So much of what keeps us alive and healthy in our bodies is unconscious and yet essential. Polyvagal theory and Body Up Co-Regulation offer pathways for adjusting our unconscious autonomic functions intentionally, increasing health and resilience.
Threat responses narrow our focus to what the nervous system deems essential for survival, often at the expense of basic systems that are necessary for long-term health. This is an adaptive response. However, resilience depends on our ability to widen our lens again once the threat has passed.
The Cost of Threat Responses in the Body
This February, Porges explained how deep, regulatory feedback loops can get restricted or even turned off by threat responses. In particular, digestion, immunity, inflammation, sleep cycles, and cardiovascular function are often impacted.
In the short term, this isn’t a problem. But if we remain in states of prolonged stress or severe threat, those feedback loops don’t just restart automatically when the stress ends.
This can lead to what we often see with PTSD: the feedback loops between the brain and the body’s systems get disrupted. The organs themselves aren’t damaged initially, but without proper regulation from the nervous system, they begin to function poorly over time and degrade. Left unchecked, this can contribute to long-term dysregulation and even chronic health conditions like digestive, inflammatory, autoimmune, and cardiovascular disorders.
Whether the threat is physical or social (rejection, shame, or isolation), our bodies respond the same way: by shutting down feedback systems that are not essential in the moment. Emotions and bodily sensations may be too complicated, painful, or distracting in the face of a threat, so we tune them out.
Think About It:
- After experiencing shame, I might forget the sense of freedom that comes from deep, unencumbered breaths or the joy of moving freely in sync with others. I may not want to take the risk.
- When overwhelmed by too much bad news or demands on me, I may want to withdraw into phone games or TV. I can forget how nourishing it is to connect deeply with someone I trust.
But emotions, sensations, and physiological feedback loops are essential to health and resilience. Our emotions tell us what matters to us. Life itself depends on feedback loops to maintain homeostasis.
It’s no coincidence that the simplest Body Up Co-Regulation (BCR) beginner and arrival practices center on breath and awareness of the spine. The spine houses many of the vital feedback loops necessary for autonomic regulation, while breath fuels the system with vitality and life force. Together, they form the physiological foundation for resilience.
Resilience Is Social, Not Solitary
A deep, embodied sense of safety, in relational space makes a world of difference. We need, not just intellectual assurance, but a visceral, lived experience of being safe — especially in connection with others. That’s why Body-Up Co-Regulation is so effective. The practices provide a relational space where practitioners, clients and people can rebuild safety through attuned connection with self and other.
Resilience isn’t an individual trait. It’s a function of our social relationships. Porges calls it sociality—our capacity to co-regulate with others. We know that connection matters, and, as practitioners, we can show people how to lean into it. Sharing skills for embodiment in relational space and practicing BCR in therapy cultivates resilience.
Body Up Co-Regulation practice reminds me how nourishing and enlivening connection can be. Just yesterday, a client was feeling too stuck, hopeless and low energy to cope with going out of the house. After five minutes of a BCR exercise she shifted to wanting to go socialize. It is more than just feeling good; the numbed-out emotional and physiological feedback loops start to turn back on. It happens for me and I consistently see it in clients.
Gently, but all of a sudden, we notice something new about our nervous system. Often, it’s an organic shift: the body begins to regulate itself in response to feeling safe with another person.
Restore Healthy Feedback Loops
What excites me about Porges’ articulation of autonomic “feedback loops” is that it shows a way to address symptoms in specific bodily systems in relational space. More to follow in the next blogs!
For now, I leave you with this fundamental understanding:
Threat responses can constrict and numb us. We disconnect from our bodies, from our vitality, and from others. Cultivating safe, embodied, connection in relational space opens us up again, not just emotionally but at the physical level of our life support systems.