Dolphin
Calm
Ventral vagal — the social-engagement state. Your nervous system reads the room as safe, so your body can be at ease and your mind is free to think and connect.
The science
Why body-first works when words don't.
Under stress, the parts of your brain that do language and logic go quiet. The parts that move your body and check for safety stay loud. So the fastest way back to balance is usually a small, physical action — not a thought.
The four states
Meerkat
Alert
Sympathetic activation, still within range. Your body has mobilised for action — good if you need it, tiring if it stays on.
Tiger
Overwhelmed
Full sympathetic mobilisation — fight or flight. Thinking gets hard because the limbic system is running the show.
Turtle
Shut Down
Dorsal-vagal shutdown — the oldest branch of the nervous system pulling the plug when fight or flight has not worked.
Polyvagal theory, briefly
The autonomic nervous system is not a two-way dial (stress vs calm) but a three-state hierarchy:
- Ventral vagal — social engagement. Safe, connected, present. Our "green" state.
- Sympathetic — mobilise. Fight or flight, from mild ("yellow") to intense ("red").
- Dorsal vagal — immobilise. Shut down, conserve, disappear. Our "blue" state.
Stephen Porges, The Polyvagal Theory (2011).
Why these techniques
Breathing
Long exhales and the physiological sigh directly engage the vagus nerve. Heart rate drops within seconds.
Cold
Cold on the face or wrists triggers the mammalian dive reflex — a fast, non-cognitive brake on sympathetic arousal.
Movement
Completes the stress cycle. Big-muscle isometric effort or shaking discharges mobilised energy.
Grounding
Sensory attention pulls the prefrontal cortex back online, interrupting the limbic loop.
Orienting
Slow eye-movement is the body's built-in safety check. It gently re-engages a frozen system.
Voice
Humming and low vocalisation vibrate the vocal cords — the vagus nerve responds directly.
What the app does
- You log your state in one tap.
- You get up to 4 body-based actions that match that state.
- You pick one. The app guides you through it with a timer and a breathing animation.
- You say whether it helped — Yes, a little, or no.
- Over time, actions that work for you rise to the top. No two nervous systems are identical.
None of this replaces therapy or medical care. It's a first-line regulator for everyday stress.