The Truth About Your Nervous System That Changes Everything Feat. Dr Stephen Porges

Key Takeaway

Your body's physiological state is the platform upon which your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors exist. The key to change isn't trying harder or forcing yourself to relax—it's becoming aware of what your body is doing and learning to navigate with it, not against it. When your physiology is challenged (high fever, exhaustion, stress), your ability to think clearly and connect with others is compromised. The secret isn't avoiding sympathetic activation—it's ensuring adequate recovery time. Your nervous system needs flexibility: the ability to mobilize for challenges and then return to a restorative state.

Episode Overview

Dr. Steven Porges, creator of Polyvagal Theory and pioneer of heart rate variability research, explains how our physiological state—not just our intentions—determines our experience as humans. He challenges the notion that we can simply 'try harder' or 'think positive' to change, introducing the concept of neuroception (how our nervous system unconsciously detects safety or threat) and explaining why trauma isn't just an event to 'get over' but a hardened imprint in the nervous system that requires specific conditions to heal.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Truth About Your Nervous System That Changes Everything Feat. Dr Stephen Porges from The Ed Mylett Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

How do I signal my body to relax? Yes. Yes. Yes. And the answer is it's not an intentionality is almost paradoxical. If I try to relax, I can't relax. But if I allow my body to follow the rhythmicity, the body knows what to do. The healthy body has these feedback loops. The heart rate rhythms that are naturally occurring that support digestion, oxygenization digestion, oxygenization digestion, oxygenization or our metabolic activity. It's arithmicity. Stress is a disruption of those rhythms. I'm introducing you to a new understanding of yourself so that you don't just try harder or you know, I'm just going to be happier.

Focus on being happy. But I think the vast majority would say, well, it's moved the needle a little bit, but I'm still kind of the way I've always been. If people would say to another, why are you depressed? You have so much to live for. with is really a misunderstanding of what depression is or that physiological state that enables depressive feelings to really just emerge and grow. I like to use the concept of feeling safe. You don't have permission to feel safe when your body is destabilized, when your homeostatic processes aren't working right.

Our physiological state determines much of our experience as being humans. And what that means is that part of a responsibility is to be aware of what our body is doing and then to learn how to navigate with our body. Not to blame it, but to understand it, not to scream at it, but at times to honor it. And this is the world in which we elevate cognition as if cognition can live independent of the rest of our physiology. That sentence right there, one of the most profound or interesting sentences ever been said on the show.

All right. Hey guys. So today's podcast is going to be unique. It's a dive into the deep end of understanding you. And I'm with Dr. Steven Porges, who you hear about in a minute. But we don't waste any time. So we're going to use terms that many of you haven't heard of before, like HRV, which stands for heart rate variability. And that's the variation in your heartbeat. Not your heart rate, but your heart variability. And that matters because they believe, you know, in modern science that that's an indicator of what physical state your body's in, the neuro state that you're in.

You'll hear about parasympathetic and sympathetic state. All you need to know about that is the sympathetic state is sort of considered fight orflight mode in most circles. And the parasympathetic state is known as more of like a peaceful or flow state. The veagal nerve or the vagus nerve, it's just a nerve that runs really. It's the longest nerve in your body. And this nerve when stimulated, they believe changes that state that you're in. These are new terms to most of, you know, most of you and most people who are listening to this, but it won't be over the next 5 or 10 years.

These will be very commonplace terms that you'll know about. So when you hear those terms today, don't be intimidated by them or anything like that. But I wanted you to have this foundation because we're going to go right into it here when you hear this conversation. And so, um, stick in there because although it's complicated in the beginning, by the middle and end, there's a big bow put around it that I think will increase your level of understanding, particularly to the very end this week. All right, guys.

Here we go. All right. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So, I've wanted to talk to this man for a long time. What I didn't know is he lives down the street from me. So, we're doing this uh if you're watching this on Zoom today or on YouTube, we probably could walk to each other's house and do this interview together. But, nonetheless, we've chosen to do it digitally, but I've been fascinated by his work because it it goes to the root of what I believe is modernday change in human beings, not just platitudes or memes or motivational sayings, but this man's work matters and he's been doing it since, you know, since before a lot of you were born.

And he's an expert. His name by the way is he told me please call him Steve but I'm not doing that until we get going. Dr. Steven Porges is my guest today. He's uh affiliated with a bunch of different universities. One of them is University of Indiana. So go hooers and the national championship that's coming up. But written a bunch of book bunch of stuff on books that matter to me. The most recent book that I want to talk about is called poly veagal perspectives interventions practices and strategies.

And we're going to talk today about the neuroscience of you is what we're really going to talk about today with Dr. Porges finally. Welcome to the show neighbor. Good to have you here. Well, it's a pleasure to finally meet you and sometime it will be face to face. face. face. Yes. Yes. Yes. I told you my location will now be disclosed now that we're looking forward to it. Yeah. So, can we do something basic first of all because I want to I I really believe that what you've been doing for a long time is going to become the modern-day conversation in kind of my area of human change.

