The role of Polyvagal Theory in school and business

"A child who is in survival mode cannot learn properly." Here is the last article in this series dedicated to the Polyvagal Theory (PVT) in everyday life. If we now know how to appropriate the PVT as well as in the relationship with others, let's address one last point: what the Theory brings […]

“A child who is in survival mode cannot learn properly.. »

This is the last article in this series dedicated to Polyvagal Theory (PVT) in everyday life. If we know now How to take ownership of the TPV and in the relationship to the other, let's address one last point: what Polyvagal Theory brings to the school environment and to the professional world.

School, Kids, and Survival Mode

During our last Trauma, Attachment & Resilience Summit, we received the American pedagogue Niki Elliott. One of her missions is to train teachers and schoolteachers in TPV so that they are "polyvagal informed".

If we listened to children through the prism of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), we could create better conditions for them to learn. Because we cannot learn when we are in a survival state.

A child who is often in a sympathetic state or in a dorsal state will not be able to open up fully to learning because everything in him is mobilized for his survival. In reality there is, most often, no external danger. visible : no big threatening bear roams the classroom… and the teacher doesn’t necessarily see the danger.

Yet, it doesn't take a clear danger to switch to "survival mode." Wondering what situations can trigger this mode in a child? Here are some examples:

At home everyone is yelling all the time;
He didn't have anything to eat in the morning;
He gets bullied in the schoolyard;
His cat died yesterday or his dog is sick;
One of the parents is experiencing stress at work or is unemployed...

We can obviously cover the whole range of what makes us feel insecure and transpose it to the level of children. There are thousands of insecure situations.

An insecure child evolves with an autonomic nervous system that does not feel safe. As a result, his ANS will be dysregulated and colored by sympathetic or dorsal and he will not have full access to his cognitive abilities.

This is why a child who is in survival mode cannot learn properly.

Being able to identify this insecurity in children could help with learning and there would probably be fewer school dropouts. And if this is true for toddlers, it is also true for older pupils and students.

Teachers can also be a source of security and insecurity. This is why it is important to ask yourself the right questions: “Me, as a teacher, when I go to meet students or pupils, what do I convey? To whom do I convey security and to whom insecurity?”

For example, maybe I, as a white, cisgender, straight woman… I pose a kind of danger to some people, because I represent the dominant class, the class that has privilege.

As a result, some students will feel something very aggressive towards them, emanating from me. They will not be in a learning posture ("I will learn from this person"), but in a defensive and therefore survival state ("How can I defend myself against this person?"). In this case, it will be impossible for them to access the opening necessary to learn, because all their psychic energy will be devoted to survival.

Bringing safety back to the workplace

This problem of survival mode which prevents us from being in the right conditions to learn, we can also extend it to the business world.

Just like the teacher, as a boss (or manager) it is interesting to ask yourself the right questions. For example, before starting a meeting planned with employees, you can try to read the state of their nervous system: "Where are they? Can I talk to them now or is this not the right time?"

Moreover, there are more and more companies that are introducing the Mindfulness or Full Awareness, or who recommend starting a meeting with a breather or a round table discussion on everyone's emotional state, and I hope that these practices will become more widespread.

Knowing the Polyvagal Theory allows you to understand which mode is activated in employees: danger or safety? And accept that sometimes, before starting the meeting, you have to start by "talking about the weather": some will say that it is useless, that it serves no purpose... However, it brings security and therefore more available employees.

Many bosses or managers can seem scary or unapproachable because they are generally in a sympathetic state, not necessarily because of or towards their employees, but because they are busy mobilizing to win contracts, raise money, run the business, etc.

Physically, we can recognize certain signs such as clenched jaws, a very energetic gait, etc. This "sympathetic position" does not necessarily mean dysregulation: sympathetic mobilization is necessary when they have to manage the company. But if they could become aware of this, it would certainly be helpful for employees.

A preferred mode of response to danger

The autonomic nervous system reacts in a very binary way: dangerous or not dangerous, safe ou unsafe. For him, a danger is a danger, no matter what type it is. A voice that has a certain timbre, a light, a smell, a shape… Everything that enters through our senses can be a signal of danger or safety.

In general, we all have a preferred mode of protection against danger (everyone has a dysregulated state by default): some people are more sympathetic and others are more dorsal.

Often when we are in the sympathetic, we cannot stand people who regulate themselves in the dorsal and conversely, when we come from the dorsal, we cannot stand people who regulate themselves in the sympathetic.

