen Porges56:05

        You were not only looking at what the numbers are, you were assessing what was optimal and how you felt.

    26. CWChris Williamson56:10

        How I felt.

    27. SPDr. Stephen Porges56:10

        So, so you're really closing the loop of the sensory part with the motor aspect.

    28. CWChris Williamson56:16

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14. 57:15 – 59:43

    How Does the Safe and Sound Protocol Work?

    1. CWChris Williamson57:15

       at checkout. I guess that's, that's a really good question. So there's a, a ton of different interventions, uh, humming, chanting, um, a, a, a, a, 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, uh, physiological intervention, uh, vagus nerve stimulator, um, using a tilt table up and down-

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges57:44

       Yeah

    3. CWChris Williamson57:45

       ... uh, breathing at a particular rate, but then 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 interoception thing to say, "Hey, and now I'm going to start to relate to the world around me," uh, like a, a social exposure therapy or nervous system exposure therapy within that newly calmed window?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:10

       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 ther- the stimulus may make the therapist more effective.

    5. CWChris Williamson58:32

       Mm. Mm-hmm. So you're, uh, engendering a state-

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:37

       Yeah

    7. CWChris Williamson58:37

       ... which is one of calm. Uh-

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:40

       Yeah

    9. CWChris Williamson58:40

       ... would, would it be fair to say sort of a broader flexibility within the nervous system for a little while?

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:46

        Absolutely. You're creating a window-

    11. CWChris Williamson58:49

        Yep

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:49

        ... of flexibility.

    13. CWChris Williamson58:50

        Of tolerance.

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:50

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson58:50

        And then in that newly expanded window-

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:53

        Yeah

    17. CWChris Williamson58:53

        ... that's gonna exist for a little time-

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:55

        Yeah

    19. CWChris Williamson58:55

        ... you're gonna expose yourself to some interventions.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges58:59

        Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson58:59

        And then once that's closed off, the goal is to increase that window of tolerance-

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges59:04

        Yeah, yeah

    23. CWChris Williamson59:04

        ... from state to trait?

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges59:06

        Y- 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 hypersensitive people-

    25. CWChris Williamson59:19

        Mm-hmm, mm-hmm

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges59:19

        ... 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, in a sense, with a tool, they're opening up the window for longer and longer periods.

    27. CWChris Williamson59:42

        Yep,

15. 59:43 – 1:04:11

    What Your Body Language Reveals About You

    1. CWChris Williamson59:43

       yep. Okay. Uh, why do singing and humming and chanting calm us so much?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges59:49

       It's a very easy answer. Uh, it's because they're, they're recruiting. W- I could actually say, why does eating or ingestion calm us?

    3. CWChris Williamson59:58

       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-

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:00:10

       Hmm. Okay

    5. CWChris Williamson1:00:10

       ... so you're not in starvation mode.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:00:11

       Okay. No. L- too smart. You have to go back there. [chuckles]

    7. CWChris Williamson1:00:14

       That's a problem I have all the time.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:00:16

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:00:16

       Stephen, it really is.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:00:17

        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 a baby suckling.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:00:28

        Okay.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:00:29

        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, in a sense, 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-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:01:00

        Yes

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:01:00

        ... dorsal vagus. Ingestion is the ventral vagus, 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-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:01:18

        Mm

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:01:18

        ... are part of the history of community.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:01:22

        You know what's, uh, interesting? I had a, a communication expert, a guy called, uh, uh, Chase Hughes on the show a couple of weeks ago, and he deals in microexpressions 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.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:01:41

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:01:42

        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, uh, got him to break down a killer who was being sentenced.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:01:57

        Yeah.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:01:57

        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'd 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, 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 pre-verbal, the first no that you have is because it's pushing whatever-

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:02:33

        Mm

    23. CWChris Williamson1:02:33

        ... is in your mouth, maybe a nipple-

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:02:36

        Mm

    25. CWChris Williamson1:02:36

        ... out of your mouth."