Understanding oneself. You call it being a witness to ourselves is actually what I've seen in your work, which I love that term. So, everybody lean in today. If you want to improve and change your life or maybe just understand yourself better, can you start just overall basic about what what's going on inside of us? You call it neurosception, the vagus nerve, all that thrown into one bunch. Just start us out with some fundamental basic stuff so that we can have a conversation beyond that. beyond that.

beyond that. I'll start off by really saying we've all been misled. Okay. We've been misled from almost the moment we were born. Certainly from the moment we walked into a classroom and the whole notion was that our behavior was determined by our intentions and so that if we were sad, if we were kind of withdrawn, it it was we were doing that to ourselves and very little respect for the importance of our physiological state, our autonomic nervous system, how our gut is working, how our heart is beating, uh how our physiology, which is the platform upon which our cognitions, our emotions, and our behavior exist.

That when our physiology is challenged, like if we have a high fever, if we are out of breath, if we're exhausted, our ability to socialize, let alone cognitively uh function is greatly compromised. So the main message here is our physiological state determines much of our experience as being humans. And what that means is that part of our responsibility is to be aware of what our body is doing and then to learn how to navigate with our body. Not to blame it but to understand it. Not to scream at it but at times to honor it.

honor it. honor it. So if our physiological state is the driver, what drives that? It's not the driver. It's the literally the furnace, the engine. It's the it is the it's the whole mechanism that moves everything is what you're saying. It's it is the motor system. It's the in a sense it goes down even to metabolic and you might have had some guests who talk about the uh mitochondria or where they talk about the biome. It actually goes down to even those levels. But if our body doesn't metabolize its energy we don't move.

And if we are have certain physiological signatures, our brain, this is the where that word neurosception comes in. Our brain in interprets the world as being a very very unpleasant place. So the part that I really want to emphasize is that we tend to take responsibility for whatever we happens to us as opposed to kind of like honor what our body our nervous system is doing with the signals in the world and to be aware of that. So the first stage that we're really going to get to is how do I develop an awareness of what my body is doing.

Okay. So to say that it's the driver you're saying it's even more powerful. It's the entire engine. So it's yeah you and let let's step back for a moment because when you use the word driver and it's a a you know if you remember forms of speech that's an active or transient verb you're driving something. So you're empowering something to do something and that's where we have to step back and that is the engine itself its capacity is really what we need to be aware of.

So in your world, you're going to be talking about trying harder. There's at a point where trying harder is actually destructive. Well, by the way, I completely believe that particularly when I work with athletes and they end up increasing pressure. They end up increasing this the the sympathetic state that they may be in at that time and actually they become less functional under stress. But that's that's a good segue because that's the physiological state that does not have flexibility. Because its roots when you become in a sense sympathetically dominant, you're more in a a panic or fight flight or you're angry at yourself or angry at other people, you lose your ability to have flexibility and you lose your awareness of others as well.

So you're not a good social partner either. Do you believe that this is conditioned? In other words, the state that we find ourselves in, is this because of some, you know, I was raised by an alcoholic till I was 15. And I sometimes wonder is the fact that I seem to be almost You're saying it's not even a ch my body appears to be addicted to this sympathetic state most of the time that it's in is could that be conditioning from childhood or there's couple things here.

We're not going to dismiss experience and we're not going to dismiss learning or adaptive or conditioning, but we're really going to put something else into it. The ability to be aware of what your body is doing. So, in a sense, uh we're not saying that if your body gets reuned because you lived in a threatening environment as a child that you're going to be reactive. We're going to acknowledge that you may be more reactive, but we're going to give you kind of a instruction set of how to navigate with that body.

So you you follow where I'm going. It's not like saying, "Oh, because you have that body, of course you're going to behave that way." We're saying, "Of course your reactions may be that way, but that's not destiny." That can be this can be reversed or undone, so to speak. undone in part through what is really kind of a popular construct now and that is body awareness becoming more embodied. So this whole movement in psychotherapy towards somatic therapies is really about being more embodied or in a sense feeling your own body.

Okay, let's let's go back a little bit for everybody here because everybody what we're doing now is I think for the majority of you I'm introducing you to a new understanding of yourself and it has been for me for the last five or eight years in the work I do privately with people so that you don't just try harder or you know I'm just going to be happier. Focus on being happy. Focus on what you're grateful for, right? like and I think the vast majority would say, "Well, it's moved the needle a little bit, but I'm still kind of the way I've always been." And so, let's just let's go back for a second and and first off, are there two states?

Is it fair to say that there's a your body is either in a sympathetic? sympathetic? sympathetic? I would not go there. I would not go there. Okay? Okay? Okay? I mean, because you start stepping into the messy stuff, okay? because you create a eitheror a binary system when in reality the system that we live with that we inherited is a system that has many faces many aspects to it and what it does all the aspects are quote adaptive there is no bad state and when we start getting into things we start saying I got to get out of that as opposed to saying why is my body in a defensive state now Okay.

