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It is not so much the nature of any particular trauma or stress that we experience in life that matters most; it is how well equipped we are with both the inner and outer resources to respond to them. It is our response patterns that most affect our children. It is our response patterns that we pass down to them.
The vagal nerve is directly tied both to our stress response system and to our ability to act with compassionate caregiving. I believe that it is our response to trauma and stress in relation to how compassionately we can take care of our children that matters most to them during their early growth and developmental stages.
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How can this fact (as presented in my last post) not be of central concern to everyone living in America?
“44 percent of American children — that’s nearly half of all children in the U.S. — live in families that face serious struggles to make ends meet.”
Poverty is a stressor that affects not just the adults caring for this 44% of our nation’s children, but also impacts each and every one of the children in some way. How do we care for ourselves and others when our stress response system is itself overly and chronically stressed?
Poverty is not a single problem that can be dissociated from the ever expanding circles of society that create both the poverty conditions and the solutions for these conditions. My concern with the vagal nerve system and its connection to the capacity to care-give compassionately or not lead me to finding the information I am presenting today. Parents still have to take care of their children no matter what lack they may be experiencing in their external resources. Yet it is the actual condition of a parent’s body and brain that influences how all of their caregiving actions take place in every situation – stressful or not.
If parents experienced severe stress and trauma during their own early developmental stages, their stress response system has most likely changed in response. This altered stress response system is the only one they have available in their body-brain to use for the rest of their lifetime. Because how the stress response system operates is directly connected to the vagal nerve system, and because parental interactions with their children directly influence the development of their little one’s stress response-vagal nerve system, these stress responses can easily be automatically passed on down the generations – often along with poverty.
Even though the current economy is creating an ever widening circle of financial stress on families in our nation, it is the response TO THE STRESSORS that are perhaps more significant in the long run than are the actual experiences of lack of financial well-being themselves. The more we can all understand how our body-brain handles stress, anxiety and trauma the more empowered we can be to intercept automatic responses to children in our lives that will harm their body-brain development in ways that will create physiological lack of well-being for their lifespan – no matter what their financial conditions end up to be.
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Two important words that emerged for me today as I read this information presented below are ‘inspiration’ and ‘expiration’. True, this article is talking about our breathing and our heart rate. But it is more than that. The more flexible we can be in every single way the more ‘inspiration’ we can experience in our lives that will counteract the hardships we encounter. Stress responses in our body, through the operation of our vagal nerve system, happen in response to threats to our actual life as well as to threats against our self esteem (and to our actual ‘self’).
Mindful consciousness over our stress response actions empowers us. Becoming mindfully conscious of how we are in-the-moment allowing our own stress responses to affect our children MATTERS to their physiological development. Once we begin to more fully understand that our stress response system IS THE SAME SYSTEM that operates in connection to our breathing and heart rate, through our vagal nerve, that is ALSO OUR COMPASSIONATE CAREGIVING SYSTEM we can learn to take every possible precaution not to pass the stress onto our children through the way we directly offer caregiving to them.
Yes, children need the most basic physical necessities of life, but it is most likely to be the way caregivers respond to children on the personal level of interactions with them that is most likely to cause our children permanent growth and development harm if we aren’t care-full – not poverty or other external factors.
The way parents experience and handle stress is directly passed down to their offspring. These patterns are built right into the developing body-brain of infant-children and will have profound affect on how these children will handle stress and regulate their emotions and social interactions themselves for the rest of their lives. It is from this perspective that I present the following information today on the vagal nerve system and the stress response.
