3 Ways to Bring Your PANS Child Out of Fight or Flight

I loved my training in Polyvagal Theory because it helped me gain a much deeper understanding of why our PANS kids/teens act the way they do.

The training helped me understand:

• that our nervous system is always scanning the environment for safety (this is called neuroception)
• that the brain inflammation from PANS can cause the "false alarms" in the alarm center of brain and rapidly put our PANS kids/teens into fight or flight
• Fight or flight (there is also freeze, faint and fawn) can present itself as a panic attack or terror in our PANS kids/teens
• Fight or flight can also present itself as rage or opposition in our PANS kids/teens

Dr. Stephen Porges's work has given us information about how the nervous system takes in information and what environmental cues allow it to feel "safe".

The nervous system is very sensitive to the three things:

1. Facial expressions
2. Movement
3. Sound

When our PANS kids/teens are in fight or flight, we can shift our facial expressions, our movements and the volume of our voice to increase the environment "cues of safety".  This will help move our PANS kids/teens out of fight or flight.