Is it fair to say that the sympathetic state is considered the defensive state or or are they they they No, let's reframe it. It is fair to say that I recruit my sympathetic nervous system when I am in states of defense. But when I play, when I enjoy myself and I'm moving, like when kids play and their faces are smiling, that's not a defensive state. That's play. That's acting uh in a reciprocal way. It's co-regulation. co-regulation. co-regulation. So it's the difference, you know, like when you uh when athletes lose the ability to quote play because they're no longer enjoying the interaction that that is they're they're missing the co-regulation.

co-regulation. co-regulation. So the concept of playing with someone is like dancing with someone. You move, they move. And it's that reciprocity that our nervous system loves. What's the biggest misconception I guess then about trauma that the poly bagel theory sort of adjusts or corrects? Well, what most people think is it's an event, get over it. M as opposed to it's an event that is so powerful to your nervous system that is a life threat that gets as a hardened imprint in your nervous system and your body just won't give up on it because it was so threatening.

It says you can make the mistake and think everyone is threatening but you won't get hurt. So in a sense, think about a failsafe system that says you hit my threshold and now I'm really porous and I'm not going to allow my body to be in close proximity with anyone. And the adaptive response for many people with trauma histories is they either totally withdraw so they are not in any contact with others or they become numb to their own bodily feelings. And that's probably the more prevalent one where people lose their own bodily feelings.

How do you guys this is so good. How do you you said being able to um become aware neurosception neurosception neurosception being aware of what your body is doing or telling. How does one know? How does one sense that? What are some of the tools? tools? tools? Okay, let's just start off with life's experiences. Okay, experiences. Okay, experiences. Okay, let's get an example of neurosception. A you're you're at dinner with a friend and a table behind you, some male voice very powerfully starts yelling at someone.

someone. someone. Okay, how are you enjoying your meal with that or do you get a visceral feeling? So, your nervous system goes into a state of defense or threat because you'll have associations. It's not merely that you had associations. We are wired to react to certain types of sounds and movements around us. That's that's important. I don't interrupt you, but that is important. Meaning that you're it's not just that maybe you've had a traumatic conditioning about something. You could be pre-wired. be pre-wired. be pre-wired. The interesting part of trauma is that it starts off pre-wired, but it gets to a point of being retuned.

So, let's talk about trauma. Like let's say someone is raped or they're in the hospital and they get a you know medical trauma. The important thing is what happens next? Are they in the arms of safe loving people? Are they comforted or are they interrogated? interrogated? interrogated? So in a sense we are a society that thinks uh of trauma as or let's say rape as uh we need to find out the perpetrator and we need retribution and I think there's been a wonderful example of with the EP I call the Epstein's women Epstein's women because they didn't want retribution they wanted their own voice back and so what happens is that the body basically goes into what I call the deep abyss through withdrawal.

And the way you get the body out of that is through safe, loving engagement, melodic voices, friendly faces, gestures, but above all, respect for the vulnerability of the other. This episode is brought to you by Row Nutrition's liposomaal creatine. So, I talk a lot about protecting your energy. And if you're trying to perform at a high level in business, in life, the gym, wherever it is, everything runs on energy. So, that's the currency. One thing I've added to my routine recently is Rose Nutrition's liposomaal creatine.

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That's butcherbox.commylet. Don't forget, use our link so that they know we sent you. Can I in a interpersonal relationship interpersonal relationship interpersonal relationship u friend, loved one, husband, wife, significant other? significant other? significant other? Am I doing things unconsciously that makes someone feel unsafe that triggers that in them? And if so, what are those things? How do you know? Oh, Oh, Oh, okay. I'm only smiling because it's how we how you phrase the question. And the point is you have a real accessibility to you. I can feel it.

I can see it. So I'm feeling something that I see even on a two-dimensional screen. And that is an intonation of voice, a facial expressivity, an openness. Even in terms of your physical presence, it's an open. So you're doing many of the right things, which makes you probably an outstanding coach for those reasons. And you probably get the feedback from others where people say, you know, I feel so comfortable with you. I can share these things with you. So, and what they're saying is, I'm safe in your presence.

presence. presence. And when people are not safe in another's presence, their bodies tend to pick that up. And that is neurosception. The nervous system is detecting those features. And we can talk about some of the wired in features. One is facial expressivity. Head turning away. You engage me and I do this or I do this. Look at my watch or where's my phone? I got to get No, the issue is I I disengage you while you are trying to engage me and you have a feeling and you've had hope you've been you've had guests that when you were on with them, you're trying to figure out what are they why are they even there because they're in some other space.

Mhm. And but you know that you are intuitive. You like people. You do that for a living. But the issue is your body picks it up. And for some people just the turning away is enough to get them to jump out of their skin and scream. So we are we do do that. So if I'm I I'm just fascinated by this. I guess part B I just want to have the foundational piece. Do you believe HRV is an accurate measurement of which state your body is in currently?

in currently? in currently? Okay, you you have to understand my history there and you probably don't understand. I was the first person to quantify HRV in the 60s. Oh, I know it's right here in my notes. I just want the audience. Okay. I I often don't want to take any credit for it because because it's been misunderstood. I wrote a paper recently. It's called polyagal theory a journey from observation to intervation to application and HRV was observation. Okay. So I saw heart rate patterns. I saw when people paid attention they stabilized.

