Depression in the Nervous System - The Dorsal Vagal Shutdown Response aka Hypoarousal

have you ever felt like everything is exhausting or you feel numb inside like you can't really feel anything good stuff happens and you feel zilch like food doesn't taste good anymore maybe you have no motivation or you feel like just curling up into a ball never moving again you don't want to be around anyone and you just shut down or maybe everything seems fine in life like you have a good job good friends but you just can't feel any joy in it now some might describe this as depression but there's another way to look at

it from a nervous system perspective this is called hypoarousal the dorsal vagal response or the shutdown State and it's closely related to trauma especially childhood trauma in this video we're going to explore how our nervous systems response to fear adversity or trauma can get stuck in our body and Trigger depression and the good news is that this understanding opens up some great treatment options for both trauma and [Music] depression now real quick we have to talk about what causes depression in the past there's been an overly simplified view of depression that it was laziness or

a simple chemical imbalance so the theory of low serotonin for example that's been disproven but the truth is that depression is probably many different diseases with various underlying problems and then the symptoms show up as depression so why would underlying causes from grief to trauma to low self-esteem to thyroid disorders or Lyme disease all show up with this same cluster of of symptoms depression is a universal response we can find it in every country in the world in modern first world office workers and in hunter gatherer societies we can find it in the rich and

in the poor the physically healthy and the sick so far from being a simple physical condition depression expert Charles raisen has said that one thing that all the forms of depression have in common is that depression is a universal response to being overwhelmed it's when the internal and external pressures trigger a switch in our brain and body from I can handle this to I can't handle this this is a subconscious survival response in our nervous system this is a flip that gets switched in our nervous system and it can be really hard to unflip that

switch let's use an example of childhood trauma let's say that as a child you saw your parents fight a lot and sometimes those fights would turn violent now this feels terribly dangerous for a kid because it is now if your dad was hurting your mom maybe you tried to fight him off to stop him but that didn't work and it actually put you in more danger because he was too strong if you tried to run for help you'd be punished worse that would put you in more danger freezing up and watching them was also dangerous

so as a child all you could do was withdraw and hide in your room if this happened enough times or if the trauma was severe enough or if you were a sensitive Soul you would do anything you could to distract yourself or numb the pain maybe you would Daydream maybe you would turn on a show to escape when there's when there's nothing we can do to stop the danger or to escape it your nervous system protects you by making you detach and the threats don't have to be physical it could be caused by emotional threats

as well one of my followers said I learned that no matter how hard I tried I would be belittled insulted misunderstood and cast in a negative light it made me hesitant to do literally anything spending hours days years in bed scared of what would happen and how I'd be treated ruminating on everything I'd done would do wrong and feeling defeated to the point of no longer trying chronically feeling unsafe emotionally or physically wears us down and can trigger depression so what's going on in the nervous system here our nervous system has different levels of response

to threat each serving a specific purpose our default state is the vental vagal State this is feeling calm safe and connected this parasympathetic State lets us rest digest and experience Joy when faced with a threat that we believe we can handle enter a sympathetic state so a small threat leads to a fight response which is increased energy a bigger threat leads to a flight response where we're going to escape and an even bigger threat leads to a freeze response where you're immobilized but very alert when we perceive a situation as completely overwhelming or inescapable our

body switches to the dorsal vagal State also known as hypoarousal or the shutdown State this is when your body conserves energy your heart rate and your blood pressure drop you feel numb exhausted or depressed you may disconnect from others maybe even disconnect from yourself this isn't just like a psychological response it's not just in your head it's measurable in your body scientists call it tonic immobility in animals and in humans it often shows up as depression whether this is triggered by a single traumatic event or by chronic stress this state is your body's way of

protecting you when it believes there's no other way out h arousal is a survival response it's when your body flips a switch from I can overcome this to all my efforts seem pointless let's just conserve our energy okay one of my subscribers said in my experience depression is when you can no longer muster the energy it takes to hope it's what happens when fighting your trauma has just created more trauma and one day you wake up unwilling to fight anymore it's just too exhausting now this state of hypoarousal or dorsal bagal response this state can

get triggered by one extreme trauma like being kidnapped or by a lowlevel but chronic stress like constantly fighting discrimination in society it can be triggered by the death of a loved one this is an overwhelming loss that you can't fight your way out of or it can be caused by being stressed out and overwhelmed for too long by bills or work or family problems or by a stream of negative thoughts telling you that you're worthless and it can be caused by hypervigilance from past trauma lovely M said trauma causes an inability to feel safe always

being on the alert it feels exhausting and depleting and as if you cannot enjoy life as if you're always on hypervigilant mode waiting for the other shoe to drop and Sophia said trying to stay calm with a hairt triggered alarm system is exhausting now this nervous system reaction this shutdown response is not a disorder it's an instinctual response to protect you from Pain and from harm and to attempt to force you to rest and recover you'll see animals do this when they're trapped or they're overwhelmed by a predator and if this is how you survived

