PART TWO: The Science Behind Trauma: The Connection to Inflammation & Depression & How You Can Heal

Is Your Body Secretly Trapped in Trauma? Discover the Hidden Science with Dr. Aimie Apigian Could your chronic fatigue, anxiety, or autoimmune symptoms be signs of unresolved trauma stored in the body? Dr. Aimie Apigian, trauma expert and author of The Biology of Trauma, explains how emotional wounds can silently rewire your nervous system and impact your health for years. In this eye-opening episode, the founder of Trauma Healing Accelerated reveals: - The biology of trauma at the cellular level—and why it matters more than mindset alone - The difference between stress and trauma and how your body holds onto past pain - Why trauma is often at the root of autoimmune disease, anxiety, depression, and chronic illness - The hidden ways trauma affects women’s health, especially during perimenopause and menopause - How somatic trauma healing can reset your nervous system and restore emotional safety - How trauma responses show up as physical symptoms and coping habits you might not recognize - The powerful link between trauma, alcohol use, and stress hormones—it’s not just about cortisol - Why comparing your trauma story to others keeps you stuck - Simple somatic exercises and nervous system tools to support your healing - How resolving trauma can unlock your intuition, clarity, and life purpose This conversation with Dr. Aimie Apigian is a must-listen. Learn how to finally get unstuck from survival mode, reconnect with your body, and begin your path toward lasting emotional and physical healing. Pre-Order Dr. Aimie Apigian's book, The Biology of Trauma: How the Body Holds Fear, Pain, and Overwhelm, and How to Heal It: ⁠https://book.biologyoftrauma.com/preorder-amazon⁠ https://book.biologyoftrauma.com/preorder-amazon Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠ https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/ ⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ ⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mian Bialik.

• 0:05Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:06Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. Welcome, in particular, to part two of our conversation with someone who is a specialist in the biology of trauma. We're talking to Dr. Amy Appigan, and we hope that you will check out part one of the episode, where we discussed so many aspects of trauma. The cellular mechanisms underlying trauma, the different states of shutdown that our body will engage in when it doesn't feel safe, all about caffeine, about alcohol, how your body is fighting to stay alive, and what we're doing that's countering that. That was all in part one.

• 0:41Jonathan Cohen?

  And we cover how, when we're shut down, on a biological level, our body stops producing the energy we need to be excited for life, to feel happy, to use our intuition, and to be productive.

• 0:54Mayim Bialik?

  Also, shout out to anyone who's interested in microglia. A whole conversation about those supportive neurons in episode one. Episode two, which we are here to talk about right now, goes into how trauma informs depression and anxiety. We're also going to talk about what is the biological mechanism behind intuition? Is there a way to explain a gut feeling? Also, we go deep into autoimmune disorders, why women are disproportionately affected, and Dr. Amy believes that you can absolutely reverse an autoimmune condition, which shocked me, and I'm very interested in this.

• 1:37Mayim Bialik?

  We also talk about emotional patterns of disease. What kind of personalities are more likely to get sick? What kind of different personalities lead to different kinds of sickness? And what is the impact of trauma on perimenopause and menopausal symptoms? There is so much in this second episode. We cannot wait to share it with you. Make sure to also go over to Substack. Learn about Substack. Go to substack.com. Mian Bialik's Breakdown has more on this and so many other topics, so please check that out. And without further ado, let's welcome back double-board certified physician in preventive and addiction medicine, Dr. Amy Appigan.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  Break it down.

• 2:17Mayim Bialik?

  You've mentioned brain fog. You've mentioned lethargy. You've mentioned sleep problems. And you vaguely mentioned chronic pain.

• 2:26Mayim Bialik?

  But I wonder, when you talk about these things and the other ones that you have spoken about, you know, surprising physical symptoms of unresolved trauma, right? Brain fog, lethargy, sleep problems, chronic pain. You also talk about migraines and you talk about irritable bowel syndrome. And I don't have irritable bowel syndrome. I have been given that diagnosis for a lot of fascinating reasons, which we don't need to get into, but for people who have IBS, for people who have migraines, for people who have chronic pain, or sleep problems, or lethargy, or brain fog, we've already been told by the medical establishment, what's wrong with us? We have migraines, we have IBS, we have chronic pain.

• 3:11Mayim Bialik?

  And here are the medications you take? And here, if you're lucky, are some of the lifestyle changes you should make, right? With migraines, like, oh, caffeine, chocolate, check out your hormones, maybe, if you've been a woman in the last five years. Before then, it was like, we don't know. But when people are given these diagnoses, what you're suggesting is that under these things is a long-running cascade of biological processes? And a shutdown, a shutdown state that has been induced because of increased and prolonged stress, which led at some point to trauma?

• 3:53Mayim Bialik?

  How do we start to make an inroad into arenas of the medical field that we've been told are handled? Don't worry about it, we got you. Here's the medication. Maybe try and, you know, not drink caffeine in the three hours before you go to sleep. You're suggesting there's a completely different approach to some of, literally, the most common complaints that I would argue most Americans are experiencing. I don't mean to, you know, hold your feet to the fire, but please help us understand, how do we reframe how we think about some of the most common things ailing people?

• 4:30Speaker 03

  The way that I've come to see it is that everything in the body is driven by the nervous system because the nervous system decides our inner state. We have three different operating modes or inner states. We are in one or the other at all times. And knowing that the nervous system is changing that is what gave me the insight to realize that when I could help my patients learn to shift their inner state in the moment, I was doing them more good than writing the prescription for any medication, supplement, or diet.

• 5:08Mayim Bialik?

  Wow. Can you talk about those three states and talk about what are some of the ways that, that again, that we can frame some of these common ailments? Talk about IBS. That's one that I was like, I don't know, it seems like it's a genetic thing and it runs in families, right? And like, you get it. And, you know, people used to be told like, it's all in your head. And then we finally started to understand, oh, well, I guess my stomach gets upset when I'm nervous. Maybe IBS is just a more exaggerated version of that. What do we know in particular about something like IBS?

• 5:40Speaker 03

  We actually know a lot about IBS and its relationship to the nervous system. And this information has been in the medical literature for decades now, and they're still not listening. Not that that's going to be a surprise to anyone here. But it's not that we don't have the science. I think that where we've run into is that we, we haven't known what to do about it. I remember talking with Dr. Vincent Paletti, and he's saying, look, just asking them, what happened to you? Improved patient outcomes. But yet, when he told his colleagues this, they looked at him and they were like, But what do I do with that information?

• 6:25Speaker 03

  And he was like, you don't have to do anything. That's the whole point. You just ask. It's the asking that changes the outcomes, not the doing something. But we as practitioners are so programmed to do something. We do something. We prescribe something. We solve problems. And so what do you mean I don't, I don't do something? And a lot of times, honestly, it's we don't want to, we don't want to hear. We, we don't want to hear because in some way it's going to resonate with something we've been through and we haven't resolved it ourselves yet. So this idea then that there is so much nervous system regulation behind every physical health symptom, condition and diagnosis.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  And especially IBS, I get really excited about because we have some specific data that will blow your mind. Here's what we know. IBS is a result of early childhood experiences where our nervous system would have fluctuated very quickly between the two survival states. The two survival states being stress and the shutdown or trauma. And it's the fluctuation between those two that created the baseline for IBS to develop.

• 7:41Mayim Bialik?

  And not everyone who's fluctuating between those will develop IBS. Some people will develop other fun things. That will depend on what genetic imprint you are, are bringing that will depend on epigenetics. It'll depend on also environment, a variety of things that can pull all of these levers. It will also depend on diet. It will depend on, and this is not a political statement. It will depend on vaccine status. It will depend on access to healthcare. It'll depend on what kind of dairy you're eating and what hormones you're eating. Like everything matters, right?

• 8:17Speaker 03

  And this is why, this is the exactly the concept of the biology of trauma. All of those things, at the end of the day, create an internal biology that is either one of safety or one of fear.

• 8:31Speaker 03

  And those things, your diet, your environment, toxins, vaccines, they're all cues of safety or danger to your nervous system. And it's the cumulative effect.

• 8:43Mayim Bialik?

  Can you talk a little bit about depression? You know, depression and anxiety, I don't have the stats in front of me, but this is one of, I'd say, the most common complaints, you know, things that people present with. And what's becoming even more and more common is, you know, internal medicine doctors basically just writing prescriptions for antidepressants. Well, look, I mean, I get it. So many people are coming in with symptoms of depression and of anxiety. I mean, this is a, it is an epidemic in this country, right?

• 9:14Jonathan Cohen?

  And even before clinical depression, you have exhaustion, you have hopelessness, you have people who are considered the quote unquote languishing generation, who they just don't have a passion, they're feel lost, they're aimless, they don't know what they want.

• 9:27Mayim Bialik?