I saw that when people had more B2B variability they were uh more resilient or more flexible. But I asked the next question and that's where the HRV people went off. I said what is the neural intervation that is causing that HRV HRV HRV and it's complicated but there's a component of it that is related to part of the vagus not the entire part of the vagus and this is the part of the vententral veagal complex which is also related to intonation of voice so intonation of voice is just a valid indicator of veagal state than heart rate variability rate variability rate variability Wow.

So if so if someone finds themselves like myself with um I want everyone to lean in. I know this is a little bit complicated everybody but it's not as complicated as you think. So stay with us. If someone like myself has what is considered to be very low heart rate variability, mine is often in the single digits single digits single digits when you measure it. Does that mean is that indicative of somebody who's living primarily in a sympathetic state most of the time? the time? the time?

No. But you see your numbers uh are not really valid numbers of the vententral veagal complex. veagal complex. veagal complex. Good. Good. Good. The numbers because it the qu the way you're quantified which is probably off of a Fitbit or Apple Watch or something like that. Uh they're measuring or clumping together all variations in heart rate which can include arrhythmias. So you can get really impressive HRV measures with an arrhythmia. arrhythmia. arrhythmia. Okay. So that's your first warning. Okay. Okay. Okay. The second one is that the type of analysis that they're using is not a a accurate one for extraction of neural influences.

So the sense heart rate variability is not uh there's something in there that is of value but the value of what you can get out is a function of the sophistication of your signal processing or extraction tools. It's like mining. And would you just get a bunch of rockag have a gold mine or would you kind of be a little bit more careful? careful? careful? I understand. So earlier you said there's not a good or a bad state. So sympathetic isn't necessarily bad. Parasympathetic isn't necessarily good.

But are most is there a risk if you're an achiever? Like I just I I just use myself. So, let's assume that I at least I think this is debatable, but I'm sort of one of those people that's like always competing, always wanting to grow, always grow, always grow, always the next thing, right? And I see people like me, so I'm a witness to myself, but I'm probably better at seeing this than other people. Many of my achiever type quote unquote friends, I sometimes fear, including myself, that somehow I've become addicted to the stress.

I guess the way to say it is the stress of achievement. Is is is that could you Well, there you can you can just Well, we get used to um I would help you rewrite your narrative. Okay. But you you just made your narrative pathological. pathological. pathological. Now you could say, you know, that this desire to explore this curiosity is how my how my how I grow, how my brain grows and what I find of interest. And that's a more let's say positive view of who you are as opposed to, you know, I the word is really curiosity.

And you may be driven to learn about people or learn about something and that may be what you think is working hard. Now if I go back to my ner early research, it was on heart rate variability but it was on heart rate variability during mental effort. And so when people would pay attention, the heart rate variability would flatten out. It would stabilize. And in 1969 when I observed that in the early 70s I thought this was really remarkable that we could link this literally into education and transference or transmitting of information that if you could suppress your heart rate variability you could process more information.

What I didn't understand at that point in time it took me over a decade was that that was a disruptor of our homeostatic functions. And this is an important concept. The heart rate rhythms that are naturally occurring, not the variability per se, but the rhythmicity that creates the variability are really reflecting the feedback loops of our body. It's taking care of itself. And so when we talk about healthy bodies, the healthy body has these feedback loops that support digestion, oxygenization oxygenization oxygenization or our metabolic activity, its arithmicity.

And when we use words like stress, which are really loaded words, difficult words to understand, we can give a very simple operational definition. Stress is a disruption of those indogenous homeostatic rhythms. Oh my goodness, it's so good. Do you think, here's a basic question. Do you think in general, I already know you're I know you're going to jump on this. Do you think in general somebody who lives in a sympathetic state and let's just assume their heart rate variability is low that they are going to they are less physically healthy long term than somebody who lives in a parasympathetic state?

Well, don't get binary. Okay, let's say that um a person who has the resources to switch into a sympathetic state and then to recover and be in a health restoration state with the parasympathetic system is going to be more flexible and more healthy. So it's not like I'm living in calmness. No, I have great enthusiasm, great, you know, excitement. Um I have passion. So I have a lot of physiology and a lot of suppression of veagal activity but my body signals me and said enough is enough.

I now need to relax. And the interesting part about our species is that it does fine with those challenges as long as you give the body sufficient recovery time. So the real secret is good recovery. It's not the sympathetic tone. is the recovery of taking away that tone because the sympathetic nervous system is metabolically costly to maintain. to maintain. to maintain. Okay. So, it's metabolically costly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's that which in my layman's view of things, okay, well, that can't be really good long term if it's metabolically costly, right?

But you might lose some weight. You see, the other people will say, I'll lose weight. lose weight. lose weight. Is there a way? So, help us out here. give us I'm wondering with you. You're the expert. By the way, you guys listen to this man and I I don't think he minds me telling you this. He's 81 years old. You imagine you imagine um I know that as those of you that are on the audio, I mean his cognitive abilities, his articulation is better than anybody I know that's in their 30s.