as a child then you may have developed the habit of slipping into that state in order to protect yourself from other stressors or trauma so ask yourself this question did shutting down protect you in some way when you experienced trauma did going quiet or hiding or withdrawing protect you from some hurt whether it was physical abuse that you couldn't fight off or conflict with your parents or hiding from shame and embarrassment shutting down Can Be an Effective survival response as a child it's a learned habit that's hard to get out of and it looks a

whole lot like depression another follower said I think trauma even the less heavy forms of it pushes your life away from what you want and your values toward something that you think you need to be safe this happens unconsciously and in the end you live a life that might be good on paper that you don't really like but you have no idea why or why why it feels off I think deep down you feel torn inside but you have no idea how to mend it so as we explore hypoarousal it becomes clear that this is

a form of dissociation the body's protecting you from pain it's totally functional if you're a gazelle getting chewed on by a cheetah it prevents the gazelle from feeling much pain and in some situations like this video shows it provides the gazelle a chance to escape and survive okay so the shutdown response serves a function okay let me give you another example how about low-level chronic threat let's say someone's facing slow starvation there's a famine in the land the dorsal vagal response numbs you to the pain of hunger it dulls your appetite and it conserves energy

by slowing down your heart rate breathing and Metabolism this shutdown response could help you survive until food is available again but most of us aren't in a famine getting stuck in a dorsal veaga response is totally not functional if your negative thoughts trap you in the state of being unable to leave your bed so let's just talk real quickly about what hypoarousal feels like here's the vend diagram symptoms of depression include worthlessness or guilt restlessness or irritability body aches and pain or Suicidal Thoughts symptoms of hypoarousal include muscle weakness poor coordination decreased sensitivity to stimuli

like hot and cold and a low heart rate now symptoms of both we're going to see the overlap here include feeling numb detached overwhelmed low motivation feeling Frozen hopeless helpless sad or apathetic difficulty moving fatigue brain fog poor sleep or social withdrawal so if that sounds like you you let's talk about what we can do about it depression isn't caused by trauma for everyone your body can get overwhelmed and Trigger that shutdown response from other situations like physical illness or outside circumstances where you lack the resources to feel safe but when we look at how

common trauma is and how closely it's connected with depression it's probably caused by a form of hypoarousal for a lot of people the aces study explored the connection between childhood trauma and depression and people with four or more adverse childhood experiences were more than three times as likely to develop depression than someone without childhood trauma okay here's another question you might be asking what if it doesn't seem like you've dealt with any huge threat now sometimes we subconsciously create our own overwhelming Threat by sending ourselves little messages over and over that train your brain to

feel hopeless so this includes thinking things like this will never work out I'd better expect the worst so I don't get disappointed I'm such a failure why bother trying I'll just mess up again or people all of them are so awful this world is so cruel everything is worse than it ever was can you see how constantly thinking like this on repeat is going to make you feel like it's pointless to keep trying our nervous system does not care if it's a real threat or a perceived threat something in our mind when we visualize something

threatening or overwhelming it triggers the exact same physiological response in our nervous system this is why watching a scary movie can make your hand sweaty but you're actually safe your brain is perceiving danger and turning on that fight fight ORF flight response or in the case of this the shutdown response also things that seem very small to an adult can seem completely overwhelming to a child a parent laughing at you a friend bullying you a peer rejecting you a teacher correcting you this small te trauma can add up over time to reinforce the shutdown response

because you just don't feel safe now you may have developed a habit of slipping into that state in order to protect yourself from other stressors it's a learned habit that's hard to get out of school is stressful numb out and detach I don't care about school you get in a fight with your parents oh well I don't care about my parents right nobody likes me anyway I'm not going to try let's say your parents are critical of you I'll never match their expectations so why bother trying right there's a lot of ways we numb out

and detach ourselves to try and protect ourselves from Pain also when we constantly perceive danger all around us or we lack the safety net of loving and supportive family our nervous system can literally flip a switch to the dorsal vagal response leaving us feeling depressed numb or helpless and when that's happened over and over especially in childhood this can wire our brain to be more likely to be depressed okay so if depression is fueled by trauma how can we treat it slipping into a shutdown response isn't something you're doing on purpose it's not your fault

but there is something you can do about it you can build up the ability to have more of a say about what your nervous system does and how it reacts so let's talk about four ways to do that first thing we're going to do is build awareness let's learn to notice what's going on in your body so when you can notice what the signs are that you're in a state of hypoarousal you can name that state so you can say oh I'm noticing that I'm in the shutdown State now this is a lot easier with