  In what ways is depression protective? You've talked about some sort of protective mechanisms potentially of depression and anxiety, but is there a way to get to the root of those besides antidepressants, besides talk therapy? Why are those things not necessarily going to work? And, you know, the evidence on SSRIs versus many other interesting modalities is actually not looking so good for SSRIs. What's going on with this epidemic of depression and anxiety? And where does an understanding of trauma inform the way we possibly start to try and actually get people help?

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Ah, I love this conversation because it really, again, kind of highlights the nature of the nervous system and what it does and what that looks like. When we are in a stress response biology, we are anxious. The sympathetic nervous system generates adrenaline. Adrenaline causes anxiety. It's supposed to, it's intended to. So the anxiety isn't bad, it's just, well, what are we doing with it? What we are designed to do with it is to take action, to move. We discharge all that adrenaline through the movement of our muscles.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  This is why even when we're completing a stress response, or maybe we're watching an animal complete a response, because they do a much better job at this than we as humans do. They will tremble. Trembling is these fine motor fasciculations, and the fine motor fasciculations are discharging adrenaline. It's so powerful because we got to get that adrenaline out of our system to get out of the anxiety. But as I mentioned before, we can get to the point where there's so much adrenaline. Our panic reaches a high point that it just causes the paralysis. And we reach that point where we don't see how we could take action.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  We don't see how we could do anything to make this stop. We don't see how we could make a difference by doing anything. And thus enters depression. Depression is just that. I don't see how anything that I could do could make a difference. So what's the point? What's the point of trying? What's the point of going out? What's the point? What's the point? And when we're in that trauma biology, because of the effect on our mitochondria, we don't have the energy. And so there's all this going at play. However, it's really important to bring in the neurochemistry into the equation.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  And the serotonin and the dopamine, the acetylcholine, the GABA, these are all neurochemicals intended to generate the different sensations and responses that we want to have in order to be in our best self, aligned with our body's rhythms. And inflammation is going to disrupt the levels of these neurochemicals.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Eighty, more than eighty percent of our serotonin is made in our gut. Well, what if you have IBS? Oh, no. And this is where we get to this idea that trauma only begets more trauma. It's one of the saddest things in life. You didn't just get hit once. You're gonna keep getting hit because now the inflammation that the trauma created is going to feed back and change your neurochemicals. They're going to create oxidative stress. They're going to do all of these other changes that further promote more and more trauma responses.

• 13:11Mayim Bialik?

  And in many cases, the emotional response will mirror that as we are seeking high-risk behaviors. We are seeking out partners that maybe cause some sort of turmoil, but don't really give us a sense of peace or safety. Or we feel alive in a state of crisis, right? We keep creating drama in relationships. We create breakups. We create fights. We have these kind of dramatic interactions even with friends. Those are ways that the emotional response is echoing the cellular response.

• 13:41Speaker 03

  Absolutely. And we look at this idea of, you know, the body is ultimately seeking safety. It's what we're seeking. We're seeking safety. And if we're always in danger, we're seeking relief from that danger. We're seeking safety. And what is it that actually makes a person feel safe? According to neuroscience, it is familiarity. Well, what if what is familiar to you is the drama? Is the chaos? Is the stress? Well, then that's where you will feel safe. You won't like it because you're always anxious and you're always stressed. But if you were to actually go to a yoga retreat where you just meditate

• 14:26Speaker 03

  and there's no drama, you would be so uncomfortable. You'd crawl out of your skin. You'd be so bored because that's not what's safe. What is safe to a person is what they know. It's the unknown that is unsafe. And so even a person who has felt depressed, they may actually have a part of them that doesn't feel safe to be more alive. Because what if I were actually more alive? What if I actually had more energy? Well, more might be expected from me. I might actually be expected to take that higher position in the office and manage other people, and I don't want that. I may be expected to be seen and be more on the stage or take on these other responsibilities.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Ah, it's safer for me to stay depressed. Safer for me to stay small, not be seen. Even though I will express that I don't like it, it's ultimately what feels safer than this other way of living where I'm actually more alive.

• 15:34Mayim Bialik?

  My MB Alex Breakdown is supported by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you reach for over and over again? That sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? The bag you carry everywhere? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves to beautiful 14 karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I'm personally obsessed with Quince's 100% European linen wide leg pants.

• 16:18Mayim Bialik?

  I can wear them year round because I live in Southern California. They feel like PJs, but it looks like I put a ton of effort in, whether I'm dressing for casual workdays, lazy weekends, or vacation vibes. I'm also obsessed with their sheets, so soft. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middle people, so you pay for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just apparel. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make, from hotel-quality bedding to kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was My MB Alex Breakdown.

• 17:02Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show. So all these visualizations that we're told to do, picture yourself happy, picture yourself romping in a field of daisies. And like people who go to Joe Dispenza conferences are like, "I did it. I visualized it. I manifested it and it happened." But for some people, it's like, "Oh, hell to the no. I don't want to picture myself in a place that feels so uncomfortable and scary. That's not going to work for everybody."

• 17:30Jonathan Cohen?

  Yes, and, correct me if you have a different perspective, but part of that visualization is slowly introducing yourself to these ideas to make them less foreign, less scary, and sort of start to integrate something other than what is only in your comfort zone.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yes, and many of these forms of meditation are really just a way of escaping our present reality. And escape is one of the forms of how trauma lives in our body. We continue to find ways to escape, whether that's the alcohol in the evenings, whether that's the meditation. Just get me out of my reality because I don't like my reality.

• 18:18Mayim Bialik?

  If we are diving into so many aspects of escapism, and that's masquerading as, "I'm healing. I'm healing my trauma," or "I'm okay," what actually is the way to process trauma, begin healing from trauma, and adjusting to a new normal, if not by escaping?

• 18:47Speaker 03

  Yes, this is the very question that I had to ask myself because I didn't know how to do this. And when I realized that I was carrying a lot of trauma, my first thought was, "Well, I guess I better go to therapy." And I did, and I went to therapy and got worse. So... And to your point, it's because I tried to do too much too fast. Right? It was like, okay, I know I need to do this, so let's do this. And my body was like, oh, hell no. Are you kidding me? You want me to open up all of that pain? No, I need to protect you because you clearly don't know what you're doing.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  So it would put me back into fatigue and autoimmunity and rashes and migraines and depression and all kinds of stuff. In order to protect me from doing more in therapy. So I have then looked at, well, then what, what could I use as a measure for change? And it really is this idea of how can I help myself or you be more present right here, right now? Because that's what needs to change. It's, it's our ability to be present, not to escape, not to distract, avoid stuff, numb. All of those are ways to not be present.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  And so I now started to teach my patients somatic exercises that would help them be present. Just come back to being present when they notice themselves in anxiety. Okay, what can you do right now to just come back and be like, okay, right here, right now? I'm creating the sensation of safe enough. I actually called it, maybe you'll enjoy this, microdosing safety. Because too much safety, and they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this doesn't feel safe. And I'm like, you're telling me it doesn't feel safe to feel safe?

• 20:48Speaker 03

  And they said, yes, because feeling safe, relaxing means I'm vulnerable. I might get hurt. So that's why I realized I needed to microdose safety. Allowing them one step at a time to start shifting their inner state to this idea of ventral vagal parasympathetic, I call it calm aliveness.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Where we're just doing moments at a time. We're not trying to do a whole day at a time, or even a whole hour at a time. We're just taking one moment at a time, throughout the day, one moment at a time. But it's starting to build those muscles, those neural pathways to be present because those pathways haven't been built. The only pathways that have been built are the ones to escape, not to be present. So it's a muscle that has to be built and then reinforced. And as we do that, now they're able to be more and more and more present. And here's what I saw was one of the best ways for me to tell anyone's healing journey, are they making progress? The real test came

• 21:57Speaker 03

  when something would happen in their life that was a change. Change is not something that a person who's carrying a lot of trauma is well-equipped to deal with. Change means a triggering of all kinds of memories, all kinds of previous losses that they've never processed. It's a triggering back into something uncertain. I don't know if this change is going to be good, if it's going to be bad. I don't know what to do. Am I okay? It's the whole shebang.

• 22:28Mayim Bialik?

  It's that I order the same meal at every restaurant that I go to. Like, I have the meal that I order at this restaurant, and I have the meal that I order at that restaurant, and I don't try new things. I'm just trying to justify my existence right now.

• 22:45Speaker 03

  And what if, one day, both of those restaurants closed?

• 22:49Mayim Bialik?