And I I have to think that somehow this work, this stimulation of this life's work helps in that regard. Let me ask you a question. Can you at your stage now or could we you could teach us can I can I observe stage by the way what I mean by that is the duration of that you've spent in this world and studying it as the expert on it can you observe in your we learn to in our partner or in a negotiation a business environment what state perhaps we have triggered another person oh yeah oh wow but we do it intuitively we may not say we do it.

But we do it. We react to people when their uh eyes move to the side or their faces get flat. Um when if they're not if their voice loses its intonation, we will say, "What are you mad at me?" or something like that. What did I do? Uh we live in too much of a virtual world. Uh I always like to use the use of email in the very beginning as a perfect example. When email first be started to become popular, people got very upset because people would just respond with tur points and then the culture shifted and we just talk and engage in in that tur way.

But our bodies had grown up with the notion of saying how are you? Nice to see you know in a sense these few uh innocuous pleasant words. uh but we've got into this efficiency of communication that makes communication lack it makes it lack its social value. So I like to use the word sociality and think of sociality as one of our homeostatic processes processes processes that so in a sense our health giving behaviors with others our trust our engagement our ability just to be present with another is extremely important and for many people they can't be with another human but they can be with their pets.

That is interesting. By the way, that's become more and more at least obvious to me in this digital era that we live in. So many of you have asked how to see me speak live. And for the first time ever, you can come see me speak live in person. All of my speeches have been private events, but now I'm teaming up with Life Surge speaking all over the country. Life Surge is a one-day faith-based event where you'll walk in hungry for success and you'll leave ready to build your resources to leave an impact on others.

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There will be a link in the show notes. So click through and take some time to join us. Cities are being added all the time. So if you don't see one near you now, check back. I hope to see you there. Is so based on that. You use the word homeostasis a couple different times. If you could have one rule for the world for like healing or leadership, you know, based on work you've done, what is there is there one? Oh, yeah. So actually it's the work I'm even doing now.

It's one one might say to allow the homeostatic rhythms to reemerge reemerge reemerge and I'm actually building uh a technology to put those rhythms back into the body. Uh and I'm using acoustic rhythms and we've just completed a study. It's really quite remarkable. It's a type of uh putting into music. It's called sonic augmentation technology and I built it with a musician composer by the name of Anthony Gory. And what we do is literally music is modulated in rhythms of the body. So it's not like the simplest way of thinking of it is that we were used to having tempo.

having tempo. having tempo. But this music doesn't have a fixed tempo. It has a modulation tempo that fits our indogenous biological rhythms. And when we hear that, our bodies go like that. like that. like that. And so we're building tools for uh basically medical procedures. That's incredible. So the the point and this is really where I think part of our conversation has kind of kind of I would say skated across the surface and that is how do I signal my body to relax? Yes. Yes. Yes.

And the answer is it's not an intentionality. It's almost paradoxical. If I try to relax I can't relax. But if I allow my body to follow the rhythmicity of what we've created, the body knows what to do. So absent that, yeah, yeah, yeah, absent that, you're saying the more you tell someone to relax, the harder it is for them to do. The more you tell yourself calm down, the more difficult it is to calm down. I mean, I can say that. Yeah. But he'll still you will still say it to someone or and I will still say it just just relax.

What are you anxious about? Or what are you depressed about? I mean that to me is the fame the f the most favorite one for me is coming out of this world of mental health issues that people would say to another why are you depressed? you have so much to live for a with is really a misunderstanding of what depression is or that physiological state that enables depressive feelings to literally just emerge and grow. So when we start thinking of that physiology that physiological state and that's what we start the whole conversation on that's the platform upon which anxiety and depression and trauma features come out.

So the project that we were doing and this is kind of nifty because I just have looked at the data. It was to work with long CO. Really? Okay. Really? Okay. Really? Okay. Yeah. So long CO it is a what makes long co of interest is the body is not suffering from a disease. It killed the virus but somehow the body did not get the message the signal that it won the war. war. war. Your chronic pain is the same thing. Yes, Yes, Yes, we we have the signals even though the structure has healed.

So the issue it's a neural signaling problem problem problem and so that's what this uh acoustic intervention was about signaling the nervous system that it was safe enough to move back into homeostatic functions. So we we did a four-week study in which uh a veagal nerve stimulator was given to one group the acoustic to another and both to another group and the fourth group got nothing and the group that got nothing got worse or nothing but the group that got either of the interventions showed remarkable reductions of symptoms and if they got both of them together it was even more synergistic.

That's incredible. Is it's it was done because the uh the customer and I can't mention the customer. customer. customer. Uh this is what you get into when you're a researcher. Um well, I wanted to know about the next pandemic. Is there a way of treating symptoms uh of let's say chronic illness when uh that's scalable that doesn't require a physician or a nurse or someone to do it? So, this was all done online. online. online. That's incredible. So, everybody, let's go way above really quick. Then I'm gonna ask a question that you just answered actually, but I want to hear you speak to it.

