Me and the others / How can I get along better with myself and others?:

Am I approachable? Critical? Anxious? Indifferent?

How do you treat yourself and others? Are you open and approachable? Or are you critical and dismissive? Or anxious? Or helpless? Or indifferent? All of these states can be easily explained by your autonomic nervous system.

What is the autonomic nervous system (ANS)?

We recommend that you read this text first, then you will have a better understanding of what we are talking about here.

Our nerves want to keep us safe

Depending on which nerves in our ANS are active, we experience ourselves differently when dealing with ourselves and others. This has an ancient history: the ANS is actually there to keep us safe or to keep us safe. The sympathetic nervous system, the dorsal vagus and the ventral vagus have different functions here.

Sympathetic nervous system: fight or flight response

Imagine you are a Stone Age person. You are walking across the steppe. Suddenly you hear something growling. Now your sympathetic nervous system becomes active: you flinch, your pulse increases, your blood pressure rises. You quickly look around to assess the situation. If you see a small animal about to bite your leg, you are likely to strike it with your fist. You feel anger or aggression. If it's a huge sabre-toothed tiger, you run as fast as you can. Then you feel fear.

This is called the "fight or flight" response. When you are under stress - whether it's real danger or stressful thoughts, a lot of stress at work, or anger in a relationship - your sympathetic nervous system becomes very active. A typical example of this is:

You are tense and your breathing is rapid and shallow.
You experience fear, anger, or disgust - all feelings that indicate something is wrong.
You think quickly and in simple terms and you are very judgmental ("good or bad?", "safe or unsafe?", "fight or flight?"). You don't have time for detailed analysis.
You ruminate very quickly, your thoughts are racing. Your ruminations are not getting you anywhere. Your brain is not well supplied with blood: the blood is now mainly in your arms and legs so that you can fight or flee.
You see enemies everywhere, and you are prepared for people who want to harm you. You feel this way about people who are usually very close to you.
You judge people. Are they worse than you? Are they better than you?
When you think about yourself or look in the mirror, you may devalue yourself. You become your own enemy.
You are now particularly good at hearing high-pitched sounds or very low, muffled ones. You don't understand human voices so well. In an argument, you are not so good at hearing what the other person is saying.
In a conflict, you are not interested in solving problems, but in being right and "defeating" the other person.

We've all been there. Our everyday stressors are just so common, and we've all been in relationships too. Quite a few of us are even permanently rather tense and constantly have an attitude that is characterized by high sympathetic nervous system activation. Especially if we were not safe as children, we may have become accustomed to permanent tension as a protective posture.

Dorsal vagus: play dead and step away

Let's assume again that you are a Stone Age person. You're actually, stupidly,facing a saber-toothed tiger. So you run as fast as you can. Maybe you'll be lucky and get away. But it's very possible that the tiger is faster than you. At some point it grabs you. At that moment, something strange might happen to you: you suddenly feel very weak - in fact, you don't feel much at all. You might even faint. Your body actually goes limp at that moment.

Why is that? Your dorsal vagus has become very active in an instant, the sympathetic nervous system is now hardly active at all. Your whole system shuts down. You are completely limp. The saber-toothed tiger wonders for a moment and then drops you in disgust: Such a lifeless thing is not a good meal. He wants something fit that fights back. Bored, he strolls away. You lie there for a while and then gradually come back to yourself. Your sympathetic nervous system becomes active again. You can do something again. "Escape!" you think. You sneak away as fast as you can.

If the sympathetic nervous system couldn't save you from the sabre-toothed tiger, the dorsal vagus could. You may have heard the term "playing dead". Everything shuts down. You can no longer do anything, you no longer feel much, you may experience very little at that moment. This is an ancient mechanism that helps us when our lives are in danger. This is also called a "dorsal vagal shutdown". It might look like this:

You feel limp and your breathing is shallow. You feel exhausted and tired.
You feel (emotionally) empty and are not quite there. This is also called dissociation. You may also hardly notice any pain.
The world seems unreal. The term for this is derealization. It can also be that you look at yourself as if from the outside. This is also known as depersonalization.
Your thoughts are slow and not goal-oriented. You have difficulty concentrating and making decisions. You may also be familiar with the term "brain fog".
You feel helpless and powerless.
You have blackouts and may even faint.
When tipping from sympathetic activation into the dorsovagal "hole", seizures can also occur in rare cases where you no longer have control over your body. This is also known as psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES).