  I don't eat ever again. That's what happens.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  So this would be my test of, well, let's put your somatic skills to the practice. Let's see how much you have changed. And for me, I look back at one of my patterns that had been one of the strongest since childhood, which was saying goodbye. I hated saying goodbye. I hated closures. I would avoid them and then fall apart later all by myself because I didn't like to be emotional around other people because I'd been made fun of. And so goodbyes and closures were something that I could never be present to, certainly not emotionally. And then, one day, a friend was dying, and I decided I don't want him to die alone.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  And I watched myself show up and not need to distract myself with chores, busy myself with work. I could just be with him in the discomfort, knowing that these were his last days. And that was for me when I said, Amy, this is working. You've been able to show such a dramatic change in your ability to be present and not use all those old coping mechanisms that you would have before. That is progress.

• 24:13Mayim Bialik?

  So what are some of the things that we can share with our audience? That are even just a taste of some of the somatic tools that you use? Because also, I want to be clear, you're not saying no one needs medication, or therapy, or doctors. Just put your hand on your heart and breathe deep. That's not what you're saying. You, when you treat patients, you're looking at, you're looking at functional components. You're looking at psychiatric components that might need addressing. You're addressing physiological things that are happening. I don't want people to feel like the biology of trauma is like, throw out everything and just breathe and be present. But can you give us an indication of some of the kinds of tools

• 24:56Mayim Bialik?

  that you're giving people so that if someone is interested in pursuing a different road, they know what they're even heading towards?

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. And to answer that question, let me start by saying the patterns that I see in people who have trauma are that when it comes to practitioners, they are either completely dependent on them, meaning like they see them as their hero and the one who's going to fix them and they don't question anything. Or they're the opposite extreme. They question everything and they don't trust anybody. There's not many people in the middle. And, and so again, this is kind of the, right? Like the, the telltale signs of, of trauma is you're on the extremes. You're either on one extreme or the other.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  You're clinging on to other people as if they are the expert in your own body and they know you better than you know yourself. Or you can't and won't trust anybody and won't do anything that they say. And when we look at how to bring this all together, then I'm always looking at it at the three levels and there's always something to do at each level. And the more that I can integrate and have a person be working at the mind level, at the body level and at the biology level, all at the same time, we see so much faster progress than if we're just trying to do the mind piece or just trying to do the biology piece.

• 26:28Speaker 03

  And yes, biology means all kinds of tools and sometimes that tool means a medication because that's exactly what would be most helpful for their body at that time. But in working with my patients, and this was when I was now working only with addiction medicine patients, so patients that I was working with to help them detox off of alcohol, heroin, pain pills, anxiety pills, sleep pills. And talk about a nervous system being on edge, coming off of these dependencies. And they had all kinds of physical ailments because their nervous system was so on edge, right? All of their IBS, their anxiety, their eczema, everything was coming out at this time because it's nervous system driven.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  So it's very expected, but it was a real time of fear for them. And that was when many people went back on their substances because they're like, if this is what life is like off of them, numb me back up. Let me go back to how things were. And so I realized that I needed very quickly to be able to help them shift their nervous system in order for not, for them to have less of all of these physical symptoms that were surfacing. And I looked at, well, what would be the fastest way? If I only have a week and I need to give them and show them a way that no, you don't have to go back to your substance, this other thing will work.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  If I only have one week, what could I use? What would make the fastest difference? And it was, it was incredible. As a physician, as a medical physician, I'm realizing that the fastest way to shift these physical health symptoms driven by a nervous system dysregulation is somatic work.

• 28:17Speaker 03

  It made me mad. I spent how many thousands of dollars going through medical school to learn what medication to prescribe? And actually, the fastest intervention is somatic exercises. Are you kidding? So let me show you one of the ones that I would teach them. Because these aren't your traditional somatic exercises. So let me teach you one of these. If you want to look around you and find a pillow, or a sweater, or a blanket, or anything that you could just grab and put on your lap. It really doesn't matter what it is. It could even be a book.

• 28:51Mayim Bialik?

  I have a pillow.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  You have a pillow. Okay. So I want you to put it over your belly.

• 28:56Mayim Bialik?

  I'm cured. I feel better. That's it. I put the pillow on my belly and I am cured.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Is it on your belly or on your lap?

• 29:02Mayim Bialik?

  Well, it was on my lap. Now I'm going to shift it to my belly.

• 29:05Speaker 03

  Okay. Yeah.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  And as you put it there, I want you to notice what what is, how does your body like it best in terms of pressure? Do you like it pulling the pillow into you? Do you, does it like no pressure at all, or in the middle? What feels best?

• 29:25Mayim Bialik?

  I'm kind of holding it, so I feel it against me.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 29:28Mayim Bialik?

  I have my fingers interlaced in front of the pillow.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Hmm. What do you notice different inside of you?

• 29:36Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I can feel like my belly against the pillow.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Yeah. Is that a pleasant sensation or an unpleasant sensation?

• 29:43Mayim Bialik?

  I'd say it's neutral.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Neutral.

• 29:45Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  And how do you know that where you have your fingers and the pressure that you have is what your body likes and enjoys right now?

• 30:00Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, there's like a sense of sort of feeling settled?

• 30:04Speaker 03

  That, right there.

• 30:05Mayim Bialik?

  Like things are settled.

• 30:07Speaker 03

  Tell me about that. How do you know that it feels settled?

• 30:11Mayim Bialik?

  Well, thanks for asking. I don't feel like any muscle tension.

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:17Mayim Bialik?

  Um, and I guess there's like a vague feeling of coziness?

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Amazing. All by putting a pillow over your stomach.

• 30:29Speaker 03

  And look at how fast that happened.

• 30:31Mayim Bialik?

  Do I have to walk around with this pillow all the time?

• 30:34Speaker 03

  That, my dear, is now up to you. That is your choice. Now you know what it feels like. This is why I have a weighted, a weighted shawl at my desk at all times, because sometimes in the day when I'm working, something will feel like it triggers me or my body just gets a little anxious and I'll just be able to put that on my belly and be able to settle my system back down. And then I can focus again, then I can come from a place of everything's okay. I'm okay. And it's a very different response than if I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna be okay. Is it, like, all of that amped up? So this was what I needed to be able to help my patients realize that they didn't need to reach for the bottle.

• 31:20Speaker 03

  They could reach for a pillow, put it over their stomach and notice what does it feel like to feel that settling? And then I would see, do you still feel that drive for the bottle? Well, now it's reduced to just, well, it would be nice. I miss it. Yeah, I, yeah, I can understand that. But it's no longer that I have to have this to survive this because my inner world is getting amped up and the only way I know to calm that down is with alcohol.

• 31:52Mayim Bialik?

  So can you explain now on a, on a sort of, um, on a sort of like psycho-clinical level? What is actually happening? Like, on a more practical level, when you ask me to, to do that, you're asking me to shift my focus, right?

• 32:11Speaker 03

  No, no, no. No. It works whether you focus it on it, on it or not. And the reason is, is this is the anatomy of our body. So the anatomy tells us that our stomach, especially the upper stomach, not just, that's why I didn't want you to have it on your lap. I'm like, no, it needs to be up over your stomach. Because our stomach is actually the most vulnerable area that we have. If you think about our heart being precious to our survival, absolutely. But look at it, like, it's encased with bones. You're not gonna access that heart very easily. Same with our lungs. It's got all of these ribs and bones to protect it. But our stomach? It doesn't have protection.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  And that's why a lot of people, when they are living with these trauma fears in the background, their stomach muscles are always bracing, trying to protect itself, trying to protect us. It's gonna happen unconsciously. And so I know that if I can bring in something that allows my stomach to say, oh, thank God, something else is protecting me right now. I can let down and relax a little bit.

• 33:24Mayim Bialik?

  Is this what many people would then call a gut feeling? And is this why people have intuitive abilities? When they feel something in their gut? I don't feel much in my gut at all. We're sort of cut off at the gut, you know, over here. And then when you talk to people like Jonathan, who have intuitive abilities and, you know, have worked in energy realms, it's like, oh, I just feel it. I can sense it. And I'm like, what's that like? Can you talk about a gut feeling?

• 33:56Speaker 03

  A gut feeling, the scientific term for that is interoception. Interoception, seption meaning perception, intro meaning the, my insides, like my internal organs. And this is true whether we're talking about that gut feeling or whether we're talking about, I can sense when I'm thirsty, when I'm hungry, and not have to wait until it's so late that now I have to eat right now because I missed, I missed those messages. I'm not as connected to those signals from my body that it tries to give me. A gut feeling is the nervous system trying to give us a message.

• 34:38Speaker 03

  Ooh, this feels a little off and we get that little twist. Or maybe the knot in our stomach. These are messages from our nervous system that tells us that they're getting messages of danger and it wants us to do something about it. But again, so many of us, by default, are not doing something about it. We are avoiding it, we're numbing it, we're saying, no, no, no, I'm too busy. No, no, no, you don't understand, this person loves me. They would never hurt me. Like, we override those messages all the time. And eventually...