If you get nothing out of today, everybody, here's one baseline thing that would be a new revelation for many of you. of you. of you. Most of your existence is a physical state you're in. And just accept that like, wow, it's a state I'm in. And so just that in and of itself is a breakthrough for so many different people because they're thinking I could just think myself into changing this or if I just intend to want to be happier, I'm going to change this. But it's actually a physical I I earlier called it a driver and that wasn't enough for him.

It's got engine. So think one step further and that is the ability. I like to use the concept of feeling safe. You don't have permission to feel safe when your body is destabilized. when your homeostatic processes aren't working right. If you have like you have gut pain or you have heart palpitations, you're not given the permission by the nervous system to experience positive feelings. So, but if you think of it that way, you start realizing that yeah, my physical presence, my physical state gives me permission to experience something else, whether it's sociality, whether it's love, or whether it's just plain curiosity.

curiosity. curiosity. That sentence right there, one of the most um most um most um I'd say profound or interesting sentences ever been said on the show of all the work. Well, it's just true of all the high performance self-help, you know, you know, you know, meditate, all this stuff in this space that's in one place. That right there is really, really profound. It doesn't give you permission to Can I ask you? I already know the answer to this. You just described it. I've always been curious about these Vegas nerve nerve stimulators.

stimulators. stimulators. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I won't name them because there's a bunch of them. I've tried many of them. And I was going to say to you, do you believe that any of them actually work? But it sounds as if based on this study you just did, you do know you believe that or no? Yeah. Because actually when we get together, there is another person who lives in Atlant Beach who basically invented a veagal nerve stimulator and was part of a major company. Um and actually it was with he is my collaborator on this long co study.

Got it. Got it. Got it. So so but so the issue is yeah they do work and they're clinical trials on this um and the the what I found remarkable about them is that they are only being used for a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes in the evening. And so we created our acoustic to parallel that. So his was using four minutes in the morning and four minutes in the evening. We use 15 minutes of sound in the morning and in the evening.

So it's the same protocol and the the effects are very parallel but they're a little bit different. And if the if the reaction the selectivity of the dimensions of the nerve stimulator is more on the physiological one. The acoustic is much more integrated. So it has more on a higher level. I have purpose in life or feeling better. but also these other physiological symptoms were greatly reduced as well. So interesting you guys. Uh I is there a telltale sign that you're living in survival? survival? survival?

To me there is. Yeah. Well, so the issue is this is the terms I created a foundation uh called the polyagal institute and we run meetings and uh I would start off by saying what the goal of it was was to create a network of people who felt safe enough to be who they are. So I just want you to kind of like uh meditate on that statement because the brilliance of humanity is dependent upon being safe enough to explore and to create. Um so the the part was the telltale that I I slipped.

So the we're done telltale science. So they always the clinicians really bought into this notion of being quote polyagal informed and what that gave them was the ability to infer that physiological state of their client from phase voice and gesture. Okay. Okay. Okay. So rather and I would say you don't need that polygraph, you don't need the electrodes, you just need to be a better observer. observer. observer. you uh you uh you uh it's interesting I want to the basis of you know all of this for me everybody listening and again you know you can tell pretty early in this conversation there's an IQ differential even that and um um um age does things so please be be generous be generous be generous but I I uh feel that so many of you um live in a state where If you were a witness to yourself, to use Steven's term, you you live many of you in a chronic state of not feeling safe.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the human condition in the world today. And although I know it's a physiological state, Stephen, I just feel like the breakdown of human relationships that you described earlier, what we view on our phones, what we see on our TVs every day is screaming at us, you're not safe. You're not safe. My overall belief and you I know it's okay that we even disagreed about this but humans who don't feel safe um may not be the best version of themselves and treating other humans well which then sort of perpetuates this lack of everyone feeling safe.

Well, you're describing what our politics what's happening in our country and it's very predictable from the political theory. It says if you keep people in a sense frightened, scared and angry, uh their bodies are going to be defensive. defensive. defensive. No one will be let in. They're going to be like this. Yeah. And that's what's happening as long and it's really simple from even the financial uh situation of most families to me that's remarkable that the median net worth of a family is close to zero.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean just think about that there's no there's no uh security net. So it means that most people in this country those families are living paycheck to paycheck. So their vulnerability to how they're not safe by operational definition and then the politics say if we make people safe they won't work. So you start getting this kind of strange uh where the ends kind of justify the means and they say well we can get them for less money per hour which is what you end up getting because that's the marketplace.

So you create these types of situations that are not generous and not protective. And then if you start becoming generous and protective, you're treated as a socialist or communist. So it's really kind of a paradoxical thing as opposed to saying, you know, human beings in general want to be helpful in general. They want to solve problems. They want to generate. They want to do creative things. It's only when they are locked into states of threat and fear that the range and flexibility of their behaviors behaviors behaviors become extremely predictable and not very compassionate or benevolent.

It's interesting you say that because I was thinking about myself u as a young businessman and what my style of leadership was when I was younger. And in retrospect, I think I made people around me feel unsafe through uh almost like intimidation be almost the way that I led. And I used to think that's why I'm successful. And when I learned as I got older, those of you that are business people or parents, I was having some success, I think, in spite of the fact that I did that.