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:02:37

        Mm.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:02:37

        And he, he had that as the f- the, uh, a human's first no, and, uh, I have no idea if it's true-

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:02:43

        Okay

    29. CWChris Williamson1:02:43

        ... but I thought it was really cool.

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:02:44

        So all, all these things can be true, but there are other parsimonious strategies. Uh, if you're getting a sentence, are-- do you think you're gonna-- 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.
16. 1:04:11 – 1:05:06

    The Biggest Myth About Anxiety

    1. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:04:11

       this.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:04:12

       What's the biggest myth about anxiety from your perspective?

    3. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:04:17

       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. 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 w- that's just the narrative of w- 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.

    4. CWChris Williamson1:05:04

       Hmm.

17. 1:05:06 – 1:10:28

    What Unlocks Your Full Capacity?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:05:07

       I guess a lot of people may feel, and obviously very self-serving, um, they go through periods of life where new lower tolerance periods, uh, 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 stuff, where that gets constrained.

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:05:36

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:05:37

       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 re-inherited after it's potentially been damaged?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:05:50

       Okay, so you're living through a recovery phase of post, uh, long COVID. So you know exactly that your range of resilience is different than what it was pre-COVID.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:06:01

       Correct.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:06:01

       But you also know that it's getting greater than it was immediately after COVID or during COVID, 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 it 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 experienced and are experiencing is that the capacities that you know that you have-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:07:39

       Mm-hmm

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:07:39

       ... 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 of 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 gonna end up with signaling the nervous system that it's basically okay to come out and play again.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:08:34

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:08:35

        It, you know, it's almost like the... You know, it, 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 'cause we do not know the signals. Our culture is horrible with signaling our nervous system.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:08:53

        Mm.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:08:53

        Just think about the traumatic events of schools with mass shootings, and the solution is to give guns to teachers and principals and put metal detectors.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:09:04

        [laughs]

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:09:04

        Now, what is that doing to the nervous system of these children?

    15. CWChris Williamson1:09:08

        Yeah. Yeah.

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:09:09

        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.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:09:22

        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-

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:09:40

        Yeah

    19. CWChris Williamson1:09:40

        ... quite easily, the, the fact that you-- the pushback 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-

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:09:55

        Yeah

    21. CWChris Williamson1:09:55

        ... posted around the world? Are we supposed to watch, uh, movies and car crashes and, and, you know, i-i-

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:10:02

        Well, we, we-

    23. CWChris Williamson1:10:03

        The insults

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:10:04

        ... you know the answers. You know the answers.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:10:06

        Of course.

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:10:06

        Uh, the an- uh, 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.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:10:21

        Yep.

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:10:21

        They-- Because people's faces broadcast, their voices broadcast, their muscle tension broadcast.

18. 1:10:28 – 1:12:31

    Low vs High Tolerance: Understanding Your Nervous System

    1. CWChris Williamson1:10:28

       Can you sh- e-explain what a, uh, low tolerance nervous system expressing person and a high tolerance nervous system expressing person-

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:10:37

       A low tolerance-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:10:37

       How would they show up differently?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:10:39

       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 a, when your, um, i-interviewee is-- has a, uh, a monotone voice or a high-- that's a high-pitched voice. It doesn't show any flexibility. It's just broadcasting to your ear and to your body anxiety. Um, so they're broadcasting their physiological state. And I think when you brought up your question about anxiety, it is... D-now 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.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:11:37

       Mm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:11:38

       And what are you detecting? What are the things that you feel? You basically say, "I don't wanna be around this person." That is, you make a global statement, and you try to distance yourself. You haven't really, uh, it 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.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:11:59

       Yep. Yep. Yep.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:12:02

       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 we. 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.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:12:25

       Hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:12:26

        How we utilize this wonderful, uh, apparatus vocalization.