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“The parasympathetic nervous system influences the tonic or resting heart beat by means of signals from the tenth cranial nerve, the Vagus nerve. In the resting or baseline state the heart rate will fluctuate with the breathing cycle; inspiration is accompanied by heart rate elevation and expiration is accompanied by heart rate depression…. [in the example given at this LINK page 69] you will see an example of this phenomenon. The top tracing is the heart beat, the middle tracing is the respiratory cycle (up for inspiration, down for expiration), and the bottom tracing is the heart rate from the ratemeter. Notice the coincident rise and fall of heart rate with each respiratory cycle. This event is termed the respiratory sinus arrhythmia or RSA. The extent of the RSA is a rough measure of Vagal control over the resting heart beat, referred to as Vagal tone. The size of the RSA (degree of variability of the heart rate for each respiratory cycle) is what is determined by the Vagus nerve. When the heart rate varies considerably for each respiratory cycle, then we say there is good or high Vagal tone. When the heart rate is relatively steady with low variability for the respiratory cycle, we say there is poor or low Vagal tone. In general Vagal control over the heart rate lessens during stressful experiences when sympathetic activity is heightened, thus allowing the heart rate to rise to meet the challenge.” (page 68)
Personality and Vagal Tone
“Vagal tone has been related to temperament (the innate building blocks of personality) and stress vulnerability in children. Children who show behavioral inhibition in novel situations (somewhat comparable to shyness) have low Vagal tone as evidenced by higher and less variable resting heart rates. Preschoolers who fail to show emotional expression also have low Vagal tone and are vulnerable to later depression and anxiety. [my note: These children may well be exhibiting early manifestations of insecure attachment disorders.] There is also evidence that adults who are extremely shy or behaviorally inhibited have higher and less variable resting heart rates. Also adults with high Vagal tone may have lower blood pressure responses to stress, making them less vulnerable to hypertension and coronary heart disease. Interestingly, adults with high Vagal tone are more susceptible to hypnosis. [my note: And high Vagal tone ‘superstars’, as Keltner notes, show more compassionate, caring response to others.] The exact relationship between the autonomic nervous system’s regulation of physiological responses and personality is unknown, but many hypothesize that the innate sensitivity and reactivity of the nervous system may be the fundamental mechanism for biasing personality development and expression.” (page 69) [my note: bolding is mine — and this sensitivity and reactivity of the nervous system and brain are directly influenced in development by the nature of early infant-child interactions.]
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Because a person’s resting and responsive Vagal nerve system is tied to overall degrees of well-being in the world, it is helpful to understand how this system operates on both the physiological and ‘psychological’ level.
Heart Rate
“Heart rate is the number of beats per minute of the heart (BPM) and it is determined by factors intrinsic to the heart as well as regulatory pathways from the brain and hormonal signals for the adrenal glands. Once again, when the brain is involved, psychological states may show themselves in the peripheral response [my note: in the body.]
“The obvious purpose of the heart beat is to move blood around the body. The rate of the heart beat is one factor which influences cardiac output and the volume and speed of delivery of the blood to body cells. Clearly, there are times when the blood needs to reach those cells more or less quickly. Exercise, responding to stressors, and even just standing up may create greater cellular needs for oxygen and blood nutrients (mainly glucose). Relaxation, sleeping and other vegetative states generally create a reduced cellular need. Sensors in the brain stem and hypothalamus provide feedback regulation of the heart rate to meet the demands of body cells. Responding to stressors involves the activation of higher limbic system structures [my note: Remember, this region of the brain forms early and is hypersensitive in its formation to the conditions of the earliest environment, especially ‘good’ and ‘bad’ signals sent to the infant from its earliest caregiver interactions.] such as the amygdala and hypothalamus, which then send signals via the autonomic nervous system to increase (or decrease) the heart rate. Neurotransmitter signals from the sympathetic branch [“GO” branch] (norepinephrine) increase the heart rate (by binding to beta 1-adrenergic receptors), while neurotransmitter signals from the parasympathetic branch [“STOP” branch] decrease the heart rate (by binding to muscarinic cholinergic receptors).
“There are individual differences in the resting heart rate which are related to genetics [my note: Which includes environmental influences over the mechanisms that tell our genetic code what to do, and epigenetics], gender (females generally have faster heart rates than males), and to physical condition (state of health as well as fitness). Also, there are individual differences in the size (and sometimes the direction) of the adaptive changes which take place to environmental events. Some of these differences are related to personality, psychological state, and perhaps fitness as well.” (pages 65-66)
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All of the factors that affect our well-being are influenced in early development of the body-brain by the condition of an infant-child’s environment, particularly by early caregiver interactions. This includes the operation of our nervous systems – including our autonomic nervous system.