And as I got a little bit older and I started to realize that the more I could begin to treat people in a loving and kind way and that they more than that, they thought I believed in them like that they sensed a level of belief in them them them that that created. I actually believe a leader's number one role now is to make people feel safe. And I think and then when they do feel safe, they actually will perform even better and and go ahead.

You I think you were going to agree with me. Yeah, I was because I took on some roles as like being department chairman and running organizations running organizations running organizations and I realized the role of leadership was not to dictate but was really to give voice. Now, you have to make the decisions, but I also realized that most people didn't really expect you to do what they wanted you to do, but they wanted to be heard. And so, you can never get the consensus, but you could respect the communication.

So I think you're you're getting on to a very important point and that is uh we being in the physiological state of fear and anger or defense, we're just not very open to others. That's right. And I by the way, I know everyone you go, "Oh, Ed's getting I I really want you all to look at that. The way that you lead your family, family, family, Yeah. you are the way that you lead your company, your department, wherever you are. Like, you know, I think a lot of you were raised thinking, well, if people feel safe and believed in and loved around me that they're going to get a little too comfy and you got to keep people at arms length.

You got to keep them at a distance. You got to keep them hungry as to your earlier and uh or or by the way, you know what I think a lot of you think about you? Those of you that are achievers, I'm going to tell you something. I hear people say this. Well, I got to spend all the money that I make, so I'm still hungry. I I've got to constantly put myself under some pressure and some stress so that I can perform. And so you falsely believe that if you would keep yourself feeling unsafe that somehow that that's a recipe to your long-term success.

Well, let's buy into this for a moment because what you're describing is it's giving them the the mobilization to stay alive because they have not created let's say a series of deeper goals or higher level goals. So acquisition or stuff became how they uh it graded themselves on success. It's a strange world when we don't have a marker of saying when do I have enough. It's true. It's true. It's true. By the way, you're 100% right. As someone who has acquired a lot of stuff, I think that's why so many people that acquire a lot of stuff arrive there and say, say, say, "I'm still afraid.

I feel safe." Now, they phrase it differently. I'm not happy. I'm not at peace. But what they're really saying is, I'm still at my body is still physiologically, to your point, conditioned to and in a state of not feeling safe. It's under threat. And every one of you listening to this today, you need to be evaluating how much of that game and for how long you want to play it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's worthy of your um witnessing yourself to use that term for the third time in the interview today.

I want to ask you a question about, you know, we're running out of By the way, I really enjoy this and I know that it's a little bit of the deep end everybody, but I think if you've stayed to here, it starts to put a little bit of a bow around everything. I'm wondering that as a leader, let's just say as a parent, um is there a way to repair a moment perhaps in in your life or as a leader in business where maybe you did create a really unsafe environment.

I'll give you an example. I remember one time, only done this once in my life, and it literally bothers me to this day. my little boy, my son who's now 24. He's not a little boy anymore, but I remember one time when he was very young, it reminded me of my dad with me and I didn't like that I had done this. Um, I really yelled at him and got I grabbed him actually when he was six, seven years old. And uh I'm not even talking.

I just bothers me. I did I just ra I didn't raise my voice. I yelled at him and kind of got in his little face. You know what I mean? And uh I scared him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember seeing this look on his face. And I know that look because I lived with it as a child till I was about 15. about 15. about 15. And so there's a lot of parents here that go I'm not I made this misstep or as a leader I did this or is there a way to repair an event like that?

There's always so the issue is people always say the word sorry and really trying to get the guilt from themselves when they really want to listen to the other person. So I use the term that u if you trip me I don't want you to say you're sorry and then trip me tomorrow. I want you to look at me and understand that I fell and that you were part of that. And I know that the intention wasn't to trip me, but I did fall. I think we want to know in a sense uh first of all, Ed, I want to basically let you know that you are a product of the world you grew up in and the world that we're part of.

And part of the parenting manual is for fathers to be basically um what they call u rulemakers and try to uh get kids to adhere to that even without any acknowledgment of the great range of difficulties that many kids have in regulating their own biobehavioral state and that to me took decades. So, um, I had two boys. They're now in their 40s, but they were not easy to raise and the theory evolved with them. And I would say that I became a better father and I also became a better son when I started to understand that behavioral regulation is not a uh let's say it's not an operant meaning it's not under total control.

If I say regulate your behavior and you're out of control, it's not going to happen. If I say regulate your behavior or I'll give you a spanking, it's not going to happen. Or if I give you an ice cream cone, but if I take my son's hand and say, "Let's go for a walk outside or let's play." Or or with one son, it was more like, "Have you eaten?" So, we used to have a rule and that was when he would come home from school, we wouldn't uh interrogate him or tell him what happened in school.

