Polyvagal Exercises for Safety and Connection
Highlights
Chapter 6. Shaping the Autonomic Nervous System
The continuing opportunity to exercise the neural circuits of regulation and connection is essential for physical and psychological well-being (Flores & Porges, 2017)
The Right Degree of Challenge
Finding actions that stretch but don’t stress the autonomic nervous system is at the heart of shaping.
Exercise: Energy and Actions Map
There are times when thinking about moving, remembering a connection with a friend, or simply looking up toward the sky is the right choice and other times when you need to take action, put your body in motion, or head out into the world and seek social connection
Expanding Outward
mark or alter lives” (Pelowski et al., 2016, p. 1). Your ability to return to autonomic regulation following a stressful event is supported through connection with nature (Brown, Barton, & Gladwell, 2013). Nature scenes are autonomically regulating and restorative.
Expanding Outward
Viewing fractals reduces physiological stress levels (Taylor & Spehar, 2016). The regulating autonomic response to fractals appears to be universal and is elicited in periods of time as short as 10 seconds (Taylor, 2006).