19. 1:12:31 – 1:16:59

    How to Build a Sense of Safety

    1. CWChris Williamson1:12:31

       Hmm. Okay. How do you advise people to increase their window of tolerance and build safety practically? Then we've talked about a variety of inve-interventions. What's something that's, uh, high compliance, high impact?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:12:46

       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." Okay. You know, so we put on a television while we're on treadmills. We don't take the exercise-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:13:28

       Hmm

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:13:28

       ... as a moment of zen.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:13:30

       Why is that important? Why is it important to feel the thing that's happening? Why is it not enough to just do the thing?

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:13:36

       Ah, this is where the nervous system comes in. If we're not feeling it, we're in a sense down-regulating 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, it's an internal surveillance system of our body. Our body craves that information.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:14:19

       So are you suggesting that the-- because 80% is going vagus up and only 20% is going brain through vagus down-

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:14:29

       Yeah

    9. CWChris Williamson1:14:29

       ... 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 up?

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:14:48

        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.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:14:55

        Yeah.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:14:55

        There is absolutely as far as I know, no research on this. But it 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-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:15:13

        Mm-hmm

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:15:13

        ... 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, uh, patient and more reduce your own muscle tone.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:15:39

        Hmm.

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:15:39

        So we think of activity as skeletomotor, but some of our activity is visceral motor, our organs, and cranial motor, like the muscles of our face. And so we have to start to appreciate these different sources of motor systems in our body.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:15:56

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20. 1:16:59 – 1:19:49

    How Important is Metabolic Support?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:16:59

       at checkout. How, uh, how important do you think metabolic support is to provide a window of tolerance to somatic interventions?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:17:07

       In terms of mitochondria that, or is that what-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:17:09

       Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and, uh-

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:17:11

       Oh, I, I think it... Okay, now we start talking personal information. [chuckles] 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 I, you know, I just was gone.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:17:35

       Hmm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:17:36

       And, um, in fact, we went to Greece, and I couldn't even go to the banquet. We were at a... My wife was talking at a conference s- and the conference was on p- physiology of stress. She's a endocrinologist. She-- By the way, she's the person who discovered the link between oxytocin and social behavior.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:17:53

       Wow.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:17:53

       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?" [laughs] You know, Steve, uh, well, wasn't gonna 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.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:18:20

       Hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:18:21

        And the, the one I took was called L-carnitine. It's, it's a, it's off, over the counter. And I was now... I couldn't go, even walk up a flight of steps or walk to my office. I took that, and the next day, I did two miles on an elliptical.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:18:38

        Wow.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:18:38

        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. It's basically saying, "Come out and be productive again."

    13. CWChris Williamson1:18:57

        Right. So there is, uh... Could it be the case that you could be doing the work, doing the work, um, from a...

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:19:05

        Yeah. You would be metabolically incapable of the work having-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:19:09

        Bingo

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:19:09

        ... any impact.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:19:10

        Bingo.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:19:10

        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.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:19:21

        Hmm.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:19:21

        But I will tell you that for I'll say decades I've been taking lecithin, uh, which is a, has phosphatidylcholine, a precursor for acetylcholine because acetylcholine is the, uh, used in the vagal nerve transmission and a lot of other neural transmission. And I've been taking... And fish oil. So I've been taking a lot of precursors that are useful in neural transmission.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:19:47

        Mm. What-

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:19:48

        So which

21. 1:19:49 – 1:23:07

    What Causes Shifts Between Shutdown and Overdrive?

    1. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:19:49

       is-- Yeah.

    2. CWChris Williamson1:19:50

       I'm, I'm interested in the, the sort of journey or what, 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 h- to hyperarousal?

    3. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:20:04

       Okay. What you have... And actually, I, I got an email from someone from a, a physician from the UK who says that, uh, the letter started, "I have a client who's suffering from the polyvagal syndrome."

    4. CWChris Williamson1:20:16

       Yeah.

    5. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:20:16

       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 ventral vagus is not there, so the system goes one direction and then goes in the other.

    6. CWChris Williamson1:20:36

       Yep.

