How To Feel Motivated And Blissful After Scrolling Social Media (Polyvagal Theory And Social Media Anxiety)
- Gwendi Klisa
- Oct 22
- 9 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Beat Social Media Anxiety Using Polyvagal Theory
Do you ever find yourself scrolling through social media and feeling drained, anxious, or even worse, comparing yourself to others? One minute, you're inspired, and the next, you're overwhelmed or feeling like you're just not enough. Sound familiar?
Well, buckle up! There’s a way out of this spiral.
It’s all about understanding your nervous system and how it interacts with the digital world.
In this post, we’ll explore how polyvagal theory can help you manage social media anxiety, feel more in control, and boost your motivation. Ready to transform the way you engage with Instagram or TikTok? Let’s dive in.
Understanding How Your Nervous System Reacts to Social Media Anxiety
The way your nervous system responds to social media is powerful, and it’s key to how you feel when you’re online. The autonomic nervous system controls how we react to both everyday situations and stress, including what we experience on social media.
Unpleasant interactions, losing clients, or low-vibe comments aren't going to kill us. Still, we react to them like they are. Pressure, loss, rejection can all trigger our survival response.
The nervous system picks up signals from our environment. It transmits these signals between the brain, spinal cord, sensory organs and the rest of the body. It supports the brain control conscious actions as well as unconscious impulses.
Understanding this dynamic is crucial for managing social media anxiety and helping you travel in digital spaces more effectively.
1 - YOU'RE FEELING SOMETHING
When you sense something around you, like a loud noise or a hot stove, sensors in your body pick up that information.
When you’re scrolling, your body is constantly picking up signals. Taking in a bright image, a negative comment, the overwhelming speed of content, your senses are on high alert.
These signals may trigger an immediate emotional reaction before you even realise what’s happening.
2 - YOUR NERVES ARE FIRING MESSAGES TO THE BRAIN
So you absorb, read, sense or feel something (e.g. touch, sound, temperature, pain, or images and content).
Next thing, your nerves send electrical signals to your brain, telling it how to react to what you’re sensing. This is how your body knows whether something is safe or a potential threat.
It’s an unconscious process that happens in the background, but it’s essential to how you interact with your environment, and this is also true online.
3 - YOUR BRAIN DECIDES WHAT TO DO
If your brain senses danger, it prepares your body for a fight-or-flight response.
This could look like feeling triggered when you see a post that makes you feel less-than or avoiding a live stream due to fear of being judged.
If something feels safe, you relax and feel more connected. This is where you want to aim for when using social media: calm, safety, and connection.
Your body responds according to your brain's orders. It might follow conscious actions, like recalling your password for internet banking and typing it in. Or it might trigger automatic reactions, such as increased heart rate and muscle tension.
Occasionally, these reactions seem irrational. Like when your heart races simply because you're speaking on a livestream. Public speaking isn’t dangerous in itself but many people experience resistance to it. The idea literally sends them into fight and flight mode.
4 - BODY AND BRAIN KEEP COMMUNICATING
Your nervous system, brain, and body are constantly working together to react to your environment, adjusting to keep you safe and balanced.
This ongoing feedback loop helps keep you in check, but if you’re consistently stressed by social media, this system can become dysregulated. That’s why it’s important to be aware of your body’s responses and adjust accordingly.
What Is Polyvagal Theory And How Does It Relate To Social Media?
Polyvagal theory, developed by Dr. Stephen Porges and popularised by Deb Dana explains how our nervous system affects our emotions and social behaviours.
It uses a map of three states, connected by a ladder, to show how we move between different emotional states. These states are directly related to how we experience social media and emotional regulation.
Understanding how these states influence your feelings online can give you the tools to regulate your emotional responses and manage social media anxiety. Here’s a breakdown of these states:
Sympathetic State: You feel activated, ready for action (fight or flight).
Parasympathetic State: You feel safe and relaxed, able to connect (social engagement).
Shutdown State: You feel immobilized, overwhelmed, or disconnected (freeze response).
When we are stimulated we enter the sympathetic state. When we are overstimulated we can drop into shutdown. And when we feel safe, our relaxed parasympathetic state comes alive.
A ladder of emotional increments connects these three states. Your state rises and falls, climbing up and down the ladder of emotional experience.