• 35:14Speaker 03

  It stops giving us those messages because we're not listening. And then it really is running on its own, operating on its own. And you end up in a situation like me where the only way that I listened to my body was when it could not get out of bed one day. And it had developed such severe fatigue, the autoimmunity. I was on two mood medications for anxiety, depression, burnout. Because I just, I wasn't connected. I was not connected with my intosception and the messages of danger coming from my nervous system. And at the same time, I want to balance that with this idea that we talked about earlier where when we still have unresolved trauma, we see danger where there is no danger. So we can't always trust our gut intuition at the beginning.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  But trauma work actually makes our intuition better because we're able to take off those perceptive glasses and see reality.

• 36:11Mayim Bialik?

  I'm processing this and thinking, thinking about all the opportunities we have to hear messages that in many cases, we're not tuned into hearing, right? And in, in many other cases, we've piled so many other things on top of that ability to hear that we just like can't hear anymore, you know? And it's funny because our somatic example is, you know, the first time Jonathan like saw the sheets that I had, he's like, these are made of burlap. Like you're sleeping on like, like literally like a wool pad, you know?

• 36:54Mayim Bialik?

  And I was like, I don't know, it's fine, you know? And like it never, like it didn't occur to me. The only time I ever thought about it is when I had kids. I was like, oh, this is really soft. I knew it would feel good to a newborn to wear X, Y, or Z. But I'm, Jonathan was like, you're sleeping on sandpaper. Like what is happening? And it's funny because I just like, I don't think about it the same way. I don't think about the sensation of my clothing on my body right now, right? Like my brain is like, my thalamus is working overtime. It's like, we will filter out any shit that's not relevant, including the sandpaper that we're sleeping on. Because are we going to be attacked in the middle of the night by a bear? That's more important.

• 37:39Jonathan Cohen?

  No, the bear will be afraid of the sandpaper.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  Very logical. The bear will smell the burlap and want nothing to do with it.

• 37:48Jonathan Cohen?

  Bear will like, I will be more comfortable just laying in the street.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  I'm not sure that that's the kind of human being that I would want to eat.

• 37:59Mayim Bialik?

  Oh, you just made Jonathan laugh so hard.

• 38:01Jonathan Cohen?

  That's the best line so far.

• 38:05Mayim Bialik?

  And that's why she's single. Meaning me. I don't know about anybody else.

• 38:11Speaker 03

  No, because all of the men have these head traumas that they're, you know, they're, they're.

• 38:17Mayim Bialik?

  All those athletic men. I better not date any athletic women.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  We can't find good, good men anymore.

• 38:23Mayim Bialik?

  Or women.

• 38:25Jonathan Cohen?

  There are so many other things I want to talk to you about, but, but a lot of them have been filtered through this conversation. Like, I'm going to go back and re-listen to this conversation and I'm going to reserve the right to circle back with you because we brought up so many topics that need expanding.

• 38:41Mayim Bialik?

  This is your bedtime story. You're going to listen to this podcast every night before bed.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Not on the burlap sheets, though. Please, not on the burlap sheets.

• 38:49Jonathan Cohen?

  You said something in the first part of this podcast that you don't hear many medical doctors talk about, which is, have you lost your passion for life?

• 39:00Mayim Bialik?

  Yes. Oh, you weren't asking me.

• 39:01Jonathan Cohen?

  I wasn't asking you. And you spoke about it. When you were talking about the indicator that you use when people, what's the first thing that they think when they first wake up in the morning? And have they lost their passion for life?

• 39:18Jonathan Cohen?

  It makes a big assumption that people should have a passion for life.

• 39:24Jonathan Cohen?

  Right? Like, that's not a medical condition. We, we have a medical condition for depression and anxiety. Those are in the DSM. Talk to us about your belief if everyone should have a passion for life. I mean, I'm biased. I believe that we're all here and we all have some unique gift or ability to have, but.

• 39:43Mayim Bialik?

  Do you mean a passion for living? Or do you mean like, what's my passion in life?

• 39:47Jonathan Cohen?

  Open-ended question. I'm curious your medical perspective about that term and what you feel people either should be connected to or aren't.

• 39:58Speaker 03

  What I have come to understand about the nervous system and then its larger relationship with the world and others, spiritualism, all of that, is that we are intended to have the energy to find what makes us most happy.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  And that is having a purpose in life. My purpose in life is building these beautiful gardens that I can go and enjoy, or invite other people to come and enjoy. It doesn't have to be a specific thing, and it can be very different for different people. But there's this idea that we're designed to find and create meaning for our life, which is having purpose. I know why I get up every day. It energizes me. I know that I bring value to the world. But so many people don't have the energy to have the clarity to figure

• 41:02Speaker 03

  out their purpose, let alone live it out.

• 41:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And when you say energy, you're talking about the biological energy of their system to give them a mush, enough emotional energy to have that?

• 41:14Speaker 03

  Exactly. And that is why then not having a purpose in life is a sign that your body's in that trauma biology state. It's in the depressed state. And by depressed, I mean your energy is depressed. Because if you had the energy, this is what your nervous system would do naturally. You wouldn't have to plan it out. You wouldn't have to make a decision about creating a beautiful, meaningful life for yourself. It just would happen. And so this is the silent impact of trauma on people's lives is that it drains their energy to a degree that they may not call it depression yet. They may not call it burnout

• 41:58Speaker 03

  yet. But they haven't even had the energy to have the clarity on what their purpose is. Having clarity takes energy.

• 42:09Speaker 03

  But even if you have that clarity of what your purpose would be, you don't have the energy to live it out. This is where we go back to this idea of our rhythms, our cortisol. We're intended to have time every day where that is what we do. We are working towards our purpose and then we rest. It's the combination of stress and rest that leads to growth. But we're not stressing the right way and we're definitely not resting the right way. And so there's the lack of growth and the lack of purpose.

• 42:43Jonathan Cohen?

  Having clarity takes energy.

• 42:46Speaker 03

  Yes, we know this from the science on entropy, that without the input of energy, systems fall apart.

• 42:57Speaker 03

  To maintain systems, to maintain order, to maintain order. This is from Einstein. This, I mean, this, these are, these are the science principles. To maintain order, cleanliness, clarity. It takes an investment of energy.

• 43:13Jonathan Cohen?

  The term that was introduced to me, I don't know, many, many years ago, was this idea of the brain needing white space, which is basically downtime in order to wander, to process, to solve all those problems that we can't figure out, that aren't immediately evident to us. You know, in, when I was running a startup, if I didn't have time to be like, for my brain basically to work out all those interactions and signals that I had throughout the day in back-to-back meetings, then there would be a backlog. And like, it's like the interactions weren't drained out of the system to make room for the new ones. And I see people, you know, I think about my son, who will fill every moment of the day when he's not on the tennis court

• 43:58Jonathan Cohen?

  with social media or flipping and consuming and analyzing videos. And I'm like, if your brain doesn't ever slow down, how do you refill the energy so that you can then

• 44:12Jonathan Cohen?

  just take on the next day or have? And so I go back to, like, I think about this idea of clarity.

• 44:20Jonathan Cohen?

  I love the concept that clarity will unfold naturally. Like, we don't have to take a 12-step class to figure out our life's purpose, because we can move through the world and be shown signs. And this kind of brings me back to the other thing you talked about, which is the power of presence. And I loved your example of being with a friend who is passing away. But can you talk a little bit about the power of presence to also navigate our life on the small things every day that will lead us to being able to feel more clear about our presence, to find the things that we enjoy, and then to be guided without sort of these massive crises that most people find themselves in, where they hit a wall and you're like, "I don't know what to do.

• 45:05Jonathan Cohen?

  I don't know how to make a living. I don't know who to date. I don't know where to live." And then all of a sudden, it feels way too overwhelming to sort out.

• 45:12Speaker 03

  I didn't realize how not present I was in my life, in the daily things. I didn't realize how much I was doing on autopilot. And when I started doing these practices myself, I realized that I was never present. I was either ruminating about something that had happened in the past or worried about something in the future, but I was not actually present for what I was doing. Now, in all fairness, that had allowed me to do quite well in medical school and all of these other life responsibilities, where you have to be able to multitask. You have to be able to be disconnected from your body, that you don't feel your body's needs, because you gotta keep pushing on, you gotta keep learning more.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  But at this point, I realized I want something different. And so I started practicing, no. When I'm choosing my clothes, I'm going to choose my clothes. I'm not going to be on autopilot. When I go to make my morning tea or whatever it is I'm doing, I am now going to be fully present for that thing.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  It drove me crazy because I felt like I had gone from, you know, super fast to slowly doing everything. But slowly, I started to see these changes where I actually realized I was fully present. I was staying engaged in my body. I wasn't leaving my body and only living in my head like I was used to. And it allowed me to be a very different person with others because I was able to be present for myself.

• 46:57Mayim Bialik?

  Can you explain what your nervous system is experiencing when you are being present in this way? What's actually happening?