    7. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:20:36

       And when you have the ventral vagus, it's kind of like a choreographer. It creates the-- 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 then when it's there, these other components really, uh, basically serve our needs. But when that, uh, that's gone, we are basically functioning like, in a way, almost decorticate animals. You know, it's like-

    8. CWChris Williamson1:21:07

       Mm

    9. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:07

       ... we're down and we're, we don't have this master regulator. So we're a regulated system.

    10. CWChris Williamson1:21:13

        Oh, yeah, you're s- just m-much more at the, at the mercy of everything flip-flopping from one side to the other. Some, uh, like an element that I wasn't aware of, but there, there's a paradoxical relaxation and startle response where the nervous system interprets parasympathetic states as threats. So as people start to relax-

    11. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:32

        Yeah

    12. CWChris Williamson1:21:32

        ... as the, as they start to get below the window of tolerance on the bottom end-

    13. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:36

        Yeah

    14. CWChris Williamson1:21:36

        ... that their system sees that as a threat and bounces them out the top. Like why-

    15. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:39

        Yeah

    16. CWChris Williamson1:21:39

        ... would, why would that be the case? Why in a system that needs more relaxation-

    17. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:43

        Yeah

    18. CWChris Williamson1:21:43

        ... why would it bounce you out the top?

    19. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:45

        This is where we talked about the interoception of that calm state is now associated with vulnerability and injury.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:21:53

        Right.

    21. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:21:54

        So it's, in a sense, our higher brain structure 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 too-- It prioritizes threat.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:22:07

        Mm. Mm-hmm. And I guess this is where the Safe and Sound Protocol-

    23. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:22:10

        Yeah

    24. CWChris Williamson1:22:10

        ... would come in.

    25. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:22:11

        S-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, uh, 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-

    26. CWChris Williamson1:22:39

        Mm

    27. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:22:40

        ... how can it be responded to? And 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, in our DNA become signals now of threat.

    28. CWChris Williamson1:23:05

        Mm.

22. 1:23:07 – 1:27:21

    Why Tinnitus Can Signal Nervous System Issues

    1. CWChris Williamson1:23:07

       Why does tinnitus often show up in highly activated people? And what is it about the ear that's go- I know some of your research has gone into the ear territory.

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:23:16

       Yeah. The issue with tinnitus, tinnitus is just, let's use-- It's not a very descriptive diagnosis. So the history of tinnitus is that people thought it was, in a sense, uh, in the ear, and they actually did such things as aggressive surgeries and removed the entire ear stru- uh, internal ear structures. The tinnitus was still there even without-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:23:41

       God, you would be really annoyed if you had your ear structure removed and you were still hearing ringing in your, in your head.

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:23:46

       That's right, because it was now, uh, the solution to that is basically it's on the auditory cortex, that type of tinnitus. And the solution now is actually pu- they put a, a stimulator on the auditory cortex to scramble those sounds. So i- so that's one type of tinnitus. I have, uh, tinnitus, 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 started to get severe tinnitus. It was like hearing sounds of, 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 are two issues on that. They, uh, the medical community, this is two thousand and two, said there's only, uh, one solution. That is, you need to have surgery. And I said, "Well, what will that do?" They said, "We, we, y- we're, we're going to do-- We'll have to cut th-this out, the tumor, and you'll be able to have hearing. However, you're gonna 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 would be called watch and wait. And they basically said, "Look, a lot of people don't get surgery. Nothing happens." [chuckles] You know? It, it just, they, they live. They-- So it's not gonna kill you.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:25:23

       Yeah.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:25:23

       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 b- uh, uh, the tinnitus wouldn't bother me, okay? This is where your question is-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:25:37

       Yeah

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:25:37

       ... 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, uh, and I'm driving across a railroad track, and on the tracks, as I go over the tracks, the tinnitus 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 started to take high doses of fish oil, and the tinnitus disappeared. Fish oil has a anti-inflammatory.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:26:19

       Hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:26:20

        So, so what I'm saying is that, that... the... what I was getting... Now, my type of tinnitus was due to the actual nerve being inflammator- inflamed, and I could control that with fish oil. So I was very fortunate.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:26:37

        Hmm.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:26:37

        And now I don't even know that I have tinnitus. So we're-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:26:40

        Why would it be the case that a, a, a dysregulated or a lower tolerance system would worsen tinnitus? Why is that interaction?