a therapist who's informed in sematic or poly bagal Theory so in session I would say something like hey I noticed that you're Going Quiet your body looks like it's kind of slumped or you're curling up into a ball on my couch what are you know noticing it seems like you're feeling a little overwhelmed are you starting to think that everything is hopeless now if my client in that situation was super dissociated we might spend the whole session exploring that numbness and then also what connectedness to the present moment is like so I might say something

like I might grab a stone I I I have like all these random things in my desk I might grab like a stone like this and hand it to them and be like hey can you hold this can you feel this in your hands or I would have them practice grounding themselves in their senses what can you feel right what do your pants feel like right now what can you see in this room what can you hear and I would have them describe it in detail so that's the first step to overcoming this dorsal vagal

response now the next step is to add in some movement so when we understand that depression might be a nervous system State we understand that to go from hypoarousal to safety we have to move through activation one of the best treatments for hypoarousal is physical movement and interestingly enough tons of research shows that exercise is one of the most effective treatments for depression so we show our brain that we are safe and capable by moving our body in a session I might ask a client to do some physical movement can you pat your legs can

you sit up with your back straight I mean of course doing aerobic exercise for like 40 minutes a day is ideal but simple things like making your body big shaking your arms jiggling your legs laughing really hard dancing yoga a f- minute walk all of these things tell your body that here in this moment you are safe and capable and that sends a message to your nervous system and you can start feeling better emotionally other things you can try include like quick intense breathing so like notice how that's very different from the slow breathing that

triggers like more calm nervous system uh sing some upbeat music use an Engaged posture hold yourself up and big right find something that will make you laugh hard or try eating some crunchy or spicy Foods all of these things can help you re-engage with your senses now we're not fighting our body here right we're learning to listen to your body and reconnect with it the signals it's sending is okay the goal is to restore your sense of safety which includes your ability to overcome threats or challenges and that can help flip that switch back up

to like okay I can do this I can face this okay and that's the third step right the third step is asking how do you show your nervous system that you are safe and capable when it knows this it's going to automatically return to a sense of of safety you could say something to yourself like I know that as a child withdrawing kept you safe but now you're an adult you're safe here and now you can solve this problem by facing it now acting on this might look like facing your fears or solving problems or

leaving a toxic environment so for example if you're in an abusive relationship you leave if you're drowning in stress at work you sit down and you make a plan to create a more sustainable approach if you're struggling with debt let's make one small change let's let's make a budget or cancel one subscription when you take any action even small ones even when you don't feel like it that's movement and it sends a message to your brain that you are safe and capable and that can help your nervous system reset to be more active psychologists call

this behavioral activation and it is one of the most effective treatments for depression and understanding poly vagal Theory explains why the action makes your nervous system move up a level from the shutdown to the sympathetic State and this starts a feedback loop in your brain and body and most likely begin to feel more energetic and more motivated now I understand this can seem really impossible to do on your own so of course I'd recommend that if you can do this work with a therapist to help break this down into Tiny Steps there's another way to

show your brain that you have enough support to overcome challenges so often it's the perception that things are hopeless not actually reality so a few ways that we remind our brain that we're actually safe we convince our brain to change its perception some of these practices like like gratitude practice right you remember and you pay attention to the good things in your life or the three good things exercise where you remind yourself of the good things that you do or you surround yourself with supportive people so one of the most effective ways to stop a

trauma response is to connect to make eye contact with and hug a safe and supportive human being or an animal because this sends a message to your nervous system that you are safe so the more messages our nervous system receives that we're safe when we perceive safety by remembering all the good in our life that helps our brain be like okay actually I am capable I can overcome this and it'll flip that switch back up into safe mode okay number four lastly sometimes the hypo arousal response is your body's message that you need to rest

and take a break you might just actually be worn down sometimes you need to give yourself time to rest and recover give yourself Grace and compassion allow yourself to mourn and feel sad and process an old herur so that you can move through it and come out on top during this time of rest and Recovery you you want to fill your body with good nutrients give it gentle movement treat yourself with love surround yourself with supportive people take time to rest and curl up on the couch and read a book right all of these things

can send a message to your nervous system that you are safe now with all four of these practices you can return to the ventral vagel or the safe and sound state of your nervous system when we look at depression from a nervous system perspective it gives us permission to be gentle with ourselves to understand where these feelings are coming from and some practical ways to work through them we're going to notice what's going on in our bodies add in some movement build your sense of safety and take time to replenish your resources if you're dealing

with trauma and depression I hope this helps you take a small step today toward better mental health and if you're ready to take bigger steps or to learn the essential skills to work through emotions to process them and to build your mental health and resilience you could join my membership it's about $27 a month and I've got eight courses on there you watch 15-minute video a day do a little workbook and I guarantee you that your mental health is going to improve you're going to feel more safe more confident more capable of managing these big

intense feelings that come up so if you'd like to learn more check out the link in the description and as always thank you for watching and take care