You may move between different states based on various factors and circumstances, and you may have a main area you gravitate towards. This can depend on things like past experiences, personality traits, coping mechanisms, subconscious childhood programming and what’s going on around you.
Understanding where you are on this ladder is crucial to navigating your emotional responses to social media. Are you feeling motivated or stressed?
Let's explore how these three states affect your experience on social media.
The Three States Of The Autonomic Nervous System
I Feeling Seen: Social Engagement (Ventral Vagal Complex)
This is your safe and social zone. You feel relaxed, open, and connected. When you’re in this state, you’re confident and can engage easily with others.
Online, this might look like:
Having meaningful conversations
Receiving support from followers
Participating in positive online exchanges like group meditations
Helping others by sharing your value
In this state, you might feel:
Expansive, compassionate, welcoming, sociable, sharing, collaborative, present, and creative.
It’s the place where you feel safe, connected, and ready to engage authentically with others. This is the state that we want to aim for when using social media, to manage social media anxiety.
Each human experience is unique but these are words my clients have used to describe this state:
EXPANDING, COMPASSIONATE, WELCOMING, SHARING, SOCIALISING, COLLABORATINGOpenness, Creativity, Harmony, Gratitude, Relaxation, Empathy, Trust, Presence, Love'I am limitless', 'We are One'
II Feeling Anger Or Fear: Mobilisation (Sympathetic Nervous System)
Here, your body is in fight-or-flight mode, ready to act or react. This happens when something online triggers you. Perhaps a negative comment or the feeling that you're falling behind.
For example:
Receiving a critical message
Seeing a competitor’s success
Experiencing FOMO or anxiety about not getting enough likes
Facing public speaking or live streaming anxiety
An activated sympathetic nervous system feels different to everyone. Here are some words my clients use for this state:
MOBILISED, UNSTOPPABLE, ACTIVATED, STRIVING, TENSE, ANXIOUS Movement, Agitation, Impatience, Alertness, Irritation, Strife, Aggression, Anger, Fear, Shame 'I'm on fire'
III Feeling Unwanted: Freeze (Dorsal Vagal Complex)
This state is your (protective) shut down zone. When your body perceives danger or overload, you might feel frozen, disconnected, or overwhelmed. This can happen after too much exposure to social media, like:
Social media fatigue
Encountering online rejection
Feelings of being shadow banned
Feeling overwhelmed by constant notifications
Being overwhelmed by online noise
Feeling social media fatigue
Experiencing digital burnout
Deleting posts
Showing up inconsistently, disappearing
Etc
Again, here are some keywords to describe the state:
AVOIDING, NUMBING, IMMOBILISED, PARALYSED, COLLAPSED, SHUT DOWN Overdrive, Withdrawal, Hopelessness, Helplessness, Isolation, Loneliness, Depression, Freeze, Despair, Rejected, Outcast 'I am safe when I hide'
Using Polyvagal Theory To Overcome Social Media Anxiety
Feeling paralysed when using social media? Stress, worry, unease? Hiding, lurking, not building that profile you need for your business? Feeling FOMO, comparing?
It’s time to shift your perspective and use polyvagal theory to move through these emotional states. By understanding the nervous system’s role in social media anxiety, you can take control of your emotional responses and shift to a more mindful and confident place online.
To stay in a high-vibe state while using social media, aim for the ventral vagal state (feeling seen and socially engaged). This will help you feel inspired and motivated after interacting online, instead of drained or overwhelmed. Let’s take a closer look at how you can achieve this.
1 - Understand Why You Sabotage Your Best Intentions
Sometimes, your nervous system pulls you into hiding, even when you want to show up. This is a survival mechanism, not something to feel ashamed about. Your nervous system thinks it’s keeping you safe by avoiding exposure or judgment.
For instance, you might feel the urge to avoid going live or posting a video because your body fears rejection or judgment. This response, though irrational at times, is trying to protect you. By understanding this, you can replace self-blame with compassion and start exploring how to shift your nervous system's responses and overcome social media anxiety.
2 - Perception vs Neuroception
Perception is what you consciously notice. Like how a post makes you feel.
But neuroception operates beneath the surface. It’s your body’s subconscious way of detecting safety or threat. When you feel safe (neuroception detects calm), you engage with others, post with confidence, and feel connected. When it detects danger, you retreat.