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:26:47

        Well, b- because i-if you st- because inflammation is part of that, uh, defensive system.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:26:53

        Oh, okay. Yeah.

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:26:57

        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 r- of heart rate and sweating. The inflammatory component i- is there as well.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:27:18

        Hmm. Yeah, that makes complete sense.

23. 1:27:21 – 1:29:47

    The Link Between the Vagus Nerve and the Gut

    1. CWChris Williamson1:27:21

       I'm interested in the link between the vagal nerve and the gut mic- microbiome, biome. What do you make of that connection?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:27:28

       Well, just remember that 80% of the vagal fibers are afferent, and where is the vagus going is in your gut. It's really monitoring your gut. And it's... I would think most of or many of the vagal afferents are really gut receptors. So-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:27:45

       Why would that be the case? Just because digestion's really important?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:27:48

       [chuckles] Yeah. It's not digestion. It's, it's toxins. And the other thing, you have 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 flora of your gut is complex.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:28:08

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:28:10

       So, uh, so basically, uh, uh, I- I've actually been doing, uh, the past decade, quite a bit of work in gastroenterology 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 dysregulated in many of the individuals who have gut problems, including chronic, uh, uh, vomiting syndromes and symptoms like that.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:28:49

       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 sy- like, what do you make of the gut biome's effect on the nervous system?

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:29:01

       Okay. You, you need to take some re- do some resonance breathing now [chuckles] and realize that when we talk about a system, it's bidirectional. It's really sending up signal, and we know we can influence by how we feel. So we know our gut reacts to things happening in our environment, and we know if we have a stomach ache, really our capacity has 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.

24. 1:29:47 – 1:34:44

    Are Male and Female Nervous Systems Different?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:29:47

       Is there a sex difference in how nervous systems operate?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:29:51

       Well, uh, for decades, I've tried to neglect that question. My wife has always, uh, informed me that there are sex differences. Uh, the answer is probably.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:30:03

       Hmm.

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:30:03

       I mean, I think we can say that there are some basic mechanics that are, in a way, asexual, and so 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 that's gonna be different. I think it's so understudied 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.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:30:38

       Hmm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:30:39

       Variability kills you in clinical trials because people wanted cause and effect relationships.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:30:45

       Yep. Yep. Yep. 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.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:31:14

       I don't know. I mean, I haven't thought of it that way.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:31:17

       Hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:31:17

        I keep thinking of our socialization process of males and females and the history of, of humanity, which was, you know, different social circuits Uh, for men and for women historically

    11. CWChris Williamson1:31:31

        Hmm

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:31:31

        And, and the issue-- and also the notion of birthing and how that was really a communal event.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:31:37

        Hmm.

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:31:37

        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 palliative medicine and with a, with a desire that, uh, we have tools to 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. It, it's-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:32:14

        Oh, that's interesting.

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:32:15

        Yeah. I mean, think about it, 'cause, uh, how many, how many, uh, episodes have you had interviews on?

    17. CWChris Williamson1:32:22

        One thousand and fifty maybe.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:32:25

        Okay. How many have talked about palliative care or end of life?

    19. CWChris Williamson1:32:31

        Less than 10.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:32:32

        Yeah. And we're all gonna die, right? I think. [chuckles]

    21. CWChris Williamson1:32:37

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:32:39

        Uh, and it just gives you a glimpse into how we are so unprepared for the essence, the whole life, uh, the passage.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:32:49

        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-

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:33:03

        Yeah

    25. CWChris Williamson1:33:03

        ... 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 palliative care with the same level of, uh, of, uh, scrutiny with the same level-

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:33:32

        Even, even compassion, to use the word compassion.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:33:35

        Well, it's the, it's-- the one type of discrimination which is still almost universally accepted is ageism.

