Hi! Welcome. You being here means more than you know. Knowing it lands with someone like you keeps me going. I'm Lavena Xu-Johnson. I write about psychology for founders. Why? Because scaling a business means scaling ourselves first.
A few weeks ago, I was at a founders' dinner with 12 founders from entirely different industries and backgrounds. We chatted about topics from entrepreneurship, AI, productivity, health, to parenthood as founders.
It was one of the best intimate events I’ve been to in years. It was something about how introspective everyone was, how open they were to opening up, being vulnerable, and being truthful.
Was it the atmosphere? Was it the host's curation and care? Or was it just by chance?
Today, we're looking at the science that explains ‘vibing’ and ‘energy syncing’ - a theory that has laid the foundation for how biologists, doctors, psychologists, and neuroscientists understand human interactions.
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Polyvagal Theory: the framework
In 1994, psychologist Dr. Stephen Porges presented a new framework to the Society for Psychophysiological Research. He had spent decades studying the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the body, connecting the brainstem to the heart, lungs, and gut, and what he found challenged how the autonomic nervous system had been understood until then.
He called it Polyvagal Theory. "Poly" because it identified multiple distinct vagal circuits with different evolutionary origins and functions. The theory explains how the autonomic nervous system continuously organizes physiological state in response to cues of safety and threat, and how that regulation shapes everything: how we feel, how we think, and critically, how we relate to others.
Since then, it has been applied across neuropsychology, trauma treatment, biology, autonomic immune science, and more. The reason it travels so well across disciplines is that it describes something universal: how the human nervous system is wired for connection and what happens when that connection is absent.
Principle 1: The hierarchy of the ANS
Polyvagal theory proposes that the autonomic nervous system operates through three phylogenetically organized states, recruited in sequence depending on perceived safety.
Social engagement (ventral vagal): When we feel safe, this state is active. Heart rate is regulated, breath is steady, the face is expressive, and we're capable of connection, nuanced thinking, and flexible response.
Mobilization (sympathetic activation): When we perceive danger, our state go into fight-or-flight mode. Our energy is redirected toward action. Collaboration and complex cognition become harder.
Immobilization (dorsal vagal): Under conditions of life threat or extreme overwhelm, the system goes further, into shutdown, flatness, or dissociation.
Through what Dr. Porges called the dynamic feedback system, the brain continuously integrates signals from the body, the environment, and social interactions. During this ongoing exchange of information, our nervous system adjusts its physiological state, which influences our physiology, perception, behavior, and social engagement.
At that founders' dinner, people were operating from a safe connected state. That's where genuine presence and open conversation become possible. In a tense board meeting or a pitch about to go wrong, we've all experienced the second.
Principle 2: Neuroception
Porges introduced the term neuroception to describe the nervous system's automatic, subcortical process of scanning the environment for cues of safety or threat, which happens entirely below conscious awareness.
It integrates signals from three sources: the body (interoception), the environment, and other people: their vocal tone, facial expressions, posture, and gestures. None of this is processed through conscious thought.
The critical insight is that neuroception is state-dependent. When we are regulated, our neuroception is more likely to read cues as safe. When we are dysregulated, we read the same neutral cues as threats instead of as safe. The lens changes depending on the physiological state we're already in.
It also explains what happened at that dinner. The host did not announce that it was a safe space or set ground rules for vulnerability. The nervous systems in the room scanned each other's vocal tone, non-verbal posture, and facial expressions as safe.
Principle 3: Co-regulation
The third principle is the one most directly relevant to how leaders shape rooms.
Polyvagal Theory shows that regulation is not a solo process: it is fundamentally relational. Humans continuously send and receive signals of safety or danger through their voices, faces, and gestures. These signals directly influence the autonomic state of others. Co-regulation is the process through which people stabilize each other's nervous systems through social interaction.
Hatfield, Cacioppo, and Rapson documented the physiological mechanism in their 1993 foundational paper on emotional contagion: we unconsciously mimic the expressions and vocal tone of those around us, and through physiological feedback, begin to feel what we're imitating. The body forms a ‘perception’ before we gain emotional awareness. Co-regulation and emotional contagion describe the same process from different disciplines.
Our nervous system state directly influences our team. Barsade's 2002 research in organizational psychology confirmed exactly this: one person's emotional state expressed subtly rippled through a group and measurably changed their cooperation and performance. The group was unaware it was happening.
Which brings us back to the dinner. Twelve people. No agenda, no facilitation, no structured vulnerability exercise. What the host curated was the conditions: the right people, in a setting that signaled safety. The "vibe" people leave those evenings talking about is a real, measurable, physiological phenomenon. It was the collective neuroception that created the safe, calm space through co-regulation.
Key takeaways
The autonomic nervous system operates through three states: social engagement, mobilization, and shutdown. The state we're in determines our capacity to connect, think, and lead.
Neuroception scans for safety or threat automatically, before conscious thought, and it is biased by whatever state we're already in.
Regulation is relational. We stabilize or destabilize each other's nervous systems through voice, face, and posture, below awareness.
The leader's physiological state is the primary co-regulatory signal in the room.
How to alter our state when nervous:
Slow your vocal pace. Vocal prosody is one of the primary neuroception cues of safety.
Chronic dysregulation produces a neuroception bias toward threat, in you and your team. Be responsible and cultivate a calm state to bring out the best in your team.
As always, hit reply if something in here hits home.
Lavena
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