• 47:05Speaker 03

  What's actually happening in the nervous system is a true sense of safety. And the reason for that is when you think about the nervous system's job to keep you alive, it needs to know, is there danger right here or not? And when I am right here and I've been able to orient to my space and I'm fully present, I know and I feel that I am safe right here, right now.

• 47:32Mayim Bialik?

  Because a nervous system that's agitated would be constantly scanning, constantly doing, receiving input, adrenaline is going.

• 47:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Because if I do something, then I'm doing something great and I can feel good about myself and I know that I'm taking care of myself because this thing is getting done and I'm getting a little hit of dopamine or adrenaline.

• 47:48Mayim Bialik?

  Or I'm substituting productivity for true safety.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  And I'm a perfectionist and I don't feel that I will be loved if I don't get this thing perfect, so I will obsess over it. There's so much that goes on in our unconscious that we have been completely unaware of. That's what I mean by autopilot. And when I started to become more present, I realized like, why, why, why am I obsessing over this? What is this really about, Amy? Oh, it's really about this. And so it, I mean, it just opened the veil for me to see all of these subconscious reasons that would have been driving my stimulation and my hustle and bustle that I was doing before.

• 48:36Jonathan Cohen?

  Can people still be highly productive without moving through the world in a trauma response way?

• 48:45Speaker 03

  I want to say that people can be more productive.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  Because I see the busyness as being on the hamster wheel. You're doing a lot, but you're not getting very far.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  And what you're doing is sometimes making messes because you're not fully present and then you have to take the time to clean up those messes. What if you could get off the hamster wheel so that when you ran, you were actually running down the track and not just in a circle? And that's what happens when you make this shift. Your productivity is actually translated into real forward movement in your life. So I am way more productive now than I used to be. I'm less rushed, but I'm more productive.

• 49:39Jonathan Cohen?

  And I want to talk a little bit about the how presence fuels into this.

• 49:45Jonathan Cohen?

  The more we're present, the more clear we are on the steps we need to take, which allow us to get off the hamster wheel.

• 49:53Jonathan Cohen?

  So your actions are more targeted towards where you want to go.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  Which is the beautiful thing for me because this whole conversation has really been, how do we be more strategic? How do we be more deliberate and intentional? Not just throwing things and trying to solve the problem. Oh, I feel depressed. Well, take this medication. Go on this diet. Go talk to this person. I don't know. Do something. But what if we actually understood what's happening? Where a person is stuck? And what would be the best deliberate leverage to pull? That would make the biggest difference. And so it really is not about doing more. It's about doing smarter.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Because we have more of the science of what is actually driving this? That we can target our interventions to that. And sometimes it's a very small intervention, but small hinges move big doors.

• 50:55Jonathan Cohen?

  Something that was spoken about when we spoke to Gabor Maté, and I think really the conversation around it expanded when he released his book, was the idea of emotional patterns of disease.

• 51:10Jonathan Cohen?

  And he talked about people with, it's not just that trauma primes the system to have certain diseases, but he talked about the potential for a specific type of emotional pattern for autoimmune diseases, a certain type of pattern for MS, a certain type of pattern for cancer. Have you seen, well, I guess, one, do you believe in that? And two, have you seen emotional patterns in certain disease states?

• 51:42Speaker 03

  So I have seen these emotional patterns in certain disease conditions. And one of the most obvious is autoimmunity. It's very interesting to me to see that autoimmunity really targets the high functioning women. And we're talking about women who run businesses, who are in corporate, they have a lot of responsibility, they are showing up in a big way in the world, and then they have this autoimmunity.

• 52:13Mayim Bialik?

  Just kicks you right in the keister.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  Yes, I actually start my book in chapter one with the story of Elena. Elena had a car accident, and one year later, she was diagnosed with autoimmunity, lupus. For her, it came out of the blue. And we were able to see that it actually didn't come out of the blue. And what were those things that had happened in her life 20 years earlier that had started this biology that then finally surfaced after a car accident? But so much goes back to our early years, and I want to emphasize one's early attachment. Many people will think, well, no, I don't have any attachment issues. And yet, I look at it in terms of

• 52:56Speaker 03

  attachment pain. What was a pain that you experienced? Was it a pain of not being heard? A pain of not being seen? A pain of not being held enough? There are certain developmental sequences for what we need. And if we don't get what we need at that time, we will have one of these attachment pains. Autoimmunity is associated with not being held enough.

• 53:31Speaker 03

  It actually forms a pattern in the nervous system in somatic experiencing. We call that pattern the global high intensity activation. It can come from birth trauma. It can come from being in the NICU. It can come from these early experiences where you were not held enough because you had to have a life-saving measure. Or maybe you were colicky, or maybe your parents were busy and they had to go back to work and put you in daycare. And it just was a shock to your system because you didn't know these people and you were so young. So these attachment pains form so much of these emotional patterns that then develop, especially in autoimmunity, but I'm also seeing them in IBS and cancers where it's

• 54:13Speaker 03

  this common theme of I didn't know that I was going to be okay. And I had to adapt in order to get through. There are many people with autoimmunity who had an alcoholic parent or a parent with another substance use or a mental health condition where it made them unstable and the child became the parent. That is the formation of a biology of trauma that becomes autoimmunity later on. I think of Kelsey who developed Hashimoto's thyroid in her early twenties. By the time she's going off to college, she already has this. And it's also not a coincidence.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  I think that it really targets the thyroid, which is in your neck. And she never had the voice to be able to say something to her mother. She was the invisible one, the invisible, but the responsible one, having to actually save her and her brother from when her mother would get into car accidents because she was driving a little drunk.

• 55:15Mayim Bialik?

  Sorry, Graves' disease, 23 years old, right here. One thing that I do want to make sure that we let you speak to, where is resilience in your sort of model of treatment and understanding of trauma? Because over 50% of people, I think, is the current statistic, you know, use daycare, right?

• 55:36Mayim Bialik?

  Infants are frequently put in daycare now. It's the way that most people can just survive to pay Rent, you know, so many families are single income families. Many families have someone on disability or who can't work and sometimes it's the only way like. Are we setting ourselves up, you know, to sort of frame an entire nation, right, of traumatized individuals? Where is the the room for resiliency, both on a cellular level and on, you know, a larger kind of emotional level?

• 56:05Speaker 03

  Resiliency is the gift that we give ourselves when we know how to work with our nervous system in our body. And when we see that we are misaligning with what we are naturally designed to do. We are disrupting our resiliency. One of the biggest lies that we have been told, our children are resilient.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  They are not. They develop the Graves' disease at age 23. How is that resilience? Yes, they survive their childhood. If that's how you're defining resilient, yes. Our kids are resilient. But if you're defining resilience as they're not left with a mark. They're not still living with the impact. Well, then, no, kids are not resilient.

• 56:58Speaker 03

  And when we look at everything, again, we have to look at everything that's involved, the social systems. The healthcare system, the daycare system. Everything, everything goes into that equation for how safe am I? Or how much danger am I in? And for a small child. It is not their natural design to be taken from their safe parent and put into daycare.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  But what if that is the best that a parent can do?

• 57:34Speaker 03

  Well, let's shame that parent. That is for sure the best solution and the best for that child. Absolutely not. I would rather have a parent put their child in the daycare and pick them up with a happy heart, with an open heart, with a, with the biggest hug, because now we can spend the next several hours of the evening together. Then to pick up their child and feel ashamed, feel embarrassed. Because that's what's going to be communicated with the child. And the child, always assuming that the world revolves around them, they're going to think, "Look at that. My parent doesn't even want to be picking me up from daycare. I'm not loved. I'm not wanted. I'm not seen." And it makes the situation worse.

• 58:19Speaker 03

  So, we're, we're working in a toxic world. We're working with a toxic environment. There's no way around it. So it's just being able to see then, where can I come in and I, can I, can I do my best? Can I do my best to be, have the, the calm inner state myself? And how can I help others around me have that as well, so that I can inspire that in them? So that we can do the best, given the toxic world that we live in.

• 58:49Jonathan Cohen?

  And I would just even adjust from toxic world to a world that is gonna increase inflammation that we have to deal with. If we just bring it back to, for me, anyway, the biological level, I'm like, if I think that my body is going to have these responses, then how do I mitigate against that to decrease the inflammation? And we know it can be food, it can be exercise, obviously somatic work. Can you touch on why women are so much more likely to have autoimmune disease than men?

• 59:19Speaker 03

  Sorry, I'm laughing because if you were a woman, you would know. You would know what it's like.

• 59:28Speaker 03

  I think she does not feel understood. Why do we have to explain it?

• 59:33Mayim Bialik?

  Just look at the world.

