06/17/2026
Polyvagal Theory is facing some serious scrutiny – which doesn’t mean that Porges’s work isn’t helpful. But I think we can update the way we talk about emotional states. So, let’s explore.
1. “Dorsal vagal shutdown”
This term doesn’t work because shutdown is NOT governed by the dorsal part of the vagus nerve. Rather, it is a “hypometabolic state” that includes brainstem defensive circuits, sympathetic withdrawal, baroreflex regulation, motor inhibition, endocrine-immune shifts, threat perception, and, of course, the mind, which is not the brain. There is a dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve in the medulla, but it is not the “switch” for collapsed, depressed, or dissociated shut down states.
2. States cannot be mapped neatly
The idea that there are 3 circuits – dorsal vagal, sympathetic, and ventral vagal that govern shut down, activation (fight or flight), and social engagement is inaccurate. States are mixed, layered, and dynamic. A person can be still but alert, collapsed but anxious, socially engaged but activated.
3. The Evolutionary Story is Outdated
Back in the 1960s a neuroscientist named Paul MacLean proposed that the human brain evolved in three stacked layers: an ancient “reptilian brain” for instinct and survival, a “paleomammalian” or limbic brain for emotion and attachment, and a “neomammalian” cortex for reason, language, and higher thought. Like PVT it offered a simple, memorable story about human behavior. However, evolution did not build the human brain by stacking new systems on top of old ones. Reptiles, mammals, emotion, cognition, and social behavior cannot be cleanly divided into those three layers. The triune brain model was discounted by scientist in the the 1970s, but its popularity still lingers today - it’s still being taught.
4. The idea of “Vagal Tone” is a problem
In popular PVT language, “vagal tone” is often used to describe how well your nervous system handles stress. Good vagal tone is used to mean that you are calm, safe and connected, poor vagal tone means you’re stressed, dysregulated, or unsafe. But heart rate variability (HRV), which is often used to determine “vagal tone” in PVT, is only about the heart, and it’s highly influenced by breathing. HRV is also influenced by posture, age, fitness, medications, illness, metabolic state, attention, emotion, the mind, and the context. If you want to talk about someone’s overall ability to self-regulate, better terms are “autonomic flexibility” and/or simply “self-regulatory capacity.”
5. Being useful is not the same thing as being accurate
Some folks are currently arguing that the PVT language and theory is useful for our students/clients. But it’s important to remember that useful is not the same thing as anatomically or physiologically accurate. The mechanisms of PVT are strongly disputed by the scientists who study this stuff.
Why Should Yoga Teachers Shift Our Language?
Some people who come to yoga are psychologically vulnerable (I certainly was when I first came to the practice). The problem with teaching a theory that we know is inaccurate is that the last thing we want to do is be inauthentic or teach something that’s not viable to vulnerable people. Also, the foundational yoga principle of satya or honesty, guides us to update our language when better information emerges.
Yoga practice works, we can explain it in simple, more accurate terms (shutdown = hypometabolic state; vagal tone = autonomic flexibility, etc.). Yoga doesn’t need PVT to be a valid practice that supports self-regulation, we have wonderful ancient models that do that very well.
I want to say one final thing and I hope that you have read this far and will keep reading this last paragraph. It is my belief that Stephen Porges is a genius who helped bring the idea of autonomic states to the general population. He intuited something that the yogis laid out centuries, perhaps millennia ago – that the human being experiences and processes a wide range of emotions, typically along the mid-line of the body, in other words, via the major chakra centers. He started a very essential scientific conversation.
I am really grateful for his work, and I am excited to see how science continues this conversation in the future and finds more accurate ways to validate what the yogis understood intuitively and described in their texts.
