Awareness

According to the Polyvagal Theory, our autonomic nervous system responds moment to moment experiences to keep us safe, through three different pathways …..

Green (ventral) – feeling settled, calm, curious, defences are down and there is no pending threat. In this space you can connect and communicate with others, you are able to listen. Your thinking brain (cortex) is working well, and you can learn and listen, problem solve and think abstractly.

As you move up to the red (sympathetic), you become more alert (and a certain amount of alertness is required to get moving and get things done). However, as you get deep in red your ‘fight/flight’ is triggered and you start to feel under threat, heart rate increases, defences are up, you are scanning your environment for danger. You are reactive, cup half empty thinking, angry and frustrated and/or in panic. At this point your thinking brain is only working at a limited capacity – meaning your capacity to learn, listen, think abstractly, problem solve is limited.
In this state child may look impulsive, lash out physically, hyperactive, or worried.

The KEY here is that our ‘thinking brain’ is functioning at a limited capacity therefore it is often not successful to try to reason or discipline or teach children (or anyone) in this state. The child/person needs to be regulated and move back into the green (thinking brain on) before we can reason, or problem solve or teach.

As we move further up to the blue zone (Dorsal), we are feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, helpless, and shut down as we can often see no other way out.

It is not possible to always be in the green zone as life has challenges which require us to respond in different emotional states causing us to move up to red and blue, but the key is to know how to move back to green – what can you do that moves you to green?