Please read the following keep in mind how a very young developing body-brain can be altered in response to stress and trauma so that the adult operation of the stress response system is altered for a life time. Also keep in mind that it is the mother’s ability to reflectively and appropriately modulate her own emotions as she interacts with her young infant that builds (or does not build) emotional regulational abilities into her infant’s early forming right limbic brain and autonomic nervous system. (Here again, too much over stimulation, even too much ‘happiness’ stimulation can overtax and overload an infant’s developing body-brain regulatory abilities.)
Also note in the writings below the introduction of dissociation – which is a body-brain reaction that involves both the body and the brain equally on occasions where it occurs in connection to stress triggers including anxiety.
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Psychological States and Cardiovascular Responses
“Cardiovascular responses have been studied most often in the context of arousal and emotional states. The stress response (fight or flight) is a physiologically adaptive set of bodily changes in the presence of a life threat or a threat to one’s self worth. In general, activity of the sympathetic nervous system is enhanced, bringing about elevations in heart rate and blood pressure necessary to deal with the perceived threat. These responses are adaptive in the short and generally improve human performances which require speed, strength, and endurance. Human performance which requires fine motor skills or complex cognitive processes is generally affected in a curvilinear fashion; performance is enhanced with moderate or optimal levels of the stress response, but hindered with high levels of the stress response (as anyone who plays the piano knows).
“Studies have shown that anxiety, frustration, anger, fear, anticipation of pain and other negative emotional states can bring about elevations in heart rate and/or blood pressure. Positive emotional states of excitement, joy, and interest can also bring about elevated cardiovascular responses. There are, however, individual differences in the nature and the extent of cardiovascular responses in emotional states. [my note: Think about early developmental changes along with what this author writes about next.] Some of these differences stem from the nature of the individual personality (for example cynicism and hostility…) and some stem from the nature of the environmental demands. Complicating the picture is the fact that heart rate and blood pressure may disassociate in response to environmental events. [my note: bolding is mine.] Research has supported the idea that tasks which require environmental intake or monitoring, cause heart rate lowering (blood pressure may rise or remain unchanged), while tasks which require environmental rejection (events which are aversive or bring about escape motivations) result in heart rate and blood pressure elevations. [my note: As can be seen in the research on Borderline Personality Disorder and their vagal nerve response.] Similarly, it has been shown that tasks which tend to produce anxiety and self-focus (for example giving a speech if you have presentation anxiety) tend to elevate heart rate and blood pressure, while tasks which tend to produce anxiety and environmental-focus (for example listening to a lecture that you will be tested on later) tend to reduce heart rate while blood pressure may elevate or remain unchanged.” (pages 67-68)
From: Chapter 5, Experiment HP-5: Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, and Vagal Tone
READ WHOLE ARTICLE INCLUDING THE EXPERIMENT AT THIS LINK:
Human Pyschophysiology HP-5-1 (through page 14) – no author or further reference information given —
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References on Personality and Vagal Tone (even though older research, still presents excellent background information)
Cole, P.M., Zahn-Waxler, C., Fox, N.A., Usher, B.A., & Welsh, J. D. (1996). Individual Differences in Emotion Regulation and Behavior Problems in Preschool children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105(4), 518-529.
Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R.A., Karbon, M., Murphy, B.C., Carlo, G., & Wosinski, M. (1996). Relations of School Children and Comforting Behavior to Empathy-related Reactions and Shyness. Social Development, 5(3), 300-351,
Jemerin, J.M. & Boyce, W.T. (a990). Psychobiological Differences in Childhood Stress Response. II. Cardiovascular Markers of Vulnerability. Journal of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, 11(3), 140-150.
Jemerin, J.M. & Boyce, W.T. (a990). Psychobiological Differences in Childhood Stress Response. II. Cardiovascular Markers of Vulnerability. Journal of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics, 11(3), 140-150.
Porges, S.W. (1992). Vagal tone: A Physiological Marker of Stress Vulnerability. Pediatrics, 90(3), 498-504.
Thayer, J.F., Friedman, B.H. & Borkovec, T.D. (1996). Autonomic Characteristics of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Worry. Biological Psychiatry, 39(4), 255-266.
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Stop the Storm 