Coaching practices for The Ladder of Regulation Navigating Your Autonomic States at Work

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • Whenever I let myself touch the hard feeling at all, I get pulled all the way under and flooded
  • I can tell something’s off in my body but I can’t name it — am I wound up or shut down?
  • When I’m wound up, "everything is urgent and someone’s to blame" feels like the plain truth, and when I’m low, "nothing matters" feels just as true
  • My heart’s going, my thoughts are racing, everything feels urgent and like a threat
  • When I’m rattled I tend to isolate, but I’ve noticed even a few minutes near a certain calm person settles me in a way I can’t do alone

Practices that may help

  1. The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
    The ladder of regulation, developed by Deb Dana from Stephen Porges’s polyvagal theory, is a map of three autonomic states — ventral vagal (safe and social), sympathetic (mobilized), and dorsal vagal (shutdown) — arranged as rungs. Knowing which rung you’re on and which direction to move gives you a practical framework for state navigation rather than white-knuckling through dysregulation.
  2. Pendulation: moving between states gently
    Shift between a regulated and a less regulated state in small steps rather than forcing a leap.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  3. Identify your current rung
    Before trying to change your state, learn to read which of the three rungs you’re on right now.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  4. Ladder narrative mapping: finding the story your state tells
    Identify the specific beliefs and stories that your nervous system generates on each rung.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  5. Sympathetic-to-ventral moves: downshifting mobilization
    Use specific physiological levers to move from an activated (fight/flight) state toward the ventral vagal zone.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  6. Using social engagement to activate ventral vagal tone
    Seek out or create interactions that deliver prosodic and facial safety cues to your nervous system.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  7. Dorsal vagal lift: moving out of shutdown
    Use gentle movement and micro-connection to rise from a collapsed or numb state.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  8. Titration: staying within your window of tolerance
    Approach stressful content in small doses timed to your nervous system’s current capacity.
    The Ladder of Regulation: Navigating Your Autonomic States
  9. Map your own window
    Learn the signs of your calm zone, your hyperarousal, and your shutdown.
    The Window of Tolerance: Your Optimal Arousal Zone
  10. Map your state (ventral, sympathetic, dorsal)
    Learn to notice which of three nervous-system states you are in before you try to change anything.
    Polyvagal Theory, Honestly Explained

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