This is episode #59 with Suzanne Gundersen. You can watch the interview with graphics here on YouTube. Thanks for tuning into the podcast today! I’m always excited about the guests we bring on here, as each person has achieved high levels of success in their field and I know they can help others by sharing their knowledge. Our next guest is an expert in a topic that has been on my reading list the past year. When I was speaking with Suzanne Gundersen and she mentioned her life’s work has been based on putting Dr. Stephen Porges’[i], Polyvagal Theory into practice, I stopped what I was doing and asked if she could tell me more about this.  For the past year, I’ve been watching trainings from Deb Dana[ii] (whose mentor was Dr. Porges) and just bought her book The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy[iii] and had written down that I wanted to interview an expert on the Polyvagal Theory. Plus, I have heard Dr. Lori Desautels mention Dr. Porges’ work the past year, and so  I wasn’t surprised when an expert showed up. If you are new this work, like me, you would know why I would be looking for an expert to explain this theory. Someone who could in simple terms explain what we must all understand about our Central Nervous System when it comes to managing our stress response. These days this understanding is more important than ever before and this is exactly what Suzanne does with two tracks, first is stress education (the science of stress) and secondly, she speaks about nervous system with regulation techniques.Welcome Suzanne, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today to share your knowledge, and programs on such an important topic. Like we spoke about, there are many layers to this theory, and at first glance of all the notes I have taken on it, I still can’t explain it very well. Thanks for helping us break down this theory so we can think about how it can apply for our teachers in the classroom, for us as parents working from home, as well as for those who want to apply this idea in the workplace.Q1: What is “Polyvagal?" and why is this theory so important for us to understand these days?  Answer is that it's the science of safety and connection, a map for living our most modern survival strategy, social engagement.  Porges theory shows how our evolution has delivered us to human form where our unique communication abilities offers us possibilities for secure and deeply meaningful connections to survive and thrive. Q2: I actually have 2 version of the polyvagal chart (one you sent to me) and what we must know to remap our nervous system as dysregulation occurs. I got the first chart from Dr. Lori Desautels last October when I attended one of her live trainings. Can you give an overview of the Polyvagal chart and what’s happening at each level with the Ventral Vegal (safety), Sympathetic (danger) and Dorsal Vegal (Life Threat) stages so we can recognize these stages in ourselves and others? Crash course on neuroscience three branches most modern VV, then SNS, then PNS, and in order to understand it we have to go way back to when we were fish, strategy to freeze, then amphibians with legs to fight/flight, then humans to communicate.   We automatically respond to stress, hierarchically, start with most modern first then use more ancient strategies to keep us alive.  When we sense threat, our first reaction is to is to look to another for safe connection to help us know we are safe, we look for facial cues, tone of voice, regulated heart beat, if we don’t receive what we need to know safety and connection, we revert to SNS (mobilization), if doesn’t satisfy, then to PNS freeze.  Each stage has a co-relating stress symptoms and body system status (SNS- charged system- increase heart, breath, blood to limbs), SNS- systems release/go limp (drop bowls).  Q3: We have been talking on past episodes on the responsibility we have as parents and professionals to keep ourselves regulated (or in the green zone of your chart)