• 59:35Speaker 03

  I will go back and I will, I will first say that, um, you know, speaking of the inflammation, knowing the world that we live in, that again, given the importance of the nervous system state, that is the most important work of anyone every single day of their life. Their nervous system state, not did they exercise and go to the gym, not did they do their visionary planning, it's the state of their nervous system that is the most important. So, given inflammation, when that parent picks up their child from daycare, knowing the stress that it is on their child to be in daycare, I would love for them to have

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  an evening dinner that consists of a lot of broccoli to reduce that oxidative stress and that inflammation, knowing the impact of trauma at the cellular level and how I want to help their body at the biology level, uh, build their resilience and not build up all of this oxidative stress. But, but if they are going to serve that broccoli with a sour attitude.

• 1:00:44Jonathan Cohen?

  You better eat this.

• 1:00:46Speaker 03

  Exactly. I would rather them serve the most gluten-filled, sugar-filled cake,

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  but with love, than a plate full of broccoli with shame.

• 1:01:02Jonathan Cohen?

  Plate full of broccoli with shame. Good memoir title.

• 1:01:05Mayim Bialik?

  That's the only kind of broccoli I like. But I think also the, I, I think it's important to point out that, you know, and, uh, Gabor Maté talks about this in The Myth of Normal, you know, a tremendous amount of emotional and physical labor does fall on women. And part of that, you know, is evolutionary complexity that, that stretches back long before we had tables, chairs, cars, horses, and things that go. Um, you know, this is sort of the, the anatomy in many cases, you know, Freud was wrong about many things, but biology is a certain aspect of destiny in that if you are the one who has to get pregnant. If you are the one who keeps the baby alive as a mammal, right?

• 1:01:49Mayim Bialik?

  And that is the basis of your nutritive needs, you know, your caloric needs, your emotional needs. You typically, as a human primate, were surrounded by a group of females who were helping you share this labor. And I'll be honest, you didn't have to deal with men and trying to please them and think about what they need because they hung out with dudes. And they went out hunting. And you and the men with poor vision would, you know, make baskets and talk about feelings. And if you didn't feel well, someone else nursed your kid. And if you needed something emotionally, it was carried by a group of primates. And the system that we live in

• 1:02:31Mayim Bialik?

  has had men enter the birthing world, first of all. So women have been removed from providing support for other women, which historically is what we did. And there's been a medicalization of the female experience. And also, we've been given all these amazing advances. We can go to space, we can be doctors, we can do all these things. And yet, even when women are the primary breadwinners, they still, statistically speaking, bear the childbearing costs, the cooking costs, the cleaning costs emotionally. And on top of that, and I'm a, you know, a lover of equal rights, we're also told you should look like you did when you were 25, when you're 35, 45, 55, and 65. And we're living in a society

• 1:03:16Mayim Bialik?

  that's not really supporting the health of women and families, meaning we don't have a system that says, be home with your kid and we'll pay your salary. There are some countries that do it. But we're told, have a baby and then get back to work, and you need to be the CEO, and don't act too much like a man. I mean, I'm sorry, now I'm just doing like the monologue from Barbie. But then we wonder why women get autoimmune conditions. It's because we're so tired. We don't want to know what you want for dinner. And we don't want to have sex unless we want to have sex. And then we have sex and it's like, I don't want to have sex. And then you don't have an orgasm, you have to fake it, it's exhausting. And then we get diagnosed with an autoimmune condition. And everybody's like, why did this happen to me?

• 1:04:01Mayim Bialik?

  I don't know.

• 1:04:04Mayim Bialik?

  I don't want to put words in your mouth, Dr. Amy.

• 1:04:08Speaker 03

  It sounds like you kind of do, and that's okay. I, you know, kind of listening to you is, is, is like listening to all of my patients. No, like this, this is what they say. And so what I find so helpful is to look at the kinds of questions that we ask. Because the kinds of questions that we ask are not the kinds of questions that men ask. We ask, what's wrong with me that I can't do this all? And men ask, what's the problem with you that you're holding me back? Women ask,

• 1:04:48Speaker 03

  am I going to be okay?

• 1:04:51Speaker 03

  Men are like, I don't care if I'm going to be okay, let's go bowling, have a beer.

• 1:04:57Speaker 03

  It's, it's just, it's a completely different process. It's a completely different questions than the questions that women ask are much more internal around like, what's wrong with me that I can't look like I'm 25? What's wrong with me that I can't hold this all together? What's wrong with me that I can't juggle all of this and still have a smile on my face and put dinner on the table? What's wrong with me? And men don't ask those questions.

• 1:05:25Jonathan Cohen?

  No, we complain that the system is broken and that other people's expectations are wrong and F everyone else.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  There you go. And that's why they don't get autoimmunity as much because autoimmunity is an internal, an internal attack. Whereas when we can take that anger and we're like, no, what's wrong with the world? What's wrong with the system? What's wrong with you? And that anger goes outward, it doesn't create autoimmunity. It's the anger turned inward.

• 1:05:55Speaker 03

  Anger towards myself, or even anger towards someone else, but I can't express it because I would compromise the relationship. So let me turn that anger towards myself and I'll even hate myself for not being able to speak up for myself.

• 1:06:09Mayim Bialik?

  And to use another flashy word that we often try and break down more, codependency will kill you. What you just described, I care more about what you think and what you feel than what I'm experiencing, that's the definition of codependency. And that's the story that will kill you eventually, in one way or another, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, and in some cases physically.

• 1:06:32Speaker 03

  So some women then think that the solution is to be more like men and they practice it, right? Like they practice saying like, what's wrong with you? And they go around and they, and they, and they start trying to lash out in anger, not realizing that no, women are designed to be different. It's not turning that anger inwards, it's not turning that anger outwards. It's a completely different way of living and that's what we want to find so that we can be in our authentic self. Cause when we are living as our authentic self, there is no autoimmunity. And every person that I know who's reversed their autoimmunity, got to that point where they were living their authentic life.

• 1:07:14Mayim Bialik?

  Reversing autoimmunity? For those of us who are given an autoimmune diagnosis, or two, it's a weird flex, you know, we're told that our body just doesn't work and it's attacking itself. And here are the medications that you take to make it stop attacking itself. And if you stop taking these pills, it's going to go right back to doing what it's doing. What a radical notion that we could reverse autoimmunity, not just by thinking differently, but by training our cells to experience their cellular life differently.

• 1:07:43Jonathan Cohen?

  I want to hear more about people who have reversed autoimmune disease.

• 1:07:47Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah. What do you want to know?

• 1:07:49Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, I just, I almost want you to just like start from that you've seen it because... You know, I think people need to hear the connection between aligning with yourself, aligning with your purpose, you know, it's, I believe in that, but I'm not a doctor. I don't have the biology. It's, and when it comes for me, it sounds, oh, super hippie. Or you've no experience in this, but you know, you can feel someone who is energetically off, who's trying to be someone they're not, and you can feel someone who shows up as exactly who they are. Can you talk more from your perspective in a non-hippie fashion?

• 1:08:28Speaker 03

  So if the essence of autoimmunity is I'm attacking myself because I don't even like myself, then that is going to be part of the process for reversing autoimmunity. Just like every other form of biology of trauma, it's going to need all three levels of repair: mind, body, and biology. We can't cheat any of those. We have to address each of those, and then it is possible. I remember sitting in the rheumatologist's office and I'm staring at this piece of paper with my test results, ANA, anti-nuclear antibody, one in 640 titers. And I was like, how, how did this happen? What's wrong with me?

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  Why is this happening to me? Those are questions of autoimmunity, by the way. Why is this happening to me is a question of autoimmunity. And I asked the rheumatologist, what do I need to do to not develop a full-blown diagnosis? His answer, of course, nothing you can do. It's just, it's just going to happen. It's just a matter of time. So that's when I went and I found functional medicine. I started my trauma work. I was determined for that to not be my life. What I've been able to do is get off all thyroid support, all autoimmune support, and my numbers are completely healthy in the normal range now. I don't have any symptoms of autoimmunity. So for me, when I talk about reversing autoimmunity, that's

• 1:09:56Speaker 03

  what I mean, where symptom-free and your levels are normal. And this has now happened in many people who've come to my program, because this is what is possible. When we stop seeing ourselves as the problem, that's the mind level.

• 1:10:14Speaker 03

  When we stop seeing ourselves as the problem, then when we work with our body and the stored trauma that it holds and be able to complete those responses that are still being held by our body. And then we do the biology level where we're addressing the oxidative stress, the toxins, the leaky gut, all of these aspects that are involved with autoimmunity. It is very reversible, which gives me so much hope that even after a diagnosis, a person can reverse the impact of trauma on their body. It is not a life sentence.

• 1:10:48Mayim Bialik?

  Can you speak to what happens in perimenopause and in menopause to someone who has trauma, especially if they don't know it? What does that look like?