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:33:41

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:33:42

        Right? Like, it's the one thing that you're never gonna get pulled up for. You can say on a daytime TV show, you can say 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 y- y- gender, like all of these different things. Ageism is this one that Arthur Brooks told me this.

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:34:09

        Well, the-
25. 1:34:44 – 1:41:13

    Why We Need More Humility and Compassion

    1. CWChris Williamson1:34:44

       So 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.

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:34:55

       Yeah.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:34:55

       What do you think are the implications when a man has never experienced consistent co-regulation, like potentially especially from a father?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:35:05

       Um, I think we can see that i- in, in, let's say our, the politics of today. Uh, so that our culture is not, um... [sighs] Okay, so there's a lot of... Okay, the consequence, what we're really saying is, uh, uh, with the, 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.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:35:50

       Yep. Yep.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:35:50

       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 could see it moving on.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:36:10

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:36:10

       I think that script is, uh, now be to my, to my mind or my eyes and my ears becoming quite predictable. You know, uh, 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 wanna be. I was quite an idealist, and I basically felt that options that I could do, e- 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-

    9. CWChris Williamson1:36:48

       Yeah

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:36:48

        ... 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 w- because we're trained in a 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.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:37:15

        Uh, it's such a good point. I, I had a conversation with a friend in Bali earlier this year And, you know, I'm ex-explaining to him about this journey that I've been on. I've spent two years trying to piece myself back together after mold, Lyme, EBV, CMV-

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:37:31

        Mm

    13. CWChris Williamson1:37:31

        ... long COVID-y stuff. And then just as I've got myself to where I felt I'd made really great progress, this dysautonomia kicks in, and, uh, a-and now I've got this new fight, and, and I, I'm-

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:37:44

        Yeah

    15. CWChris Williamson1:37:44

        ... 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 apathetic. 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.

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:38:22

        Yeah.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:38:22

        Everyone's lost a job, everyone's lost a parent, everyone's lost a whatever. But the difference, he said, is not knowing whether or not you'll get better.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:38:29

        Yeah.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:38:29

        And that, that is so true that now when I look around, uh, I've got more compassion for people who are ill. I've got more compassion-

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:38:38

        Yeah

    21. CWChris Williamson1:38:38

        ... 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 e-e-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-- uh, n-never-- is never able to stop talking about themselves or their accomplishments? And I'm like, I see-

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:39:03

        Mm

    23. CWChris Williamson1:39:03

        ... 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-- uh, the predisposition, right? They didn't get to choose either of these things. Like, fuck. Like, as annoying as you are, I should give you a lot of compassion. And-

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:39:20

        Yeah

    25. CWChris Williamson1:39:20

        ... 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-

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:39:28

        Yeah

    27. CWChris Williamson1:39:28

        ... that's been the, the, the biggest takeaway, humility and, and more compassion.

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:39:32

        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 hypersensitivities, the sensitivity to mold, the system does not have resilience.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:39:48

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:39:48

        That's what you're saying.
26. 1:41:13 – 1:44:50

    Do Stellate Ganglion Blocks Actually Work?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:41:13

       One thing I haven't mentioned, what do you make of stellate ganglion blocks?

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:41:17

       Oh.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:41:17

       What do you think of SGBs?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:41:18

       Yeah. Well, so Eugene Lipov, 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 t-- If your sympathetics are now overextended, uh, you're gonna be locked in fight or flight, and you're gonna continue to do that. And if you down-regulate them, the parasympathetic calming has an opportunity to express itself. That's what I think is happening. I think the stellate ganglion is actually, uh, uh, dampening that whole limb of the sympathetic sufficiently that the parasympathetic vagus can start to express itself.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:42:06

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:42:06

       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 ref-- is manifest in different ways. There are people who are locked into a state of fight or flight, and I think that's really the great, uh, toolkit to help treat it.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:42:30

       Mm.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:42:30

       But there are those who are kind of locked into a shutting down, withdrawal, and immobilization, and I'm not sure if that's gonna be helpful for that group.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:42:39

       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?

