  We compute various nucleon polarizabilities in chiral perturbation theory
implementing the $\Delta$-full ($\Delta$-less) approach up to order $\epsilon^3
+ q^4$ ($q^4$) in the small-scale (chiral) expansion. The calculation is
carried out using the covariant formulation of $\chi$PT by utilizing the
extended on-mass shell renormalization scheme. Except for the spin-independent
dipole polarizabilities used to fix the values of certain low-energy constants,
our results for the nucleon polarizabilities are pure predictions. We compare
our calculations with available experimental data and other theoretical
results. The importance of the explicit treatment of the $\Delta$ degree of
freedom in the effective field theory description of the nucleon
polarizabilities is analyzed. We also study the convergence of the $1/m$
expansion and analyze the efficiency of the heavy-baryon approach for the
nucleon polarizabilities.