This state helps us to survive situations in which we can no longer defend ourselves. This is particularly common when violence is done to us. For example, many people ask themselves after a sexual assault: "Why didn't I fight back?" Quite simply, they couldn't because the rescue strategy of the dorsal vagus was "play dead!".

It can also happen that the dorsal vagus is quite active over a long period of time. For example, when we are in a hopeless situation or when life overwhelms us. We then feel helpless and powerless. Perhaps we are in a real depression. Nothing really works anymore.

Sympathetic nervous system + dorsal vagus: tense paralysis

It is also possible that the sympathetic nervous system and the dorsal vagus are active at the same time. This is very unpleasant: you are in a state of extreme tension, experiencing intense negative emotions - and at the same time you are frozen and paralyzed. This can also happen when you are in great danger or experiencing violence. It can also happen in situations that do not seem so dangerous from the outside - for example, when you are standing in front of a group of people and have to give a presentation - and nothing works.

It is also possible that the sympathetic nervous system and the dorsal vagus become active alternately: You are totally tense and stressed, and in between you are limp, burned out, empty, and depressed. Again, this is a condition that is not so uncommon if you have experienced very difficult/bad things in your childhood.

Ventral vagus: open and social

Suppose you are a Stone Age person. You are hunting with a spear. You catch sight of a gazelle. Then you see your neighbor. He is hunting the same gazelle as you are. You are both hungry. If you were in fight or flight mode right now, you would fight with each other and the gazelle would trot off easily. You would both remain hungry.

Fortunately, as humans, we have a different strategy for dealing with this problem: We can be social and nice to each other. You raise your eyebrows and whisper, "Hungry, neighbor?" He nods, with a pained expression: "Me too." You look at each other sympathetically: "Then let's team up and cut the gazelle in half," you whisper. And together you kill the gazelle. You plan to hunt together from now on - that way you can protect each other and catch more animals.

For such social behavior to be possible, the ventral vagus must be active. Here's what happens in your case:

You tend to be loose and relaxed, you tend to breathe deeply.
Your ears are attuned to human voices.
Your voice is not forced or shrill, but has a slight sing-song quality. This is also called prosody.
You have an open, interested attitude toward other people or yourself.
You have friendly or loving feelings toward other people or yourself.
You can now think creatively and in a networked way. Your brain is well supplied with blood.
In conflicts you are open to finding solutions and are genuinely interested in solving problems.

When you read this, you're probably thinking: "Ok, I want more of this”. It's actually true that we would benefit in most everyday situations if the ventral vagus were more active. It is so important for social interaction that it is also called the "social vagus".

Sympathetic nervous system + ventral vagus: active and social

There are situations where the sympathetic nervous system and the ventral vagus are active at the same time. For example, in a game: you are actually opponents in a game, but you are still working together. You may be competing, but at the same time you are having fun together. You want to beat each other, but you still laugh together. Even in sports, when you're having fun, the sympathetic nervous system and the ventral vagus are active at the same time. Or when you're having fun at work. Or when you're giving a rousing speech to a group of people.

So the mix of the sympathetic nervous system and the ventral vagus therefore means: active and at the same time in a good mood and social.

Dorsal vagus + ventral vagus: comfortably relaxed

The mix of dorsal and ventral vagus also feels good: Imagine cuddling with your loved one after sex. You feel really lazy and don't want to get up at all. A very pleasant state. Or you're really full after a big meal and you're lying in your chair with a big grin on your face. Or you're lying in the sun or meditating and think you're at peace with yourself and the world. Or you are about to fall asleep and really feel at peace.

The mix of dorsal and ventral vagus is called: deep relaxation with good, intimate feelings.

The autonomic nervous system and sex

During sex, we need a good dose of the sympathetic nervous system for sexual arousal to build up to orgasm. Accordingly, many of us have sex under high tension, to ensure that the sympathetic nervous system is highly stimulated. During sex, we are in fight or flight mode, so to speak. This has a major influence on how we experience ourselves and the other person during sex. It is also possible that after orgasm, you may fall into a hole with a lot of activity in the dorsal vagus and hardly any activity in the ventral vagus. You may then feel empty or even a little depressed.

How can I influence my autonomic nervous system?

You may ask yourself: "All well and good, but what good will that do me if I understand my autonomic nervous system better?" It's simple: if you understand it better, you can control it better. You can do something to prevent yourself from going through the roof with sympathetic activation or ending up in a panic attack. You can do something to get out of a deadened hole. With a good dose of ventral vagus, you can do something to become more relaxed, happier, more open, like yourself more, and get along better with other people. You can find tips on how to do this in this text.