🌿 The Polyvagal Compass: How to Find Safety in an Unpredictable Body

💭 Why your nervous system might hold the key to feeling truly at home in your body — even with EDS, MCAS, and neurodivergence.

If you live with Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes (EDS), Hypermobility Spectrum Disorders (HSD), Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), or you’re neurodivergent (autistic, ADHD, etc), you probably know what it’s like to feel at odds with your own body. Some days you’re overwhelmed by everything — sounds too loud, lights too bright, heart racing for no clear reason. Other days, you might feel numb, disconnected, or like you’re moving through fog.

This isn’t because you’re weak or overreacting. Modern science — especially Polyvagal Theory — explains that your body is responding exactly as it was designed to: protecting you in a world that often feels unpredictable or unsafe.

🧬 What Is Polyvagal Theory, Really?

Polyvagal Theory, created by Dr. Stephen Porges, describes how our autonomic nervous system (ANS) constantly scans for cues of safety or danger — not just from the outside world, but also from inside our own bodies. This happens below conscious awareness and shapes how we feel, think, and connect with others.

The ANS has three main pathways:

1️⃣ Ventral Vagal State — Safety & Social Connection When this pathway is active, our body feels safe enough to rest, digest, heal, and interact openly with other people. Voice tone softens, facial muscles relax, digestion works well, and our thinking brain comes online.

2️⃣ Sympathetic State — Mobilization (Fight/Flight) When the system senses threat, it shifts into sympathetic activation: adrenaline flows, heart rate increases, senses sharpen, muscles tense — all preparing the body to run away or defend itself.

3️⃣ Dorsal Vagal State — Shutdown & Freeze If the threat feels overwhelming or escape isn’t possible, the oldest branch, the dorsal vagus, pulls the brake: energy drops, heart rate slows, digestion may stop, and the body may feel numb, collapsed, or dissociated — a biological circuit breaker for survival.

For people with EDS, MCAS, POTS, and neurodivergent wiring, this beautiful system can get stuck in survival modes more easily — not because it’s faulty, but because it’s trying to protect a body that truly faces more unpredictability and sensory or inflammatory challenges.

Pain flares, joint instability, mast cell reactions, or sensory overload mean the system never fully trusts that it’s safe — so it often stays in alert or shut-down mode. In neurodivergent brains, sensory input can feel more intense or unpredictable, so normal background noise or bright lights feel genuinely threatening when the system is already tense.

👉 It’s not about “misinterpreting harmless cues.”It’s about a nervous system doing its best to guard you in a body and world that don’t always feel safe.

Polyvagal Theory helps us understand these states with compassion — and offers tools to help your body experience more safety, one small practice at a time.

🗺️ A Compass for Your Inner States

One of the most empowering things you can do is learn to recognize which state you’re in and respond with gentle, appropriate cues. This is how you slowly expand your Window of Tolerance — the range where your body feels balanced and you can think and connect more easily.

🔍 How to Recognize Your State — Even if You Feel Disconnected

Many neurodivergent people (and people with trauma or chronic illness) struggle to “read” their body signals. If this is true for you, please know you’re not broken. Dissociation or poor interoception is a protective feature, not a failure.

Instead of forcing deep body scans, try noticing simple external signs:

If you notice...	You’re likely in...	A gentle first step...
Tight jaw, shallow breathing, irritation at noises	Hyperarousal (Fight/Flight)	Lower the lights, reduce noise, wrap up in a soft blanket.
Slumped posture, blank staring, feeling heavy or far away	Hypoarousal (Shutdown)	Sip cool water, tap your collarbones, wiggle your toes.
Rigid muscles, frozen breath, unable to move or speak	Freeze (Stuck between both)	Gently rock side-to-side, hum softly, or slowly follow an object with your eyes.

Tracking just one or two signs daily can reveal surprising patterns over time.

🧘‍♀️ How to Support Each State

Knowing your state helps you pick the right tool. Using the wrong tool can backfire — for example, calming breathwork for someone with POTS may cause dizziness instead of calm.

Here’s how to choose wisely:

⚡ When You’re Overwhelmed (Hyperarousal)

When your body is stuck in fight-or-flight, it needs signals that it is finally safe enough to relax. This is about lowering sensory input and gently grounding yourself.

Try this:

• Soften your environment: Dim harsh lights, put on noise-canceling headphones, or wrap up in a cozy blanket that feels comforting (but not too tight on your chest or ribs).