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:42:50

        You're, you're asking what I call, um... Okay, so they talk about intergenerational trauma. I like to use the word transgenerational 'cause I think, uh, the country where we live, and I imagine the UK as well-

    11. CWChris Williamson1:43:04

        Mm-hmm

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:43:05

        ... 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 it'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-

    13. CWChris Williamson1:43:26

        Uh-huh

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:43:26

        ... and the, you know, basically stripping kids from childhood. Uh, and, uh, a- and then making this, uh, the elite. You know, this is, uh, [laughs] uh, and totally, uh-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:43:38

        These are the trendsetters moving forward culturally.

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:43:41

        Yeah. Uh, or they were the leaders. So I, I met a, a... Actually, he 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.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:43:54

        Mm.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:43:54

        And he's really saying their bodies are locked into states of defense, so their ability to be compassionate is quite compromised.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:44:04

        Oh, that's so fascinating. And then you, you, you're in an environment which probably makes that worse. It rewards, uh, a stoic, stiff upper lipness. "I am not affected by this. I'm a, a safe pair of hands to drive this organization forward."

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:44:18

        Yeah. Or even, you know, the bit about, uh, the English, uh, view of sexuality, do it for the queen or the, you know.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:44:26

        [laughing] I've never pulled that one out, but I will-

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:44:31

        Or, or, or even listen. The, the line was, "It will be over in a few minutes. Just don't worry about it."

    23. CWChris Williamson1:44:35

        Yeah. Think of, think of queen and country and just keep going.

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:44:37

        Yeah. Yeah.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:44:39

        Yeah.

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:44:39

        Yeah. It, it's, it's not one of love and, and engagement and connection. It's something else.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:44:45

        Duty.

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:44:45

        Yeah.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:44:45

        It's closer to duty.

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:44:46

        Yeah.
27. 1:44:50 – 1:49:54

    The Strongest Criticisms of Polyvagal Theory

    1. CWChris Williamson1:44:50

       obviously this... You, you, you've been working on this theory for a long time, and it's, uh, unbelievably influential. What are the strongest criticisms of polyvagal theory-

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:45:01

       Well-

    3. CWChris Williamson1:45:01

       ... in your opinion? Right. Which criticisms do you think are fairest?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:45:04

       They're-- 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.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:45:15

       Hmm.

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:45:15

       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-

    7. CWChris Williamson1:45:35

       I, I'm interested. What are the most common misconceptions-

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:45:41

       Oh

    9. CWChris Williamson1:45:41

       ... when criticisms are being lodged then?

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:45:44

        They, they don't understand the evolution of the vagal system. Uh, the fact that it, the nucleus that where the vagus comes from in the ventral vagus is an older nucleus long before mammals is fine, but that didn't have, uh, cardio inhibitory fibers until mammals had it.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:46:02

        Uh-huh.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:46:02

        So they don't understand the distinction between an anatomical structure and its actually components, uh, neurophysiologically. They basically don't understand that polyvagal theory was never about the nerve. It was about the organization of this integrated brainstem system. They just don't understand what it's about.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:46:22

        And, and what, what, what d- does that lead them to wrongly conclude? Like what are the implications-

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:46:27

        They-

    15. CWChris Williamson1:46:27

        ... of not understanding that? What's the criticism that's levied because of that error?

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:46:31

        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.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:46:44

        Hmm.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:46:45

        So it's been to the phy-- In fact, I created AI, uh, polyvagal scholar, and it has one basic rule. Be f-- 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, uh, 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 vagus, it's of this whole mammalian organizational system that enables us to co-regulate. It enables our social behavior now to impact on our health and physiology.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:47:30

        Hmm.