We'd say, "Sit down and eat something and then we'll talk." talk." talk." Is that because you believe if you change someone's physical state, you're changing their behavior? Yeah. What happened with my son was that, you know, once he ate, he was certainly a lot calmer and engaging. It was remarkable. Uh so the issue was we we're not we tend as adults not to understand the the fragility of the physiological states of young kids who may get hungry really hungry and it may represent not really a desire to eat but their body's need for food.

And even if something as simple, so that's really powerful. But even if something and you're saying that even with your children or even ourselves actually physically getting up and moving our body on a walk, changing physiology changing physiology changing physiology and change behavior and feelings. So, so I've gotten over the decades great respect and insights from the dance movement therapists who work with people with tremendous with tremendous with tremendous challenges like trauma histories, adversity histories, and they utilize movement with facial engagement. So, if our body is moving, that sympathetic nervous system is on board, but now the face is also on board.

So, you have play and regulation. But if you have them sit down, you're asking them to put that sympathetic nervous system away and they can't. can't. can't. Wow. Sounds super interesting to me. Interesting. Is that why some people just say, "Man, my whole day I got to have my workout in the morning because after my workout, I'm just a completely different person." You're saying there's actually truth to that in the sense that the physiology. the physiology. the physiology. I would um I would be okay. I think those are interest.

I work out in the morning uh for a reason which is different than theirs. I figure that if I don't work out in the morning, I don't have permission to sit at my desk. So, it's like if you sit at a desk for six or eight hours, it's just not healthy. But if you take an hour and a half and you exercise, you have permission. That's my own way of dealing with it. Uh but the answer is our bodies evolve to move, not not to sit.

And uh we tend again this is the world in which we elevate cognition as if cognition can live independent of the rest of our physiology. physiology. physiology. Here we go. That's the lesson of the entire podcast entire podcast entire podcast is that you know you're not going to just say or think your way through this that there's a physical at your end. By the way, just so good so good today. Um I wish we had like nine hours and you and I are probably nine hours now that I know that we're neighbors.

is just it is a basic thing. Someone's listening to this today and they say, "I'd like to start to create some sort of change in myself and all of this is new to me. HRV, sympathetic, sympathetic, veagal nerve, blah blah blah." Is there a daily practice you'd say, "Hey, start with this. Start with this. This will help you in your uh witnessing yourself or creating change or whatever it might be." be." be." It's that's a real good question. And the part is the daily practices would be more about being aware of one's own body.

Breath practices are good for that if they're done well. Body scanning where you kind of like feel your body. Now what many people don't realize if you carry a trauma history there's a high probability that you're pretty numb to your own body feelings. And that's not something that is bad. It's how you your nervous system adapted to be a successful at least successful in the world person. You was basically to pack off all those feelings of your body. The issue to that is that that creates other consequences including feedback loops of health.

So a lot of people who have trauma histories become vulnerable to illness. And actually, our own research during the pandemic found that if you had a trauma history, you were more likely to get infected during the first wave of the pandemic. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Do you think that someone who lives in with stress or chronic trauma, this is out there question, you weren't ready for this one. I didn't even know I was going to ask it. Do you think it can affect gene expression at some point?

Um that's a good question because the world of epigenetics epigenetics epigenetics is very important now and the issue is even the reversibility of gene expression. So the idea is let's take an optimistic viewpoint and say yeah you could kind of adapt and your body becomes locked now into a more defensive organism. But let's take an optimistic viewpoint that we can change that imprint. That's really what we're saying and the directions of in of modifying that imprint are always the same. Warm loving co-regulatory interactions basically investing or involving veagal activity and triggering indogenous oxytocin.

Not exogenous. Don't take pills. And I'm not the biggest fan for electrical stimulation. Not I can see how it can be used but I really want the body to be the generator of its own molecular environment and its own physiological state. physiological state. physiological state. This is tremendous. Um everybody you're welcome. I know we uh we took you in a direction that you're not used to today and you're going to get very used to this direction because I believe that the foundation of this man's work is going to be built upon over the next decade.

He'll be still central to it. You can tell at 81 I'll be back on 91. Um, but this is really the the frontier of understanding you, understanding you and being a better witness of you. And uh, the more you begin to dig deep and here's how you dig deep. Go get Poly Bagel Perspectives. Go buy his book and start there. How about any anything else? You're gonna show me something. Yeah, I was I was looking for the readable book. There is a very readable book called our polygo world that I wrote with my younger son and it's extraordinarily readable.

Polyago perspectives is an archival book. It's something that if you're really interested and you're dedicated to learning about sense more of the science but poly or polygo world is a paperback. It's very readable and uh my son is a movie maker and journalist and so it is you'll understand it. Let's go there then everybody let's by the way you have the we both are gifted with the voice for broadcasting like your voice is so it's authoritative but very pleasing and welcoming too it's a you had a great voice too God gave that's that's neurosception that's that's your neurosception of me well that's how it resonates with me I can tell you that so that's the issue that's when the talk is effectively conveying the person very Good.

So everybody, that was Dr. Steven Porges. My friend Steve was with us today. Thank you my friend. I appreciate it. it. it. Thank you my friend. It's pleasure to meet you. meet you. meet you. See you soon. God bless you everybody. Max out your life.