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Mega thread on Polyvagal Theory & Architecture. 1/ Dr. Stephen Porges calls the ability of the nervous system to perceive its environment (and in particular the relative safety of that environment) "Neuroception".
2/ To quote him directly, "By processing information from the environment through the senses, the nervous system continually evaluates risk. I have coined the term neuroception to describe how neural circuits distinguish whether situations or people are safe, dangerous...
3/ or life-threatening. Because of our heritage as a species, neuroception takes place in primitive parts of the brain, without our conscious awareness.
4/ The detection of a person as safe or dangerous triggers neurobiologically determined prosocial or defensive behaviors. Even though we may not be aware of danger on a cognitive level, on a neurophysiological level...
5/ Our body has already started a sequence of neural processes that would facilitate adaptive defense behaviors such as fight, flight, or freeze.
6/ A child’s (or an adult’s) nervous system may detect danger or a threat to life when the child enters a new environment or meets a strange person. Cognitively, there is no reason for them to be frightened. But often, even if they understand this, their bodies betray them.
7/ Sometimes this betrayal is private; only they are aware that their hearts are beating fast and contracting with such force that they start to sway. For others, the responses are more overt."
8/ In order for a human's social engagement system to engage and be fully active, one needs to be in a parasympathetic nervous system state. In other words, if there is a threat, it isn't play time, and our nervous systems have adapted to optimize either connecting with other...
9/ other humans and the world (parasympathetic) or defending, protecting and surviving (sympathetic).
10/ "To switch effectively from defensive to social engagement strategies, the nervous system must do two things: (1) assess risk, and (2) if the environment looks safe, inhibit the primitive defensive reactions to fight, flee, or freeze.
11/ By processing information from the environment through the senses, the nervous system continually evaluates risk. As evolution has proceeded, new neural systems have developed." says Dr. Stephen Porges
12/ The key factor here is "If the environment looks safe". Since humans spend the vast majority of their time in the built environment, it is vitally important that the built environment be built in such a way to facilitate a neuroception of safety, and provide for connection.
13/ Let's look at what can happen when a humans nervous system is primarily operating from both a parasympathetic (calm) state, and a sympathetic (stressed) state.
14/ The implications for living in a sympathetic nervous system state (SNS) reach far beyond "being a little stressed out". In people who have a chronic inability to regulate their state of stress, such as those with PTSD, Autism, Anxiety, Depression, etc,...
15/ they often have co-morbidities associated with issues like digestion, immune response, low muscle tone, vision problems and more.
16/ Dr. Porges explains, "Stimulation of the SNS prepares the individual for the intense muscular action required to protect and defend in response to external challenges.
17/ The SNS quickly mobilizes the existing reserves of the body. The eyes dilate, the rate and force of the heart contractility increase, blood vessels constrict, and blood pressure increases.
18/ Blood is drained from the intestinal reservoir to foster availability and transport of oxygenated blood to the skeletal muscles, lungs, heart, and brain.
19/ Peristalsis and alimentary secretion are inhibited, and sphincter contractions block urinary and rectal outlets."
20/ The architect Christopher Alexander (hi @_buildingbeauty!) writes about the same phenomenon from a different perspective when he says: "We have, within our bodies, a specific physiological mechanism which produces stress...
21/ It produces, within us, a highly mobilized state of readiness, a state in which we have extra adrenalin, more alertness, faster heartbeat, higher muscle tone, more blood to the brain, more mental alertness. This highly alerted state, which is the state that we call "stress"..
22/ ... arises whenever we encounter difficulty or conflict...
Under normal conditions, when we solve the difficulty, cope with the threat, resolve the conflict, the stress then disappears and all goes back to normal.
Under normal conditions, when we solve the difficulty, cope with the threat, resolve the conflict, the stress then disappears and all goes back to normal.
23/ But a pattern which prevents us from resolving our conflicting forces, leaves us almost perpetually in a state of tension. For, if we live in a world where work is separated from family life, or where courtyards turn us away, or where windows are merely holes in the wall...
24/ we experience the stress of these inner and conflicting forces constantly. We can never come to rest."
25/ It's clear that when you look at the research of people like @ann_sussman and @WhereAmINow , that most modern architecture does exactly what Alexander warns about.
26/ It puts us into a state of chronic stress, which affects everything from how many friends we can make, to how well we digest our food.
27/ @DrGaborMate in the forward to Dr. Peter Levine's book "In An Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness", says: ""Potentially traumatic situations are ones that induce states of high physiological arousal but without the freedom for the affected ...
28/ ...Person to express and get past these states: danger without the possibility of fight or flight and, afterward, without the opportunity to “shake it off,” as a wild animal would following a frightful encounter with a predator."
29/ If someone is living in and around architecture that is highly adrenalizing and puts them into a stressful state, it is easy to imagine how that person can experience trauma due to the fact that it is literally impossible for them to "shake off" the experience of being in a..
30/ ...badly designed building. Especially if that building is a part of their daily life (such as school, home, or the office).
31/ @SarahWGoldhagen , in her book "Welcome To Your World: How The Built Environment Shapes Our Lives", has this to say about school buildings: "One recent study of the learning progress of 751 pupils in classrooms in thirty-four different British schools identified six design..
32/ parameters—color, choice, complexity, flexibility, light, and connectivity—that significantly affect learning, and demonstrated that on average, built environmental factors impact a student’s learning progress by an astonishing 25 percent.
33/ The difference in learning between a student in the best-designed classroom and one in the worst-designed classroom was equal to the progress that a typical student makes over an entire academic year.
34/ Students participate less and learn less in classrooms outfitted with direct overhead lighting, linoleum floors, and plastic or metal chairs than they do in “soft” classrooms outfitted with curtains, task lighting, and cushioned furniture, all of which convey a....
35/ quasi-domestic sensibility of relaxed safety and acceptance. Light, especially natural light, also improves children’s academic performance
36/ when classrooms are well lit—and most especially when they are naturally lit—students attend school more regularly, exhibit fewer behavioral problems, and earn better grades."
37/ "Windowless rooms of the kind in the high school we visited exacerbate children’s behavioral problems and aggressive tendencies, whereas daylit, naturally ventilated classrooms contribute to social harmony and facilitate good learning practices...
38/ And the sort of noise that we heard that day detrimentally impacts learning, just as it does children’s sense of well-being at home, communicating to inhabitants their lack of control over their surroundings. This in turn elevates their stress levels..."
39/ It is an extreme understatement to say that a lack of control of their surroundings "elevates their stress levels, further inhibiting their learning."
40/ While that is true, it also inhibits their ability to make friends, fight off infections, regulate their mood, digest their food for adequate nutrition, and so on.
41/ Good architecture literally saves lives. Bad architecture kills people.
