This is the fourth of six pieces in the Body and Mind series. The series was written across the periods of Phase II and Phase III of the Rolfing Basic Training. This piece was written during Phase III, looking back on the Polyvagal Theory taken up in Phase II.
This time I would like to take up Polyvagal Theory, which came up in Phase II of the Rolfing training. In thinking about body and mind, it offers a way of understanding as interesting as Tonic Function (see “The Muscles That Tire and the Muscles That Don’t — Tonic Function and the Support of Posture” and “Bidirectionality Brings the Body into Order — Tonic Function in Walking and Sitting“).
Earlier in this column I took up a book by Peter Levine. According to that book, an animal meeting an enemy takes one of two means, to fight (Fight) or to flee (Flight); where neither is available, a third is known to follow — to freeze (Freeze) (see “Trauma Stays in the Body, Not in the Event — What Happens in the Deep Sessions“). That piece also introduced footage of a bear, shot with a rifle, discharging the energy of that shock after the freeze response.
In fact, it is the sympathetic nerve of the autonomic nervous system that is involved in Fight/Flight.
The human body comprises the somatic nervous system, which can be moved by conscious will, and the autonomic nervous system, which cannot be controlled by conscious will.
The autonomic nervous system holds two antagonistic systems: the sympathetic, which becomes dominant during exertion, and the parasympathetic, which works in the opposite direction and becomes dominant at rest.
What is involved in Freeze, the third means, is the vagus nerve (Vagus).
The vagus is the only nerve that reaches from the brain as far as the abdomen. It exits from the head and takes part in the working of the gastrointestinal tract, the bronchi, the heart, and the viscera. What is involved in freezing is the branch of the vagus without a myelin sheath — situated dorsally in the body, the Dorsal Vagus Nerve — also described as the older vagus, developed since the era of vertebrates and reptiles.
In fact, Professor Stephen Porges of the University of Illinois holds that mammals, humans among them, developed a vagus nerve of another kind. What mammals carry is a vagus nerve with a myelin sheath — the newer vagus, situated ventrally in the body, the Ventral Vagus Nerve. It developed so as to connect with the cranial nerves governing facial expression and vocalization.
Since the vagus exists in two forms in this way, an older and a newer, Porges gave the account the name Polyvagal Theory (poly, many; vagal, of the vagus nerve).
Mammals, unlike reptiles, need to give milk when they bear young. A need arose, then, to develop new means of communication — expression across the face, crying, vocalizing, sucking with the mouth. Expression across the face in particular came to serve in closing the felt distance in human relations. And that carries over into how distance from society is handled: sociality.
That expression of the face, it is said, is what developed the newer vagus. As a result, through the working of the newer vagus concentrated at the face, a signal developed that it is all right to come psychologically closer. In this way, in approaching another person, human beings came to judge by the face, by the voice, and by signals from the other.
According to Porges, the three systems — the newer vagus (involved in psychological distance and sociality), the sympathetic nerve (involved in Fight/Flight), and the older vagus (involved in Freeze) — form a hierarchy. The newer vagus inhibits the two below it, the sympathetic nerve and the older vagus. The sympathetic nerve in turn inhibits the older vagus. The higher up, the greater the sense of safety, so human beings seek to use the topmost, the newer vagus.
Put the other way around: where something occurs and safety is felt, the newer vagus works; where a critical situation arrives, the sympathetic nerve takes over and Fight/Flight is engaged. And where the situation becomes critical to life, the older vagus works at last, and the behavior called Freeze emerges.
What is interesting is that under stress, human beings unconsciously begin to use the muscles of the face. It appears as behavior — eating and drinking, listening to music, talking with others. All of these can be understood as ways of making the newer vagus dominant by working the facial muscles. Porges holds that deepening the breath, as in yoga’s Pranayama, likewise leads to using the facial muscles, and serves the same end.
Where patients with autism, trauma, depression, or schizophrenia are understood as being, so to speak, in a state where the newer vagus is not working, the task becomes how to make dominant a system involved in sociality — so Porges says. Next time I would like to take up Polyvagal Theory from this angle.