• Offer a gentle temperature cue: A cup of cool peppermint tea can calm you without shocking your system like ice water might.

• Soothe with sound: Humming low sounds (like “mmm”) sends vibrations to your vagus nerve, helping to slow your heartbeat and signal calm.

• Calm your eyes: One simple practice is the lateral eye hold — sit or lie down, look as far left as feels comfortable for 30–60 seconds (until you sigh or yawn), then repeat to the right. This reduces threat scanning in the brain.

Be careful with: Deep belly breathing or long exhales if you have POTS — these can lower blood pressure too much. Also, avoid heavy weighted blankets if they compress your ribs or worsen MCAS heat sensitivity.

❄️ When You Feel Numb or Shut Down (Hypoarousal)

Shutdown is your system’s circuit breaker. The goal here isn’t to snap out of it with force, but to gently spark a sense of alertness.

Try this:

• Add a bit of cold: Sip a small glass of cold water or press a chilled spoon to your wrists.

• Wake up with micro-movement: Wiggle your fingers or gently sway in your chair.

• Use your voice: Try humming a light, higher note or softly singing to yourself.

• Wake up your orienting reflex: Slowly move your eyes side to side by following your finger or a pen for about 10–20 repetitions. This can help your brain register the present moment.

🫧 When You Feel Frozen or Stuck

Freeze is a tricky mix of wanting to run yet feeling unable to move. The best way out is slow rhythm and gentle re-engagement.

Try this:

• Rock gently: Sit in a safe chair and rock heel to toe or sway your hips side to side.

• Hug something soft: A pillow or small weighted lap pad can provide grounding pressure.

• Hum or chant: Low, repetitive sounds vibrate your throat and calm your nerves without forcing speech.

• Use gentle eye tracking: As above, but do it slowly and with care.

🌱 A Bigger Strategy: This Is Not About Forcing Calm

One big mistake is trying to bully your body into feeling calm all the time. Instead, think of this as building trust with your own nervous system. The goal isn’t to live forever in perfect calm — it’s to gently expand how much stress you can handle before you swing into overwhelm or shutdown.

A few ways to build this capacity:

• Before meals: Hum for 5 seconds to prime your digestion.

• After stressful appointments: Rock gently in your chair to discharge tension.

• During sensory overload: Hold something cool or comforting to remind your brain you are safe now.

Each tiny practice plants seeds of safety. Over time, your body learns to come back to balance more easily.

🍲 Nourishment: The Hidden Foundation for a Resilient Nervous System

While tools like humming, rocking, or gentle temperature shifts can help guide your nervous system back toward safety, it’s important to remember that these shifts also depend on having the right building blocks inside your body.

Many people with EDS, MCAS, and neurodivergence experience nutritional challenges: food sensitivities, poor absorption, or restricted eating because of sensory issues. This can lead to low levels of certain nutrients that your brain and nerves rely on to function properly.

For example:

• Electrolytes (like sodium, potassium, magnesium) help stabilize blood pressure and heart rate. Low levels can make POTS and hyperarousal worse.

• B vitamins and omega-3 fats support healthy nerve signaling and mood regulation.

• Protein and amino acids provide raw materials for neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which help modulate anxiety and calm.

A good first step: try to build a diet that takes EDS, POTS, and MCAS into account to find safe, tolerable foods or supplements that rebuild your nutrient stores gently. For some, simple things like adding an electrolyte drink, a magnesium supplement, or small protein snacks throughout the day can help the body hold a balanced state more easily.

🧡 Remember: Nutrition doesn’t have to be perfect — tiny supportive choices add up. It’s not about restriction but about providing what your unique body needs to feel more grounded.

🫂 You Are Not Broken — You Are Adaptive

Your nervous system has protected you in ways you may not even remember. Every freeze, every flare, every shutdown — all of it has been your body’s brilliant way of keeping you alive.

Now, with these gentle tools, you can teach it new pathways: not to erase your survival instincts, but to remind your body that moments of safety are possible too.

💌 You Adapted to Survive. Now You Adapt to Live.

Start small. Stay curious. Listen to your body with kindness. You deserve to feel at home inside yourself — exactly as you are.

🦓 At ParaMotion, we take this into account in our movement programs, education and consulting so that you are guaranteed results with our no pain, no strain method customized for the hypermobile body. Ready to take the next step? 👉 [Book your Free 15 mn call here!!]