• 1:11:00Speaker 03

  Menopause is intended to be this amazingly beautiful period of life for a woman where she can shed that phase of her life where her body's in reproduction mode and really now just focus on making and living out her best purpose. It's what it's intended to be. What actually happens, though, is that because our body's been holding trauma, our hormones are already imbalanced. There's high cortisol often, not always, but often. The adrenaline is still driving that cortisol and that cortisol is stealing the other hormones that there's less estrogen, there's less progesterone,

• 1:11:44Speaker 03

  they're imbalanced. And so then we come into this phase of life where it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be something that is aligned with our body's rhythms and it's smooth and it's beautiful. It's a beautiful opening up into the best years of our life. But because we're coming into it already off balance, then these changes are not smooth. It's like being on a bumpy roller coaster where it's like constantly jolting you. And it is not the opening up into our purpose that it was intended to be.

• 1:12:25Speaker 03

  But the beautiful thing, though, is that because of these hormonal shifts that happen in perimenopause, it is actually the best time for a woman to do trauma work.

• 1:12:39Speaker 03

  Because it will surface traumas that have been stuffed pretty deep. It will open up things that we didn't realize that our body was storing. Now, one option is to stuff it right back down. Or another option is to get curious and say, if my body is bringing it up, it must be ready for me to look at it.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  Let me work with my body. Let me be friends with my body. Let me not ignore these messages from my body, but actually establish a friendship, a relationship.

• 1:13:19Mayim Bialik?

  The reason this feels so incredibly powerful to hear is I can't tell you the number of friends of mine who have either endometriosis or PCOS. And I don't need to tell you about the adverse childhood events that those women experience. But when women show up to a doctor as a teenager with this kind of crippling pain and this kind of abnormal bleeding, what do they do? They put you on the pill. They put you on the pill, which leads to its own complexity in terms of emotional reactions and the things that happen to your body and your chemistry, which we were told doesn't make a difference, right? And then they throw whatever the current, you know, menopause medication is that's approved for teenagers.

• 1:14:04Mayim Bialik?

  They throw that at you and then they put you on an antidepressant. Like, this is the train that you go down and no one ever... The only... The first time I ever heard about lady problems being associated with anything adverse was when we first started talking about rape education when I was in college. And it was a dirty word to even talk about rape. It was like, "Take back the night," right? But that's the first time that I heard that women who have experienced rape may later develop.

• 1:14:34Mayim Bialik?

  Other problems and I was like, oh wait, and I'm studying neuroscience, right? And we weren't even talking about this. But now that I look at the research, the research is there. So you're looking at PCOS, you're looking at endometriosis. And then to me, menopause is, it's just a later extension, right? Of a hormonal message that your body's trying to give you that's saying, guess what, whatever you thought you could medicate, distract from, fill the God-shaped hole of your pain with, it's gonna visit you again. And you're gonna get that opportunity again. So that's where we can look at that phase of life as a potential opening to say, it's not just about what medication they're gonna put you on, or you need to leave him or her or whoever.

• 1:15:17Mayim Bialik?

  But is this the time in your life when you're actually gonna show up? And guess what? The answer is do less, get off your phone, learn to meditate, do some somatic work, and actually find a doctor who believes your symptoms, believes your experience. And also, read the biology of trauma. And your podcast is fantastic. Every episode is like a different little sliver of this prism, of the experience of trauma. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Amy. Where can people find out more about you and the incredible work you do?

• 1:15:48Speaker 03

  Well, first of all, thank you for the work that you do in the world.

• 1:15:51Mayim Bialik?

  Thank you.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  It is incredible to see how you have showed up and the impact that you're having on people's lives for the better. Thank you. My website is biologyoftrauma.com. So that is where they can find the book, the podcast, the programs, and more information about me.

• 1:16:06Mayim Bialik?

  Amazing. Thank you so much. We really cannot thank you enough.

• 1:16:10Speaker 03

  It's been a pleasure.

• 1:16:16Mayim Bialik?

  I agreed with like 99% of everything she's... I literally, I agreed with so many things. I feel like she... It's not that, I mean, I don't know the things she knows. I loved this conversation so much. The only thing I took issue with, and I didn't want to bother her about it, but I want to bother you about it. My favorite drug is distraction through work.

• 1:16:36Jonathan Cohen?

  You're so good at it.

• 1:16:37Mayim Bialik?

  I'm very so productive when I'm stressed. So productive. And she said, and what I believe when she said that you can be even more productive than you ever imagined, you know, if you're living your best life, being present, all these things. She's got a different idea for my life than I do. Meaning I'm still limited by thinking I need to achieve all the things that I want to achieve and do all the things and cross them off the list. But I remember when I was, when I first started this YouTube channel, which you may be watching right now. I started it with my friend Emmanuel, Emmanuel Shalav. He works at Olive Beta right now.

• 1:17:09Mayim Bialik?

  And Emu said, whenever I had a huge emotional relationship upset, he knew that we would get the best content because I was super focused. I just wanted to like work, write. He would be like, write these six scripts. I would have them done in like a day. Because he said, he knew that that, and what I realize now, it's not so much that the stress was powering me. It was what the work was doing for me to distract me from the pain and stress that was leading to what I call productivity.

• 1:17:41Jonathan Cohen?

  I think it takes a really, really, really big change of perspective to go from being fueled by distraction to being fueled by inspiration or some larger connection to a consciousness system. And you could say, well, if I'm happy, I never want to sit down for the number of hours that I otherwise would when I'm distracted and write that many scripts. So you're like, I'll never have the same output, but...

• 1:18:10Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, every, every artist says that, right? Like they do the best writing when they're in pain.

• 1:18:15Jonathan Cohen?

  The change of perception, change of perspective could be that the one or two scripts that you write from inspiration... may have a different frequency to them, a different resonance. They may go from getting a million views to getting eight million views. You don't know that, though.

• 1:18:35Mayim Bialik?

  Have you ever read Elizabeth Barrett Browning? Like, it's so beautiful because there's pain in it. And like, if you've read Edgar Allan Poe, like, he died alcoholic in the street with like a knock on his head. Like, he wrote "Beauty in Darkness." That's just, that's true. I'm not saying you have to be depressed or alcoholic to create good work, but there's a different quality of melancholy that you resonate at.

• 1:18:56Jonathan Cohen?

  100%, but there's also, there's also the inspiration.

• 1:18:59Mayim Bialik?

  But that's why people are like afraid to like, I mean, it used to be like, "I'm afraid to go on medication. I still want to be myself." Like, you know, I think it's a different conversation now. But I think a lot of that is like, "I don't know, who am I?" You know? "Am I this artistic, creative person?" And like, "I'm super productive and I stay up late and I smoke my cigarettes and I drink my coffee. Like, that's my vibe," you know?

• 1:19:18Jonathan Cohen?

  Rumi reached millions and millions of people. He was an inspirational poet.

• 1:19:22Mayim Bialik?

  If we're all Sufis, we could maybe like achieve... I mean, Rumi was an enlightened, mystical being.

• 1:19:30Jonathan Cohen?

  And if we weren't also traumatized and inflamed on a cellular level...

• 1:19:34Mayim Bialik?

  With my Bobby Headball, she'd be my Zadie.

• 1:19:38Mayim Bialik?

  But it's like, yes, you're right. If we were all living in this like state of spiritual grace, yeah.

• 1:19:45Jonathan Cohen?

  I don't even think it's spiritual grace. I think it's a level of...

• 1:19:48Mayim Bialik?

  You mentioned Rumi. We can't just be like, "Oh, Rumi."

• 1:19:51Jonathan Cohen?

  That's...

• 1:19:51Mayim Bialik?

  This is R U M I that we're talking about.

• 1:19:53Jonathan Cohen?

  That, he's just the one example that comes to mind. Most artists are fueled by depression and anxiety and, you know, working out their demons. I think that goes to the state of the world that we're in, but I don't think that is necessarily the only paradigm. And I think we are moving into a place, knowing more about our biology, knowing more about what makes us safe. And, you know, like I joke that I was fueled by sunlight and the Lord. Without coffee, I do think there is another fuel source for creativity. And, you know, I struggle too. I don't know that you can be a super productive and very high achieving person without putting the hours in, right?

• 1:20:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Like, when you're...

• 1:20:39Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, I'm just thinking about what you're like before coffee. No one's getting anything done.

• 1:20:44Jonathan Cohen?

  Well, I'm functioning differently, but I don't use coffee first thing in the morning. I don't wake up and be like, "I feel like junk, I need to caffeinate." I actually use it several hours after, and I usually use it when I'm sitting down to work and getting myself going. And I know that when I wake up first thing in the morning, I don't have to be moving a million miles an hour. I don't have to be on a podcast. I don't have to be writing and having a stream of ideas. So I liked what she said about using it strategically.

• 1:21:13Mayim Bialik?

  Well, and I think also, well, sometimes, if you are in a state of addiction to caffeine, or really any substance, what will happen is that you experience symptoms that can only be satisfied by consuming that substance. That's the definition of addiction.

• 1:21:32Jonathan Cohen?

  You love a definition.

• 1:21:34Mayim Bialik?

  And withdrawal is the notion that you will experience these symptoms until you have that substance. So perhaps, if you were in a state of not being, let's say, or feeling like you're addicted to it, then I could see using it topically, as it were, which, you know, you could say the same of alcohol, you could say the same of weed. You know, it's different if you are a person who has an addiction, and like, "I can only be okay when I insert this substance into my body," versus, "I am inserting this substance..." Why am I saying inserting? That's a weird thing to say. "I'm only taking this substance..."

• 1:22:10Jonathan Cohen?

  How are you taking the substance?

• 1:22:15Mayim Bialik?

  Coffee suppository. People do it. Heard of it on Yum Khor.

• 1:22:22Jonathan Cohen?

  Took a dark turn.

• 1:22:23Mayim Bialik?

  "I'm only taking in this substance because I enjoy the effects in a way that is non-dependent." And, you know, we could also entitle this episode, "We Take Away All Your Fun."

• 1:22:36Jonathan Cohen?

  Or we're gonna microdose you some safety.

• 1:22:39Mayim Bialik?

  I like that.

• 1:22:40Jonathan Cohen?

  Increase your intuition and presence and you're gonna be able to navigate your life more clearly, more easily, get to your destination faster because you're not gonna go on these detours.

• 1:22:51Mayim Bialik?

  Emotionally.

• 1:22:52Jonathan Cohen?

  Emotionally. Think about how exhausted you were when you were on your emotional detours, using work as your coping mechanism.

• 1:22:59Mayim Bialik?

  This is my emotional detour. That's what we almost called the podcast. Welcome to my ambialux emotional detour.

• 1:23:05Jonathan Cohen?

  One thing Dr. Amy spoke about was the emotional response echoing our cellular response.

• 1:23:14Jonathan Cohen?

  We think, oh, I gotta fix my emotions, but what if our emotions are actually coming from our cellular biology? And I actually want to take one additional step in that circle.

• 1:23:28Mayim Bialik?

  I mean, that in and of itself deserves a little bit of love. That's like very Bruce Lipton-y of like, guess what? What's happening in your cell, it matters, it has an impact, you can shift it. And it's reflecting like, and I don't know if it's necessarily, I don't want it to be like, oh, the cell is an analog of your behavior, or your behavior's an analog, you know, of the cell, but.

• 1:23:51Jonathan Cohen?

  But it's creating the condition by which the cell is functioning in.

• 1:23:54Mayim Bialik?

  The words that you, look, the English language only has so many words. And the words that you use to describe what a cell looks like when it's healthy are the same words that you would use to describe a person when they're healthy. And I'm speaking objectively. And the words that you would use to describe a cell that's under stress are the same words that you would use to describe a person that's under stress. And the same words you use to describe a cell that is experiencing trauma.

• 1:24:18Jonathan Cohen?

  And what we mean by that is prolonged stress that makes it not function the way it otherwise would.

• 1:24:23Mayim Bialik?

  Correct. Prolonged stress that leads the cell to start compensating for what is happening because of the prolonged stress. Those are the same words that you use to describe the behaviors that that person will exhibit. You are your cell. You are a macrocosm of the cell. And, you know, sorry, I'll stop there.

• 1:24:42Jonathan Cohen?

  So I agree with everything and I think this is.

• 1:24:44Mayim Bialik?

  And I'm not sorry.

• 1:24:45Jonathan Cohen?

  Such an important point. But I mean, if you were not having an autoimmune condition, you would say, not only am I not sorry, but why isn't there more space for me to continue that conversation? Emotional response echoing our cellular response. Now add the narratives that we make up based on our emotional responses. Meaning, when she said, "Nothing's gonna work out." And some of this more critical macro black and white thinking, or catastrophic thinking, it could be evidence of low functioning or stressed cellular biology.

• 1:25:28Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah, I mean, I think also the gut-brain connection, the serotonin receptors in your gut, and how much functional medicine is looking at, gosh, what does the profile of a person with issues with serotonin have to do with it? But there's also studies saying that serotonin has, quote, "Nothing to do with depression." Like, there's an interesting new kind of way to look at serotonin, which I don't want to, because it's so hard, because I'm just getting used to understanding this way. But, yes, the fact is, there's a profile. There's a chemical profile that we can look at that are contributing to what many of us assume are organizing principles. It's just the way that we're born. It's just the way that we're made to work.

• 1:26:05Jonathan Cohen?

  "Nothing's gonna work out for me. No one likes me. I'm gonna do everything wrong."

• 1:26:09Mayim Bialik?

  Which is an extension of depression.

• 1:26:11Jonathan Cohen?

  But it's more than emotion. We could say, "Oh, we talk about our emotional profile. I feel depressed. I feel like there's lethargy. I feel anxious. I am languishing. I'm not sure what my purpose is." But if we actually look at the quality of our thinking, and the types of thoughts we're having, could also be indicative of our biology.

• 1:26:30Mayim Bialik?

  Sure. Those rumination thoughts, you know, all that obsessing.

• 1:26:34Jonathan Cohen?

  And that when our biology is in a better, more active, more energetic, energy-producing state, then we may be geared towards more positive thinking, more optimism, more solution-focused.

• 1:26:47Mayim Bialik?

  Well, we didn't even get to sort of like, what are the diagnoses you get when you actually might just have trauma, you know, on a cellular level, right? Besides the diagnoses of IBS, or chronic pain, or all these things, you know, many people are, we've talked about this before, many people are labeled bipolar. "Oh, you're bipolar too." Right? Because you're not having like that extreme mania of bipolar one, but your depression's really bad. "Oh, maybe you're just clinically depressed. You have generalized anxiety disorder. You're having panic attacks." I was talking about this with Dan Harris. When I went on Dan Harris's podcast years ago...

• 1:27:20Mayim Bialik?

  As a journalist, he said, "Why do you have all these diagnoses? Why do you get all these things? Like, what? What's wrong?

• 1:27:26Jonathan Cohen?

  Maybe your cells aren't making enough energy.

• 1:27:28Mayim Bialik?

  Well, I didn't know to tell Dan that. But what I now see in this framework of what Dr. Amy is giving is like, "You're allowed to say, 'I had some adverse experiences in my childhood.'"

• 1:27:40Jonathan Cohen?

  And I no longer feel safe.

• 1:27:41Mayim Bialik?

  I no longer feel safe. I don't feel safe with you asking me that. Now I feel unsafe that we even had this conversation. But the notion is, many of us were shifted around, and then you finally show up with an autoimmune disorder, "Oh, we got something we can treat them with. Oh, okay. Now we've got a name. I'm gonna write it in the insurance form. They're not gonna cover it, because no one's ever heard of it, you know? And then I'm paying out of pocket, and I can't afford it, and I'm more depressed. And the cheapest thing to do is for Big Pharma to be like, 'Take an SSRI.'"

• 1:28:10Jonathan Cohen?

  Or a steroid.

• 1:28:12Mayim Bialik?

  Or a steroid.

• 1:28:13Jonathan Cohen?

  The treatment system is so far away from the problem. Like, by the time you get into the system, and there's something that is clinically viable to treat that has an insurance code that can be reimbursed for, it's so far away from the problem as to be unrecognizable from the actual thing that's going on. There's literally so many more questions that we are gonna talk about on Substack. If you have liked this conversation, we're gonna talk about the idea that someone might not feel safe to be more alive despite that they wanna change. Meaning, that if you feel lethargic, if you are a procrastinator, that was a huge one, that procrastination can actually be a hit of adrenaline

• 1:28:58Jonathan Cohen?

  in order to get you going in the morning. The fact that people with autoimmune diseases tend to turn their criticism and attacks on themselves.

• 1:29:09Jonathan Cohen?

  I mean, I can go through a list here, but we're gonna talk all about this on Substack. Mima and I are gonna break this down. If you haven't already gone over to Substack, it is a website. And check it out, Google it, you can join us there. There's an amazing Breaker community. We want to hear your reactions to this episode on Substack.

• 1:29:28Mayim Bialik?

  Also, if you like this episode and want to have more personal interaction with us and other people about it, that's what Substack is for. Really trying to encourage people to learn about the Substack world so that you can have a different kind of experience than you have just from listening. It's a deeper experience and it's a more personal one. So we hope to see you over on Substack. Go to substack.com and just put in MyMBiAlex Breakdown and there we are. And yeah, make sure you're subscribed to this channel. Hit the bell icon if you're watching us on YouTube so you can get notified. And from our breakdown, the one we hope you never have, we'll see you next time.