Pay attention to how social media cues affect your nervous system, from facial expressions to the tone of posts. If you feel stressed after seeing certain accounts or posts, that’s your neuroception alerting you that you’re in a reactive state.
Pay attention to cues and signals you perceive on social media
Facial expressions in pictures and emojis
Tone of voice in captions, comments, videos
Body language, posture or gestures in images and videos
Environmental cues such as the background settings or surroundings in photos
Social interactions such as likes, shares, comments, and direct messages
Intuition about the authenticity or intentions behind content and interactions
Sensory cues like visual aesthetics, color schemes, and design elements
The overall vibe or atmosphere you pick up
Visual cues such as symbols, icons, and graphics used in posts and stories
3 - Recognise Your Triggers (And Glimmers!)
Triggers are what activate your fight-or-flight response, while glimmers can help you move into the ventral vagal state, bringing you feelings of connection and calm. The key is to get clear on your personal triggers and glimmers.
For example, seeing someone post something you admire might lift you up (a glimmer), while a critical comment or a feeling of inadequacy might trigger stress (a trigger). Being aware of these patterns can help you respond consciously instead of reacting.
4 - How Do You Respond To Triggers And Glimmers?
Take time to notice how you respond to different social media experiences. Do certain posts make you anxious, or do others help you feel connected? Recognizing your responses will help you navigate social media more mindfully.
Ask yourself: When do you feel safe? When do you feel threatened? What content sparks joy, and what makes you feel bad? Awareness is the first step toward healing your relationship with social media.
Here's some questions that have helped my clients get clarity on their social media anxiety:
How do you respond to cues?
What content (video, audio, pictures, captions, comments, posts, topics), accounts, notifications, interactions trigger emotional responses in you?
When do you feel safe?
When do you feel threatened?
Which platforms do you prefer?
How do you feel before, during and after your interaction?
How does your body and mind react to these stimuli?
5 - Listen to Your Body
Your body gives you signals about how it’s reacting to social media. Whether it’s a racing heart, tension in your shoulders, or a knot in your stomach, these cues can tell you if you’re in fight, flight, or freeze mode.
Listening to your body is key to managing social media anxiety.
Notice if you experience increased blood pressure or heart rate
if you feel tension in your muscles,
or if you experience butterflies or a knot in your stomach.
Etc
6 - Take Breaks When Needed
If social media is overwhelming you, step back. It’s okay to disconnect.
Take breaks to ground yourself, whether it’s going for a walk, doing deep breathing, speak to a person IRL or simply taking a moment of silence. This can help reset your nervous system and bring you back to a calmer, more balanced state.
Having a break with a positive exchange with another person in the offline world stands out here as it can lift us into our safe and social zone.
7 - Set Boundaries
Set clear limits around your social media use to protect your well-being. This might mean reducing screen time, unfollowing accounts that don’t serve you, or disabling notifications.
Boundaries are your way of taking control over how you interact with the digital world. You get to decide what feels good and what doesn’t.
You may limit the amount of time on social media each day.
Or unfollowing accounts that make you feel bad.
Disable notifications to reduce distractions.
You could decrease the frequency of checking social media.
Etc
8 - Use Social Media As A Self Development Tool
Challenge yourself to see social media as a space for growth. Rather than comparing, use it to seek inspiration, connect with like-minded people, and expand your mindset. Lean into having fun, finding friends and forming genuine connections.
Social media can be a tool for personal development. Instead of getting lost in feelings of jealousy or inadequacy, use those moments to ask yourself: How can I create this for myself?
9 - Practise Mindful Engagement
Every time you log onto social media, do so with intention. Take a breath before responding to comments, and aim to contribute positively to online conversations. By engaging mindfully, you create a space for calm and connection, both for yourself and others.
10 - Seek Support When Needed
If social media consistently triggers negative emotions, it’s okay to seek help. Whether it’s through therapy, coaching, or simply chatting with a friend, you can rebuild a healthy relationship with social media.
Want to go deeper?
Read my full guide on Overcoming Anxiety, it’s one of my most-loved posts for fidning calm and balance.
Ready to change your relationship with social media?
Start By Taking A Moment to Reset
When your mind feels full and your body’s holding too much, five quiet minutes can change everything.
Supporting you all the way,
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