There are so many aspects of the vagus nerve that can support us in our teaching: helping us improve how we create a healthy environment for learning; optimizing a student’s ability to learn motor skills; understanding and enhancing our interpersonal relationships with our students on a base level. The latter is, in part, why we care about HOW we say what we say.

Based on the work of Dr. Stephen Porges, and his Polyvagal Theory, we now know that the tone of our voice and the look on our faces deeply impacts the physiology of another person.

From a recent article on PESI.com:

Q: What are the practical implications of Polyvagal Theory for clinical work?

A: It heightens our appreciation of the role of creating safety in therapy. For example, our bodies, physiologically, are extraordinarily sensitive to low-frequency sounds. We, like other mammals, interpret these low-frequency sounds as predatory. If your clinical office is bombarded with sounds from ventilation systems, elevators, or traffic sounds, your client’s physiology is going to be in this more hypervigilant defense mode. Likewise, if you sit some people in the middle of the room away from a wall, they may become hypervigilant and concerned with what’s going on behind them. If we’re not safe, we’re going to assume that neutral faces are angry faces. We’re going to assume the worst because that’s what our nervous system tells us to do. As vertebrates evolved into mammals, they had to interact with other mammals for survival. They needed to detect the social cues and identify when it was safe to be with another mammal. Thus, vocalizations in social contexts are less about syntax and language and more about the intonation conveying emotional state. Again, this is critical in therapy because the intonation of voice conveys more information about the physiology of the client than the syntax.

The Polyvagal Theory and Your 7th Sense — Neuroception

(Excerpt from the Science + Psychology of Teaching Master’s Program curriculum)

We all want to understand ourselves better. As humans we are driven by an underlying and potent urge to make connections within ourselves and with our environments, to be able to examine and respond more wisely to inner and outer influences. The current magnitude of our ability to do this scientifically is staggering and affords us a chance to unravel the biological evolution of the brain in relationship to how our characters are shaped with regard to emotions, communication, attachment, and self-regulation. The polyvagal theory, created by professor of psychiatry, director of the Brain-Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Stephen Porges, PhD, helps us do just that. 

The theory, created out of Porges’ desire to better understand the psychology of a person through the physiology of the person and vise versa is an important jumping off point because it provides us with yet another rich opportunity to teach to the whole person. Although deeply complex in its entirety, the depth of which we will not explore, it insights us to a critical aspect of human awareness called neuroception, a term coined by Porges. 

Before we dive into better understanding what neuroception is and how it impacts our ability to teach, let’s first briefly examine the polyvagal theory and the vagus nerve for a clearer platform of investigation.

Defining the Vagus Nerve and its Role in the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)

The longest of the ANS nerves, the vagus nerve, is also the most complex. Typically known as having two pathways, right and left, running to and from the head, neck, heart, lungs, and most of the organs housed in the abdomen, the vagus nerve is actually a great deal more complex than we thought. 

What we’ve typically understood about this nerve is it’s 80-90% afferent, taking in and transmitting information primarily from the body to the brain. This makes it stand apart from all other nerves. It also makes it a critical physiological tool we can optimize in order to prime not only the body but the brain in the motor-skill teaching/learning context. 

More insights on the vagus nerve from Porges:

“First, the vagus is not one nerve but a family of neural pathways originating in several areas of the brainstem. Second, there are several branches of the vagus. Third, the vagus is not solely an afferent or motor pathway; rather, approximately 80% of vagal fibers are afferent (Agostoni, Chinnock, DeBurgh Daly, & Murray, 1957). Fourth, the vagus is asymmetrical, with the left and right sides performing different tasks, with the right vagus most potent in the chronotropic regulation of the heart.

Mammals are polyvagal. The different vagi have different roles in the regulation of visceral function and originate in different brainstem nuclei with their respective viscerotropic organization. The different vagi may have oppositional outputs to the same target organ. For example, it is possible that during orienting there is an increase in vagal outflow from another branch to produce suppression of RSA (e.g., Richards & Casey, 1991). Thus, the concept of vagal tone may not be generalized to all vagal efferent pathways or even to the same target organ (e.g. the heart), as has been assumed (e.g., Grossman & Kollai, 1993), but may need to be limited to a specific branch or subsystem of the vagus being evaluated.”

Vagus function includes:

• Sensory: From the throat, heart, lungs, and abdomen.
• Special sensory: Provides taste sensation behind the tongue.
• Motor: Provides movement functions for the muscles in the neck responsible for swallowing and speech.
• Parasympathetic: Responsible for the digestive tract, respiration, and heart rate functioning.

And effects the following areas:

• Communication between the brain and the gut: The vagus nerve delivers information from the gut to the brain.
• Relaxation with deep breathing: The vagus nerve communicates with the diaphragm. With deep breaths, a person feels more relaxed.
• Decreasing inflammation: The vagus nerve sends an anti-inflammatory signal to other parts of the body.
• Lowering the heart rate and blood pressure: If the vagus nerve is overactive, it can lead to the heart being unable to pump enough blood around the body. In some cases, excessive vagus nerve activity can cause loss of consciousness and organ damage.
• Fear management: The vagus nerve sends information from the gut to the brain, which is linked to dealing with stress, anxiety, and fear – hence the saying, “gut feeling.” These signals help a person to recover from stressful and scary situations.

In terms of understanding the overall efficacy or health of the vagus we refer to vagal tone — the ability of the nerve to efficiently transmit signals from the body and “harmonize the various systems of the body so that they can function together for the benefit of the whole organism” writes Puran Bair, Co-Founder of The Institute for Applied Meditation. It is through vagal tone that we have the best chance at accurately assessing internal and external risk and responding appropriately both physiologically and psychologically.

Porges on vagal tone:

“Vagal tone has two roles. First, during states of low environmental demand (e.g., sleep or quiet states), vagal tone fosters physiological homeostasis to promote growth and restoration. Second, during states characterized by environmental challenges, the vagus acts as a brake to rapidly regulate cardiac output and thus metabolic output. The “vagal brake” functionally keeps the heart rate slow by increasing vagal output to the heart and actively inhibiting sympathetic influences (Levy, 1984; Vanhoutte & Levy, 1979). Releasing the vagal brake reduces vagal inhibition on the cardiac pacemaker (sinoatrial node), and heart rate increases due to the intrinsic rate of the pacemaker, mechanical reflexes, and sympathetic influences.”

Without appropriate overall vagal tone, as we’ll explore in the section on neuroception, we are most likely to live in a constant state (mostly unconscious) of uninhibited sympathetic nervous system response I.E. the fight, flight, or freeze mode.