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:47:30

        And they miss all that. They get stuck into something that doesn't exist. And, and this has been going on for almost thirty 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, that you have. I mean, it's like-

    21. CWChris Williamson1:47:49

        That's a mic drop if I've ever heard one.

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:47:50

        But, but I would also say that it's double-edged. The more people, uh, criticize it, the more lights that are shining on it.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:47:58

        Hmm.

    24. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:47:59

        You know? [laughs] 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, uh, 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 vagus. You can't criticize it based upon any single pathway-

    25. CWChris Williamson1:48:40

        Hmm

    26. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:48:40

        ... 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-- [laughs] 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. 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 wanna argue with me. It matters to me if you represent my work accurately. That's fine by me

    27. CWChris Williamson1:49:35

        I'm gonna use your statement when somebody misquotes me on the internet as well. Uh-

    28. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:49:38

        Yeah. 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

    29. CWChris Williamson1:49:49

        Hmm. But they can also say that you've said anything, which is, uh, the-

    30. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:49:53

        Yeah
28. 1:49:54 – 1:53:09

    Can Your Nervous System Be “Too Safe”?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:49:54

       false accusation equivalent. All right. We spent, we spent an entire episode talking about when, uh, people's nervous systems are, uh, too dysregulated, too sensitive, a window of tolerance which is too constrained. Can a person's nervous system be too safe, lead to, uh-

    2. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:50:10

       Hmm

    3. CWChris Williamson1:50:10

       ... risk aversion, lack of ambition, inability to tolerate challenge? Like, so, uh, the pussification of people. Is there such a thing as too safe?

    4. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:50:18

       Okay. So, so what... I see, I wouldn't... My interpretation w- uh, was what if a nervous system feels too safe? Does that make them too vulnerable? See, I-

    5. CWChris Williamson1:50:28

       Oh

    6. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:50:29

       ... I'm actually going to the other side.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:50:30

       Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

    8. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:50:31

       And I actually was very concerned about that. I was actually thinking that that was a possibility. Um, the... 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.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:50:48

       Hmm. Mm-hmm.

    10. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:50:49

        And I 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.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:51:08

        Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

    12. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:51:09

        So, so it's like we're talking about a well-regulated system that enables this co-regulation to occur, tends to be the same system that can adjust and navigate to this complex world.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:51:22

        Unreal. Stephen Porges, ladies and gentlemen. Stephen, you're so great. Uh, I've got... I, I have a, a million more things that 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.

    14. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:51:35

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:51:35

        Um, I just really, I really appreciate you. I really appreciate you giving me, uh, and, and everybody a, a language with which to experience or to understand the way that we experience the world. As far... I, 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-- Uh, 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-

    16. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:52:06

        Yeah

    17. CWChris Williamson1:52:06

        ... 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.

    18. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:52:14

        [chuckles] Oh, thank you, Chris. And my summary of what you just said is that you're polyvagal informed. Um, I mean, that's when you see the world through the way that you described it. That's what the theory was for, is for us to understand that, uh, when the nervous system or what I'm basically saying, our physiological state-

    19. CWChris Williamson1:52:34

        Mm-hmm

    20. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:52:34

        ... is really, uh, a major component of our behavior and who we are and our feelings.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:52:41

        In my world, that's-- The world of academia would be poly- polyvagal informed. In my world of the internet and degenerate culture, it would be polyvagal pilled, but we'll, we'll, we'll a- a- allow us to do one or the other. Stephen Porges, ladies and gentlemen. Stephen, you're great. I appreciate you, and I can't wait to speak to you again soon.

    22. SPDr. Stephen Porges1:52:56

        Well, thank you, Chris. Thank you very much. [outro music]

    23. CWChris Williamson1:52:58

        Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, YouTube knows who you are deeply. It thinks you're gonna like this one even more. Go on, press it

Episode duration: 1:53:10