A 30-item educational self-reflection tool inspired by Dr. Stephen Porges's Polyvagal Theory, which describes the autonomic nervous system as moving through three hierarchically organized states: the ventral vagal state (safety, social engagement, calm connection), the sympathetic state (mobilized fight-or-flight activation), and the dorsal vagal state (immobilized shutdown, collapse, and numbness). Every item is written as a concrete, body-level moment rather than an abstract trait, so the test reads your lived physiology instead of your self-image. Each of the three states is measured by ten original items — including reverse-keyed items in every subscale to catch automatic agreeing — and the instrument yields both an overall regulation profile and a breakdown of which state currently runs you. Items are written specifically for this assessment and reproduce no copyrighted instrument. This is a framework for understanding patterns, not a medical or clinical diagnosis.
Your result is broken down across 3 distinct dimensions rather than collapsing everything into a single number. Each dimension is scored from its own set of items, so you can see which specific pattern is driving your overall result.
Scores fall into one of 4 interpretive bands. Here is what each one means, what tends to sit underneath it, and what usually helps.
Grounded in Ventral
Your responses point to a nervous system that spends most of its time in the ventral vagal state — the mode Polyvagal Theory ties to safety, connection, and calm engagement. You tend to feel reachable to others and resourced inside yourself, with relatively little of the chronic bracing or shutdown that mark the other two states. When stress does knock you off balance, your body usually finds its way back to steady fairly quickly.
What it suggests
A ventral baseline doesn't mean you never get activated — it means your system reliably returns to its regulated home base afterward. This is the state Polyvagal Theory treats as the foundation for curiosity, play, intimacy, and real recovery: the platform everything healthy gets built on. The ability to co-regulate with safe people, rather than only white-knuckling alone, is usually what keeps a system anchored here.
What helps
Protect what already works. The relationships, routines, and places that reliably settle you aren't luxuries — they're your regulation infrastructure. When stress spikes, name it early and lean on co-regulation (a real conversation, rhythmic movement, a calming environment) instead of powering through. Keep the ventral pathway well-worn by seeking small moments of safe connection even on ordinary days.
Mostly Regulated, Occasionally Knocked Off
Your responses show a system that is largely regulated but gets pulled into activation or shutdown more than you'd like. You can reach safety and connection, yet certain triggers — pressure, conflict, uncertainty, depletion — reliably tip you into bracing, racing, or withdrawing before you find your way back. Recovery happens, but it tends to cost you more than it should.
What it suggests
This is a common, workable range: the ventral state is online, but one of the protective states is doing more than its share. Your subscale breakdown is the useful part — notice whether you tip more toward sympathetic mobilization (scanning, bracing, can't-power-down) or dorsal shutdown (numbing, withdrawing, going blank), because the off-ramp differs for each. The pattern is usually situational, not a fixed feature of who you are.
What helps
Get specific about your tipping points. Catch the earliest body cue — a clenched jaw, a held breath, a creeping fog — and treat it as information, not something to override. Build recovery in on purpose: if you tip sympathetic, use long exhales and rhythmic movement to signal safety; if you tip dorsal, use gentle warmth, light, and small doses of low-pressure contact to come back online. Lean on one trusted person rather than processing everything solo.
Frequently Mobilized or Shut Down
Your responses indicate your nervous system spends a substantial part of the time outside the safe-and-social ventral state — living instead in sympathetic activation, dorsal shutdown, or a tiring swing between the two. The calm, connected baseline is harder to reach and harder to hold, and the protective states have become closer to your default than your exception.
What it suggests
From a Polyvagal standpoint, this is a system working hard to keep you safe but rarely getting the all-clear. Chronic sympathetic activation can disguise itself as productivity or vigilance, while dorsal shutdown can look like laziness or not caring when it's actually an ancient energy-conserving survival response. Your subscale scores show which state currently dominates — and dominance often shifts, with sympathetic overdrive eventually collapsing into dorsal exhaustion.
What helps
Your system needs reliable off-ramps more than willpower. Anchor a daily down-regulation practice — paced breathing, walking, stretching, time outdoors — so it's automatic before you need it, and pair it with steady sleep, food, and movement, the literal raw materials of regulation. Protect a few moments of genuine safe connection each week, since co-regulation is one of the fastest routes back to ventral. If this state rarely lets up, working with a therapist trained in nervous-system or trauma-informed approaches is a sound next step.
Highly Dysregulated
Your responses suggest your nervous system is spending a great deal of time in survival physiology — swinging between mobilized alarm and protective shutdown, with little access to the calm, connected ventral state. In Polyvagal terms, the accelerator and the brake are both working overtime, leaving almost no room for the regulated baseline where real recovery happens.
What it suggests
Living between fight-or-flight and shutdown is exhausting and self-reinforcing: the more depleted the system gets, the harder it is to reach the very connection and rest that would restore it. This pattern is common after prolonged stress, overwhelm, burnout, or trauma, and it reflects a worn-down nervous system far more than anything being wrong with who you are. The numbness, the bracing, and the urge to disappear are the body's attempts at protection, not character flaws.
What helps
This is a meaningful moment to bring in real support rather than managing alone — a therapist, especially one trained in trauma or nervous-system work, can help your system relearn safety. In the meantime, lower the bar dramatically and prioritize the basics: sleep, food, gentle movement, daylight, and one trusted person. Treat small moments of feeling settled as a foundation to build on, not a test to pass. Because persistent shutdown and numbness overlap with depression and burnout, please reach out to a mental-health professional or your doctor if these patterns have lasted more than a couple of weeks.
Your Nervous System State contains 30 items and takes about 7 minutes. Responses are combined using a sum method across the dimensions listed above, then mapped to the interpretive bands above. Your percentile is an interim estimate that sharpens as more people take the test, and is labelled as provisional in your result.
This assessment also includes hidden validity items that detect inattentive or socially-desirable answering. When they trigger, your result carries a lowered confidence rating and we tell you — rather than presenting a skewed score as fact.
The test ships in 10 parallel forms that rotate between takes, so repeat visitors do not simply memorise the same items.
This is an educational, self-reflective assessment — not a diagnosis. A questionnaire can describe a pattern and point you toward language for it, but it cannot account for your history, context, or circumstances, and it is not a substitute for evaluation by a qualified professional. If a result concerns you, treat it as a reason to talk to someone rather than as a verdict.
Your answers are scored on your device. Taking this test requires no account, no email address, and no payment, and your full result — every band, every dimension — is shown to you immediately and in full.