*The presence or absence of a myelin sheath bears heavily on how a nerve cell transmits information. Where a sheath is present, transmission proceeds rapidly by what is called saltatory conduction; where it is absent, transmission is slow.
Note, August 2026
This piece handles the relation between the muscles of the face and the nervous system. Expression develops the newer vagus, and that becomes a signal of safety. The theory was learned in Phase II — and in that same Phase II, a session touching the head and face directly was also received.
What Session 7 was touching
Session 7 of the ten-series works with the head and the face. The muscles at the surface of the face are released, and the work moves to the fascia of the oral cavity — the temporomandibular joint, the dome behind the upper teeth, the temporalis — then the inside of the nose and the area around the crown of the head. What sets Rolfing apart from other bodywork is that the work is carried out inside the mouth and the nose as well (see “Session 7: The Head and the Face“).
One of its principal aims was the vestibular sense, which adjusts the balance with gravity. The inner ear sits within the temporal bone.
The newer vagus this piece describes developed so as to connect with the cranial nerves governing facial expression and vocalization. The region Session 7 touches and the nervous system this piece explains are in the same place.
At the time, the two were not held together. The theory belonged to the classroom of Phase II, Session 7 to the practical side of the work, and each was recorded separately.
The record of receiving Session 7 notes that after the fascia of the oral cavity was released, the pull on the chest lightened. It ends in a supposition: that the fascia inside the mouth may have had an effect on the vestibular sense and on balance.
Laying the framework of this piece over that, another account also stands. Tension leaving the temporomandibular joint and the temporalis is also a change in the state of the facial muscles. That this would leave the working of the newer vagus untouched is hard to suppose.
Breathing practice works on the neck and throat
This piece carries Porges’s observation that deepening the breath, as in yoga’s Pranayama, leads to using the facial muscles and serves to make the newer vagus dominant.
Nine months later, in November 2015, a course on pranayama handled the same region from the side of breathing practice. The breathing muscles named were the diaphragm, the intercostals, the muscles of the neck, and the pelvic floor. The muscles of the neck stand among the muscles of breathing.
Two purposes were given for Ujjayi breathing. Drawing the throat in narrows the airway, which makes a long exhalation possible without unnecessary effort. And drawing in the throat at the neck fixes the neck, so that other parts of the body — the clavicles, the ribs — are recruited, and the muscles that should work come to work.
The reason Porges named Pranayama takes concrete form here. Breathing practice is a technique that works on the throat and the neck directly.
The same course also gave an account from the side of the nervous system. Stress and emotion stimulate the limbic system, and breathing changes. Pranayama alters the breath deliberately and engages the higher brain, the cerebral cortex, which in turn dampens the stimulus from the limbic system. Its significance lies in training the body toward a parasympathetically dominant state of ease even where carbon dioxide runs high.
A different route from Polyvagal Theory, arriving at the same place.
Then, in September 2016, receiving mentoring from Hubert Godard in Paris, there came an explanation of why Session 1 is the breath. For grounding, attention goes to the sagittal plane. Movement front and back matters, and that is where looking at the breath has its meaning (see “ERA Mentoring Session (4) — An Experience in Paris: Valuing the Foundations — Hubert Godard“).
The ten-series begins with the breath and completes the medial line at the head and face. On the structural side, Sessions 1 and 7 correspond as the lower and upper ends of that line. What this piece shows is that the two are joined on the side of the nervous system as well.
Safety comes first
This piece sets out the hierarchy. Where safety is felt, the newer vagus works; where crisis arrives, the sympathetic nerve; where life is at stake, the older vagus. The higher up, the greater the sense of safety, so human beings seek the topmost.
In the 2025 Advanced Training, this order was handled as a task on the practitioner’s side. Ray McCall held that for the perception from which a session starts, a way of being in which safety can be felt matters. As a result, the client connects naturally with the resources needed and widens what is possible (see “Journey to Becoming an Advanced Rolfer — A Summary of the Road to Certification“).
That trust is needed before entering the deeper sessions was already being said at the time. The framework of this piece gives that a grounding in the nervous system. Where safety is not felt, the upper system does not work in the first place.
For a practitioner to set the field is also to bear on which level of the nervous system a client works from.