So if you're dealing with someone who regulates in the sympathetic (like some bosses) and you're more in a dorsal mode, it's going to be unbearable for your nervous system to bear.

I imagine that if the "polyvagal culture" were to spread within companies, the world of work would change radically with this awareness that the way in which each person regulates themselves can be experienced as an aggression for the other or as security. To simplify:

In the sympathetic mode, we would not tolerate people who are silent and who do not react and we would want to shake them.
In the dorsal mode, we would no longer say anything, we would remain silent in the face of sympathetic reactions, we would act as if we were not there, we would want to disappear.

Neuroception and limiting beliefs

The concept of neuroception is the ability of our nervous system to sense the keys to security and insecurity, a non-conscious perception. These keys (or clues) can come from outside but also from inside:

I have a virus in my body, my autonomic nervous system will alert me, it will say "danger" (this is information that circulates from the lower body to the upper body, towards the ventral nervous system, passing through the ANS).
Danger can also come from our own thoughts, so from the top down. Our thoughts can bring both security and insecurity.

All this is played out internally. The ANS is a real highway of information. These security clues can also come from the fact that thanks to neuroception, our ANS will also capture the state of the other's ANS and also what is happening in the intermediate space (that of the relationship) and in the environment...

A person who is afraid of speaking in public will tell themselves stories: "They will judge me, they will find me useless, I will lose my composure, I will not succeed in getting my ideas across, no one will listen to me...".

These thoughts are often what we could call limiting beliefs, which are linked to the state of our ANS and the story we tell ourselves from this state. In a dorsal state, we will think that we have no value, that we are not in our place, that no one will listen to us. This reinforces the perceived danger and pushes us further into a dorsal disconnection, or even dissociation. In the end, it is not so much others who scare us but rather what we perceive and tell ourselves about others.

And sometimes, insecurity is experienced externally. Let's imagine: you have to speak in public and just before going on stage, you come across someone who looks at you and stares at you. In their eyes, you saw judgment. Result? You arrive on stage with this insecurity experienced externally which has nothing to do with speaking. And then, suddenly, you are afraid of speaking in public: because just before, someone activated in you a dorsal state of disconnection.

To conclude this series on Polyvagal Theory

Finally, I would like to write a few more words... I have a lot of gratitude for Stephen Porges. He devoted 40 or 50 years of his life to research. He tirelessly passes on his knowledge to us and continues to do so, even today, even after he retired. I admire this man because he is a pure scientist, a pure genius, but also a person of great humanity. He embodies what he advocates, he listens, he is alive, he is regulated, he is a man in the belly.

I also have a lot of gratitude for Deb Dana who understood the Polyvagal Theory presented by Stephen Porges and who, like no other, translated its complexity. Stephen Porges' books and articles are not easy to understand, but Deb Dana was able to transpose this into a language that is completely understandable and accessible to all.

Anchor by Deb Dana and published by Éditions Quantum Way, is also available on our site, on Amazon, on Fnac and on order in your favorite bookstore. Discover the first 15 pages in by clicking here and connect to the energy and gut-loving goodness of Deb Dana.

I am very happy to see that in France more and more people are broadcasting, making known and helping to understand TPV, notably through numerous books, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc. Moreover, you can find there my interview by Evelyne Josse.

I would like to make a reservation, however. There is no magic with the Polyvagal Theory: "we do as if, we do like this, and presto! We regulate our vagus nerve!" No... It's a little more complex than that. It's not just about doing exercises on demand.

“Adopting” TPV on a daily basis means, above all, learning to know yourself and establishing daily routines that will help us to return to a state of security more quickly when deregulation arrives.

If we try to "regulate" our vagus nerve without having resolved the origin of the deregulation (such as limiting beliefs or traumas experienced in childhood), we can regulate our vagus nerve and use all the tools we know, it will not be enough. It is useful to work with a professional, to do therapy, to cure what deregulated our SNA originally.

I really enjoyed sharing a bit of my passion for TPV with you and I hope that it was shared and that you learned things about yourself and the people around you.

With Quantum Way, we continue to regularly produce content, programs and conferences with our Polyvagal Theory experts, so stay tuned and also follow us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube) to become and stay polyvagal informed 🙂

Series of articles “Polyvagal Theory in Everyday Life” by Florence Bernard: