Trauma is stored in our body and our nervous system more than just in our minds. In this interview, Dr. Aimie Apigian and I discuss the biology of trauma and PTSD. Dr. Aimie explains the physiological responses that occur in the body during traumatic experiences, as well as the differences between stress and trauma, the role of the nervous system, and how chronic trauma can lead to various health issues. Our discussion also covers practical steps for healing and regulating the nervous system, including the importance of safety, nutrition, and somatic practices.
The following is the raw transcript of my conversation with Dr. Apigian.
The Biology of Trauma: Why We Need to Focus on the Nervous System
Emma McAdam (00:00)
Well, Aimie, thank you again so much for being here. I’m so excited to talk with you again.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (00:04)
It’s really fun to go into the science with you, Emma, so it’s really a pleasure to be back.
Emma McAdam (00:08)
Yeah, and we are, we’re gonna jump right into the biology of trauma. just wrote a book on the biology of trauma, right?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (00:16)
A whole book on the biology of trauma. And I’ve been really excited to see some trends in the field around more focused being on the body and less on just the mind. I think we’re going to go into that today. And so …
So being able to explain this in a way that people understand their inner experience because for me that was one of the fundamental shifts around my understanding of what was a trauma for my body and why my body was holding on was gobermate told us this right it’s not what happens to you it’s your inner response and so when I looked at I was like well what is my inner response like what is the actual mechanism what is the actual physiology so that’s what I lay out and it’s it’s
Emma McAdam (00:41)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (00:57)
Think essential for people to be able to understand their bodies at this level, Emma.
Emma McAdam (01:02)
Yeah. So give us like the short version, right? The couple minute version of like, How does trauma show up in the body? And then we’re going to talk about why you can’t think your way out of trauma, like what to do instead of just trying to think or intellectualize your way out of trauma or talk even about trauma.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (01:19)
See, now you’re acting like my publisher, right? Like, give me the short version, the 50 to 70. And I’m like, there is no short version. Yes, there is. Yes, there is. The short version is.
Emma McAdam (01:23)
Hahaha! People get intimidated by fat books, so they’re always telling people, don’t give them so much information. It’s like, well, okay, can we talk about how trauma shows up in the body first? Or should we just start with like, why can’t you think your way out of trauma?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (01:36)
Right.
Yes, which is why I’ve already created a workbook that goes along with my book that people can find on my website.
The short version is that stress is a very different biology than trauma. And when the body crosses that line, there is a very distinct physiological change that happens when the body goes from a stress response, something that’s active, something that’s driven by adrenaline, to a trauma response.
And when that happens, the body needs certain things in order to resolve that, in order to process that, in order to come back to a full sense of safety. Most people are not doing that. And so then the body gets stuck in this ongoing sense of, well, I think that the danger is still there. And this is what creates the trauma biology over time.
Emma McAdam (02:22)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (02:38)
And this trauma biology includes things like inflammation, includes accumulation of toxins, it includes a decrease in our lymphatic flow, a decrease in our whole detoxification system, nutrient imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalances. So all of these effects start happening on all the systems in our body.
And when that happens, that then starts to become its own feedback cycle because that same inflammation now is creating signals of danger to our nervous system.
Emma McAdam (03:14)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (03:14)
And our neuroception, which is that background calculator of how safe am I or how much in threat am I that I know how I need to be right now to respond to my current situation, it is constantly seeing signals of danger. And especially when these signals of danger are coming from inside of us, like brain inflammation, for example, that was a big biology of trauma piece for me personally. Our neurons are surrounded by inflammation. is constant signal of danger, but at the level of life threat. And this is going to be keeping the body in a trauma response and that background sense of danger. so then we look back. Yep.
Emma McAdam (03:49)
Mm-hmm. Okay, let me pause you there because, yeah, this is like really important to understand. um, like when I experience stress outside of me, like, oh, I’ve got 500 emails, right? Then my body’s going to pump out like an adrenaline response. So that outside trigger or the outside stimulus gets interpreted as dangerous. And then my body responds with a physiological response. When we experience trauma, our body responds with a different physiological response, which I’d like to dive into. Like I’d like to hear more about like
Dr. Aimie Apigian (04:07)
That’s stressful.
Emma McAdam (04:26)
How you see this, but it includes inflammation, includes like a shutdown response, it includes muscle tension or whatever else is going on, like an immune response as well. And the interesting thing is that our body can also perceive a threat from our body itself. So if we think about this, not from like a psychological trauma perspective, but like if I looked down at my leg and I saw that it was like…pointing at a funny angle and blood was coming out of it and bones were coming out of it. If I looked at that and perceived, there’s something wrong with my leg, then that would trigger a psychological response. my gosh, I broke my leg. Even if like maybe the pain hadn’t come up yet. But even if I’m not looking at my leg, my body internally can feel pain or can feel something’s wrong or it can tell like something’s not working right. And that physical internal stimuli can send a message to my brain like I’m not safe.
Like this could be threatening. Is that kind of what you’re saying? Like the brain can trigger a body response and the body can trigger a brain response.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (05:29)
That’s the feedback loop exactly. And so we can be receiving signals of danger or safety from both outside of us but also inside of us.
Stress Response vs. Trauma: Recognizing the Distinct Physiological Response
Emma McAdam (05:31)
Okay. Mm-hmm. So tell me how do you understand the body’s response to trauma being different from stress?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (05:46)
The trauma response can be experienced as something emotional because you can definitely notice the different emotional steps that happen. But those same things are happening at the cellular level and at the system level. So that’s actually how I start my book. Chapter one, we meet my patient Elena and she’s in the middle of a car accident.
So let me walk through this story so that your audience can understand that difference between when does that car accident go from being a stress to being a trauma.
So Elena’s driving and it’s a beautiful morning. It’s a Sunday morning. She’s been out. She has a few hours away from her teenage daughters. So this is like the one time a week that she’s like, I just get to relax. I get to play my music in the car. get to listen to my stuff. So she’s driving down the road and she reaches down for her phone to turn on her favorite podcast. And the next thing she hears is screeching tires.
Emma McAdam (06:36)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (06:48)
So she quickly looks up. So that is the first step of our inner response to something that will eventually become a trauma. It’s the startle. Now you mentioned the startle as when you look down at your leg and you’re like, the bones are sticking out. That’s not right. That’s a startle. It’s that first moment when we realize something’s not right here. But in that startle, we actually only have about 15 seconds.
Emma McAdam (07:04)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (07:16)
And so the physiology of that, that inner experience is mediated by a hormone that’s called noradrenaline. It’s a sister to adrenaline, but it’s noradrenaline and it is pre-packaged. Meaning it doesn’t have to be made because you need to jump in that startle moment. That’s what a startle is. We’ve got to jump. If we had to make that hormone first, we wouldn’t be able to jump so quickly. We jump before we even realize that we touched the hot stove. We jump.
Emma McAdam (07:23)
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. mean, I remember a time I was out hiking and I had jumped before I realized I had heard the rattle. Like I had stepped right next to a rattlesnake and I had jumped and realized, ⁓ that was a rattle I heard. Like that’s how fast that response can kick in, right?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (08:04)
Isn’t that amazing? Like the body is designed, its anatomy is designed. And so the anatomy for, let’s call this now activation. So this activation of energy is mediated through our sympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system is the chain of nerves that runs down your spine. And the anatomy of it is designed to be the fastest bullet train that you have in your body.
Emma McAdam (08:12)
Mm-hmm, okay. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (08:34)
The vagus nerve, it doesn’t communicate messages that fast. The sympathetic nervous system is designed to be able to make you jump before you even realized that it was a snake.
Emma McAdam (08:44)
Yeah, which means it’s also not always accurate, right? Like it’s fast, but not always accurate.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (08:50)
Well, that is true. And then we get to talk about the pre-existing state. So one of my favorite chapters to write, Chapter 11, the pre-existing state, who are we before something happens? That’s actually the largest determinant to whether something will become a trauma or just a stress for us.
Emma McAdam (08:57)
My gosh.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (09:10)
Because our nervous system is already programmed. We’re not coming into that experience. You’re not coming into your hiking experience having never hiked before, having never heard a rattlesnake before. you’re coming in with some programming already there. So it’s just acting on that programming that’s already there.
Emma McAdam (09:29)
Hmm, that makes a lot of sense.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (09:30)
Being the biggest source of our programming.
Emma McAdam (09:34)
That’s right, yeah. And from my perspective also, our programming, I think about this all the time and I don’t even know how to describe it, but my cells contain information from every one of my ancestors. Everyone, and not just trauma, but growth and knowledge and love and wisdom and guidance too. But I feel this intense connection to them. And I don’t know if I’d ever heard a rattlesnake rattle.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (09:51)
It’s in a rational trauma.
Emma McAdam (10:04)
But I mean, you could call this evolution, or could call this a spiritual connection, but like, my body knew what to do with that sound.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (10:13)
And this is one of the principles that I really wanted to highlight for people is that your body knows what to do. If it’s not doing what it was naturally designed to do, then something’s blocking it. And let’s go find that block.
How the Sympathetic Nervous System Works with a Traumatic Event
Emma McAdam (10:20)
Mm-hmm. Interesting. Okay, so sympathetic response, very quick. It’s also predisposed by our previous learning, whether that’s in ourselves or in our experiences, our attachment, our early childhood, all that stuff. Yeah, okay. So you got in, she hears the screeching, startle response, sympathetic reaction, she looks up.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (10:43)
It all of it all of it I know and we’re still in the startle response we got to move on from the startle
She looks up and she immediately goes into action without even thinking about it first. So her hands go to the steering wheel and she starts turning. She starts trying to brake. At this point, her nervous system confirms that it’s a real danger. A car is coming towards her. If she had looked up and it was like, no, the car is over there. It’s no threat to me. Her body would have been able to come out of that startle and return back to her, but I’m safe.
Emma McAdam (11:10)
Yeah, okay.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (11:23)
So this is an escalation to the next level of survival response. This is a real problem. It is a life threat and I need to respond to it. And so all of that sympathetic response happens. The heart beating fast, the sweating, the fast action, but the fast thinking.
Our blood inside of us is being shunted to the muscles, to the brain, so that we can do that fast acting and fast thinking. Why? Because our life depends on it right now.
Emma McAdam (11:55)
Right, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (11:56)
So here’s then when it becomes a trauma. When we realize that there’s nothing else that we can do to make this stop.
So there’s this experience and it’s a felt experience. It’s a realization of I’m powerless. There’s no possible way for me to escape. I’ve exhausted my options. In the book, I start to talk about the language of capacity versus demand.
And that is one way in which we, what I call hit the wall. Hit the wall in terms of I’ve done my best and my best wasn’t good enough.
Emma McAdam (12:39)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (12:41)
And so in that moment when Elena realizes that she’s done her best, she’s tried to swerve, she’s tried to break, it’s not working, that car is going to hit her. That for her was that moment of hitting the wall. And so what does she do? She does what many of us do. She paralyzes. She just stares at the car that is now going to hit her, knowing that there’s nothing else that she can do.
Emma McAdam (12:55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (13:11)
So this idea of being trapped, powerless, alone, that is all part of the inner experience in that moment that something stressful becomes a trauma response in our body. And no longer is the mechanism of how we’re going to try to survive to take action and to think fast and to move. Actually, our survival mechanisms now change.
Emma McAdam (13:25)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (13:40)
And with that, it starts with this moment of the freeze response, which is an internal paralysis due to the shock of we can’t believe what’s happening. For different people, this shock moment lasts different periods of time. And for some people, it’s never obvious that they’ve paralyzed on the outside.
Emma McAdam (13:52)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (14:05)
It’s an internal experience of feeling paralyzed and the shock of, I can’t believe this is happening.
Emma McAdam (14:13)
Yeah, they might be going through the motions, but they’re like detached from their self. Their feelings or their thoughts. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (14:17)
Exactly, exactly. So, right. And that’s where I see a lot of people confused because they’re like, but I didn’t freeze. And I’m like, but you did inside. You froze inside, which then allowed you to just go through the motions on the outside.
Emma McAdam (14:28)
Hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (14:37)
And when we look at the unique physiology of that moment, Emma, it’s incredible because this is the only time that our body is ever in this physiological state, which is technically two states at the same time. It cannot happen in any other moment. Two states at the same time where if we’re going to call the activation that sympathetic that adrenaline rush the foot on the gas pedal.
Emma McAdam (15:04)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (15:04)
In this moment, your foot is all the way on the gas pedal. You have all this adrenaline to help you do all that you can to survive. So your foot is all the way on the gas. And now with that freeze, you have just thrown on the emergency brake.
Emma McAdam (15:15)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (15:24)
Emergency brake is fully on, your foot is fully on the gas pedal though, so you still have all of this adrenaline which creates the internal sensation of absolute terror and panic. Immobilized in that panic. Now this is unsustainable and every person who’s driven a car will know that you don’t have the emergency brake and the gas pedal on at the same time.
Emma McAdam (15:35)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (15:50)
Because you’re now just wasting gas.
Emma McAdam (15:53)
Yeah, yeah, I’m burning out your brakes. Like your car is fighting itself. Like things are breaking inside of your car. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (15:59)
Things are breaking. So what the body does is the same thing that a car will do. It will just shut down and go into the full brake mode.
And that’s this last piece of the trauma responses. I call it a shutdown. It feels like a collapse. It feels like the shame is the dorsal vagal response because now the sympathetic has turned off and now we’re just in dorsal vagal. But for a moment there we are both fully in sympathetic and dorsal vagal. And then the body says I need to conserve energy now. That is my new survival strategy. I need to take my
Emma McAdam (16:17)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (16:38)
Foot off the gas pedal because I’m just burning through my energy if I keep it on. We just need to be in brake mode.
Emma McAdam (16:47)
Yeah. Well, that makes sense. Cause if there’s nothing you can do to solve the problem, keeping your foot on the gas doesn’t work anyway. It’s a waste of energy, right? It’s, it’s burning up your resources and you’re exhausted usually or worn out or you’ve tried. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (16:58)
And that’s the sensation of exhaustion and that’s why, Emma, I remember the very first time that I was able to watch myself go into a trauma response as if it I were watching someone else and I had never been able to detach myself enough from my internal experience to be able to watch and be like a curious scientist and be like this interesting look at what he does now, but I remember it and I’ll
Emma McAdam (17:22)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (17:28)
I’ll tell you that it was a moment that I learned so much about myself and my internal experience of what it feels like to have that dorsal vagal response come over and the immediate shift to a low energy state that happened. I went from a really high energy state, and I’ll tell you what happened. I was in general surgery residency and residency, especially in general surgery residency, you are expected to do a lot of work and you have the attending physicians who are overseeing you
Emma McAdam (17:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (17:58)
And they are mentoring you, training you, reprimanding you, all of that good stuff. So I don’t even remember what I did, but it was clearly not what my attending physician had wanted me to do. And so I’m rushing around and I come into the OR and here he is and he immediately turns around and he’s standing right in front of me and he’s tall, he’s big, and Emma, he had these blue eyes.
Emma McAdam (18:05)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (18:28)
My father had blue eyes and I immediately just felt like I was that little girl standing in front of my father. This was no longer the adult Aimie standing in front of her attending surgeon. This was little Aimie staying in front of her father who once again she messed something up. She hadn’t done it right and he was reprimanding her and all of the feelings that were part of my family dynamic growing up of I’m not worth anything. I’m a failure. And noticing how fast my energy went from busy, busy, busy, busy, we got to get all this stuff done. ⁓ shoot, he’s already in the OR, I’m late, it up, rushing in. And then just this absolute, I could feel it wash down my body. And it turned into this collapse where now all of a sudden it felt hard to even stay standing up. I did.
Emma McAdam (19:24)
You probably like you felt so heavy, right? Is that what you mean?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (19:26)
I felt so happy, if I could have, I would have just, you know, sat down, curled up, fetal position.
Emma McAdam (19:33)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, fetal position under the covers, blanket over your head. Yeah, I know that. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (19:38)
I can’t. And so what he sees is I’m just standing there and I’m very stoic. I don’t even know what he saw, right? Because I have, I’m just perceiving this from my angle. but I definitely didn’t freeze on the surface. There was no way that anyone else in that room would have been able to be like, Whoa, Aimie just went into a trauma response right now. But on the inside, I could definitely feel the complete shift of my inner state. And now knowing what I had just studied about the nervous system, realized my sympathetic system had just kind of short-circuited and now we are in the dorsal and I can feel that progression of the heaviness as the dorsal vagal communicates to the rest of my body. We need to shut down. We are possibly not going to survive this moment of being reprimanded.
Emma McAdam (20:30)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (20:31)
It’s actually changing my metabolism and that’s really what I wanted people to understand is that like this is not just something that’s happening in your brain and your thoughts and your emotions This is happening at a cellular level and a whole body system level Which is why we don’t know how to complete those responses those effects linger in our body And we get sick
The Hidden Biology of Trauma: Adrenaline, Energy, and Physical Recovery
Emma McAdam (20:57)
Yeah. So can we talk about that? What does it do to your metabolism? what does it do to your immune system? What does it do to your muscles? Can we talk about that?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (21:06)
Yeah, so the crazy thing is that adrenaline is the feature of the sympathetic nervous system. So I would want everybody to know that adrenaline is your real stress hormone, not cortisol.
It’s the one that’s actually making you move and take action. So adrenaline is made by our adrenal glands and it does take time to make, which is why we have that noradrenaline for the startle response. Gives us time to start making adrenaline and then our adrenal glands are pumping out the adrenaline, which is beautiful because adrenaline goes and it gets all this sugar and sends it to our cells so it can make more energy.
This is also why we need to breathe faster because we make energy from sugar and oxygen.
And that is also why our heart has to start beating faster because it needs to get this sugar and oxygen to ourselves as fast as possible. everything in our body is helping us make energy so we can move and take action. So the adrenaline is now going outside ourselves It’s a message of information that says make more energy now. Now what’s interesting Emma is that the amount of adrenaline that released and surrounds ourselves is in direct proportion to the size of the danger that we see.
Emma McAdam (22:34)
Huh, interesting. It’s a little bit more tailored response, huh?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (22:40)
It’s very tailored. Our body is so deliberate with what it does. This is a term that many people may not know unless they’re in the medical field. It’s called homeostatic capacity. This idea that we have sodium levels, potassium levels, CO2 levels. We have all of this that’s happening in our physiology and our blood. And if anything gets off, we might die.
Emma McAdam (23:06)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (23:06)
If our potassium levels go too high or too low, we will die. So this is what our nervous system does for us. This is what our autonomic nervous system does for us is it’s monitoring all of this. It’s like a dashboard on our car that’s collecting all of this information all at the same time. What is our core temperature? What is our sodium level? What is our sugar level? What is our ATP level? What is our toxin level? It’s measuring all of this all at the same time to be able to decide, well then what does that mean for what I need to do right now? Well, I need to cravings for those potato chips so that she’ll get more salt because she’s running a little low on salt. Like all of what we do really comes down to our nervous system trying to be so deliberate about what will best help us survive that moment. And so it’s very deliberate about the amount of adrenaline that it’s going to secrete. Why? Because adrenaline is actually very damaging. It’s so powerful that it’s damaging.
It’s like radiation. Radiation is so powerful and it’s damaging. But yet that’s why we can use radiation for something like cancer treatment.
Emma McAdam (24:07)
Okay. Yeah, it’s got a purpose too.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (24:18)
Exactly. It’s so it’s so powerful that when we can focus it, we can kill a specific tissue because it’s dangerous when it’s so powerful. That’s exactly what adrenaline is. So our body does not want to secrete more adrenaline than what we actually need to just overcome this danger.
Emma McAdam (24:40)
Hmm, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (24:41)
Any adrenaline that lingers in our tissues will cause tissue damage. And that’s where a lot of the chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, these tissue syndromes seem to be bathed out of. It’s this excess of adrenaline that people are not able to discharge because it’s too much for what they’re able to move through and digest and metabolize. So we have a cell and we have all this adrenaline outside the cell.
Emma McAdam (24:53)
Hmm. Interesting. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (25:10)
Now, whether this is a real danger, like we’re jumping away from a rattlesnake, okay, that’s a certain level of adrenaline, but what if it’s me standing in front of my attending surgeon who, because of my attachment issues, has just become my father, I’m the little girl, that is not a true danger, but yet to my nervous system, this is a life threat.
Emma McAdam (25:27)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (25:38)
Of I may not survive if my father doesn’t like me, if my father doesn’t approve of me. And so the size of the danger in that moment is so big that even though it’s not a real danger, my body has just secreted a ton of adrenaline. And that’s actually what pushes that activation so high that it becomes too high.
Emma McAdam (26:05)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (26:06)
And my cells are standing there and they look at all of this adrenaline and they’re like, we can’t do that level. There’s no way. What you’re asking of me is not possible. And when it’s not possible, that’s on a cellular level when we hit the wall and our cells are now saying, there’s nothing I can do.
Emma McAdam (26:15)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (26:31)
There’s no way I can overcome that size of danger. It’s better for us to shut down. And they do, they shut down. It’s called the cell danger response and they shut down. And now that is even giving the information to our nervous system that says shut the rest of the body down because we’re not able to make the amount of energy that you’re asking us to make for the size of this problem.
Emma McAdam (26:56)
Yeah. Hmm. Okay. So then you flip into the shutdown response or the…
Dr. Aimie Apigian (27:01)
The adrenaline is often what’s flipping us into the shutdown response. Isn’t that interesting? Which is why then, as I’m now looking at how do I help myself, how do I help others have a better life, part of the conversation needs to be how much adrenaline are you secreting just every day in your everyday?
Emma McAdam (27:06)
Interesting. Did not know that. Yeah, it is. It’s really interesting. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (27:26)
What are you doing that’s creating more adrenaline and it’s making it harder for you to metabolize all of that adrenaline every day, especially given the fact that for most of us, we now sit down all day and we’re doing our work. So we’re not moving like our ancestors would have and they would have been able to move through a lot more adrenaline, but we’re experiencing more stress, which means more adrenaline and less movement.
Emma McAdam (27:46)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (27:52)
It’s creating a gap. And that’s where we’re going to be experiencing more and more of this trauma biology as our cells are like, I can’t deal with this much adrenaline.
Chronic Trauma and Inflammation: The Lingering Physiological Response
Emma McAdam (27:52)
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, can you give me like a laundry list of like, what kind of symptoms we start to see? I mean, it’s basically everything, but like what kind of symptoms we do start to see when people have experienced, you know, chronic trauma or high chronic stress.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (28:19)
So this is then the idea of like, well then how does trauma get stuck in the body? How does it get stored in the body? Why does the body hold on? We all want to let go. We all want to move on. So why is my body still holding on?
Emma McAdam (28:26)
That
Dr. Aimie Apigian (28:37)
I shared with you that I’ve been doing a lot more speaking lately around the book launch. And there have been so many women who’ve come to me and essentially said the same thing, even though I’ve been in Colorado, been in Montreal, been in Boston, and yet everyone is saying the same thing in different words. And they’re saying, look, I understand all of this stuff. I’ve done enough therapy that I understand my triggers. I understand my responses. I understand my coping mechanisms.
Emma McAdam (28:37)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (29:07)
I understand my attachment. I understand it all. And yet my body is still under the impact and the effects of the past. It’s still struggling. It’s still getting sick. So I feel like my mind has healed, but my body hasn’t. So there’s this idea that the body is holding on through this biology of trauma.
How does that happen? It’s because once that effect happens where our body shuts down and now in essence we’re removing the cortisol break that would normally be a break and protect us from adrenaline, the dorsal vagal response makes cortisol be ineffective in some of its functions.
Emma McAdam (29:54)
Really.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (29:54)
And that’s why we get the inflammation. That’s why we get these other effects is because cortisol is no longer able to communicate and to affect its actions because we’re in the dorsal vagal response. So an example of this, and when I say that, people often look at me like I’m crazy because we’ve all been taught that cortisol causes inflammation.
Stress causes inflammation. So I say, well, I remember when I was running the emergency room as a general surgery resident and someone would come in and they were in an asthma attack. Their airway is closing. True life threat of inflammation. What did I give them to decrease the inflammation? Essentially, essentially I gave them adrenaline and cortisol.
Emma McAdam (30:17)
Yeah. Yeah. Adrenaline.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (30:46)
Cortisone. Cortisone is a shot that many people get for their different health conditions that are inflammation based because cortisone, cortisol, shuts down inflammation. It doesn’t turn on inflammation, it shuts down inflammation.
Emma McAdam (31:01)
Interesting.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (31:02)
So what’s happening is that somehow that cortisol is not being able to do its normal job of decreasing inflammation. And that’s what happens when we go into the dorsal vagal response. It’s the same thing that happens with our metabolism. just, it shuts down that metabolism. So it shuts down the protective effect that cortisol normally would have where it would be protecting us from some of these effects from adrenaline.
So this is part of then that longer effects on our biology is now we’re getting inflammation. Many are getting autoimmunity where their immune system is now attacking themselves because things are falling apart. And more and more you’re seeing everything falling apart. It’s never going to be just one thing. And that’s why those with autoimmunity, the number one symptom that people with autoimmunity have, fatigue.
Because it’s all related. It’s nervous system that’s been driving this. And so it’s going to be seen in their metabolism and in their immune system, as well as their digestive system. Let’s talk about their digestive system. And so that’s why we can look at all of the systems are going to be affected. And that’s really one of the key hallmarks for how to recognize that the body is holding on to things from the past is that it’s multiple systems that are affected. It’s not just your digestive system. It’s also going to be your sleep, you’re feeling anxious, you’re feeling you’re feeling all of these things. Migrate, skin rash, exactly, yes.
Emma McAdam (32:34)
Yeah, like your eating will get disordered, right? You’ll lose your appetite or you’ll have too much appetite. You won’t feel hunger and fullness in a normal way, right? Your energy levels, your muscle tension, back pain, chronic pain.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (32:46)
Exactly. Right. And even we take some with chronic pain. It’s not just chronic pain that’s wrong in their life.
Emma McAdam (32:57)
Yeah, it’s not just a physical injury, right? It’s like there’s something else going on with their nervous system. Like it’s both. It’s often both.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (33:01)
Right, right. And, and
Yeah. So that was for me then what I started seeing was the patterns, Emma. So I started seeing patterns and this is what I was trained to do because I’m trained to diagnose someone with.
Emma McAdam (33:15)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (33:15)
and appendicitis, for example, based on patterns. I’m going to see patterns in your symptoms, patterns in your lab results, and then I’m going to go to imaging and there’s the final pattern. This pattern is this diagnosis, which is this treatment. So I started seeing these patterns that told me this is nervous system driven. That’s a dysregulated nervous system. It’s stuck in that survival response, which really will just loop us between stress activation and the trauma shutdown.
Emma McAdam (33:19)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s
Dr. Aimie Apigian (33:45)
Between that.
Emma McAdam (33:45)
What I wanted to ask. Like, because people alternate, right? They flip between like trying and trying and trying and doing everything and being busy and running and avoiding and fighting people to like, give up. I can’t anymore. And you see that flip a lot.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (33:55)
Right. They do and it’s also because when we come out of that shutdown response, we go into the stress response. We don’t go immediately into the parasympathetic. We go back into the stress response from where we came from, but we’re not having the capacity. We haven’t changed anything. And so we’re still now experiencing all of this adrenaline, all this stress. We don’t feel like we’re capable. So we shut back down. So it literally does become this loop of stress overwhelm, stress overwhelm.
Emma McAdam (34:11)
Yep. Yeah.Hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (34:28)
And then this is what accumulates the damage over time. So the patterns that I started to see were the patterns Why does this trauma response actually help us survive?
We are clear on how the sympathetic stress helps us survive. We fight and we run away. We are clear on how sympathetic helps us survive. So how would shutting down help us survive? That seems counterintuitive.
Emma McAdam (34:58)
Right, yeah.
The Trauma Response: Dissociation, Immobilization, Energy Conservation
Dr. Aimie Apigian (35:02)
And so I looked at what are those survival mechanisms and it’s an acronym for die D I E and that’s what it feels like. Right. I’m going to die. going to die. I might die. I’m going to die. And so that’s what the trauma response is is it’s helping us survive something that we don’t know if we’re actually going to survive. It helps us to drive what feels unsurvivable. And there’s three survival mechanisms and this is how it helps.
Emma McAdam (35:09)
Lovely. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (35:32)
Us survive. The first one is dissociation. Dissociation is to some degree disconnecting. You use the word detaching. That’s part of how it helps us survive is numbing. If we were to actually feel all of those feelings that might do us in. So
Emma McAdam (35:35)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah numbing. Yeah, I saw a video of this gazelle that ran away from a cheetah. The cheetah catches it. The cheetah’s chewing on the gazelle and the gazelle is not dead, but it’s perfectly still. And I guarantee you at that moment, its survival dissociation response made it numb out. Then a hyena comes in, fights the cheetah, the gazelle pops up, runs off. And because it held still, the cheetah left it alone, right? Like long enough for it to escape.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (36:18)
And because it was dissociated.
Emma McAdam (36:20)
And it could only hold still because it was dissociated, right? Yeah. Cause like that numbing response is a survival protective to like inescapable threats. threat it couldn’t escape right then. And it survived cause it just didn’t bug the cheetah for a minute. And then the cheetah, right? Like anyway, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (36:30)
Exactly. And this is the counterintuitive part that can confuse us as humans who have a logical brain. We’re like, why is my body shutting down? And it’s this ideal. Right, that’s what I would prefer to do.
Emma McAdam (36:45)
Right, like yeah, come on, like just reactivate, right? Yeah. Always. I always prefer to be in an activated state and being busy and doing stuff. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (36:54)
Activity yes and this idea that giving in and giving up is actually the surrender that helps our body not care what’s happening so we save our energy
Emma McAdam (37:12)
Well yeah, and if you think about like a parent who you could never argue with, you could never win, like they would always just fight back and fight back and put you down and fight back and put you down and fight back and put you down. Like you can keep arguing and you can keep trying, but at some point that’s gonna elicit more violence from them and just like, fine, I don’t care, I give up. It’s like a pretty adaptive response if you’re in an impossible situation like that as a child.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (37:35)
And that’s it, right? Like in those impossible situations. That is how we will adapt. We will feel like we don’t care anymore what happens to us. I don’t care. Yeah.
Emma McAdam (37:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, fine, I don’t care. Fine. Yeah. Very adaptive. Stop your parents from criticizing you anymore or beating you anymore. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (37:54)
Right. So that’s the dissociation. The next piece is the immobilization. We’ve talked about the freeze response. We’ve talked about how that freeze actually starts to help us conserve energy and not use up energy. So that is one of the ways in which the trauma response actually helps us survive. It actually stops us from being able to take further action.
Emma McAdam (38:00)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (38:21)
The last piece is this E, so the energy depletion, energy conservation. And this idea that that is how we survive. The only way that we are going to survive is if we can conserve energy now rather than utilize energy like in our stress response. So take those three survival mechanisms and now make them chronic. So now you’re living disconnected.
Emma McAdam (38:26)
Hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (38:48)
Whether from yourself, from others, from the world, you’re just going through the motions, but you’re not really experiencing or definitely not happy with your reality, but you just kind of don’t care anymore. Then you take that immobilization. What’s that look like chronically? Well, that’s our chronic functional freeze. There’s many areas in your life in which you’re stuck.
Emma McAdam (39:12)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (39:13)
And as you go to experience new levels of expansion, your body is like, no, that doesn’t feel safe. We’re going to stay small to try to stay safe. The energy depletion. How does that become chronic? Well, this becomes your chronic sense of exhaustion. This becomes your sense of I’m running on fumes.
Emma McAdam (39:22)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (39:33)
You’re having to push yourself through life, through your day, and you are finding yourself using those things that will give you adrenaline to help you push through this exhaustion. So that’s where coffee, caffeine, right, is an easy place for people to unconsciously help themselves push through when their body’s holding on to this element of, no, I’m just trying to conserve energy.
Emma McAdam (39:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chronic Trauma and Survival: Dysregulation of the Nervous System
Dr. Aimie Apigian (40:02)
But what happens is that when this becomes chronic, those three survival mechanisms then become the dysregulation of our nervous system. And so now our nervous system is chronically dysregulated. And when we look at what does that mean, dysregulation for me means how do you respond to problems? How do you respond to change?
Emma McAdam (40:28)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (40:28)
If your nervous system is dysregulated, it will either overreact or underreact.
Emma McAdam (40:32)
Yeah. Yeah, so if you have like a chronic response, like dysregulation is like if you have a chronic fight response, it’s like you’re going to see things that don’t need a fight as like someone’s out to get you, someone’s attacking you, like these are the road ragers, right? These are the people who like every time someone’s like, hey Emma, could you do this? Well, I did it already! like you don’t even notice the good things I do, right? Like that’s like, so we’re dysregulated when we aren’t adapting to each situation in like a really like healthy appropriate way, but we’re stuck.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (40:54)
All of that. Exactly
Emma McAdam (41:02)
We’re stuck in like, I’ll just quit. And we quit
Dr. Aimie Apigian (41:02)
Right. Right.
Emma McAdam (41:05)
Way too easy. Or, just, like, I’m just gonna fight everyone off. That’s more an activated state, right?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (41:10)
And you, with your background, you normally think of that as like, let’s look at those emotional responses. I, as a physician, I’m looking at the physiological responses. So when someone walks outside and it’s a temperature change, maybe it’s a really hot day, their body is supposed to adapt to that change. And guess what drives that adaptation? Your nervous system. And so does a person not have that healthy response to just the right amount of sweating at the right time to keep their internal physiology
Emma McAdam (41:19)
Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (41:40)
Balanced. A big aspect around their internal dysregulation is their sugar levels.
Emma McAdam (41:47)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (41:47)
Sugar levels for so many people these days are all over the place. So high going too low. And then they’re developing the insulin sensitivity or the insulin resistance because of that sugar levels. And this is all part of seeing how the body literally has impacted our metabolism and it’s creating these overactive or under reactive responses in our physiology as well, not just our emotions, but in our physiology as well. And so then you take that and now you’ve got disconnection, immobilization, energy depletion. Now you add dysregulation chronically because those are creating chronic dysregulation. You compound that over time and you get the last pattern that I’m saying is disease.
Emma McAdam (42:33)
Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (42:35)
It’s inevitable. It’s predictable. And my patient, Elena, she developed autoimmunity one year after this car accident. She thought it had come out of the blue. She didn’t understand. Why am I getting autoimmunity now in my late 40s? No, it didn’t come out of the blue. It’s been building under the surface since you were a child.
Emma McAdam (42:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (42:58)
And the car accident was just that last straw to push your body all the way over the edge into that epigenetic trigger. And now you’ve got a diagnosis. But it didn’t come out of the blue. It’s been building for decades.
Emma McAdam (43:11)
Yeah. Yeah. And the research bears this out, chronic trauma or trauma in general is associated with diabetes, autoimmune conditions, basically, yeah, obesity, eating disorders, substance abuse disorders, headaches, migraines, muscle pain, chronic pain, chronic conditions, all heart conditions.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (43:20)
Every chronic health condition. All of it. All of it. And are they all really completely separate conditions? No, I see that they have a common route. Now, how it will present in you will be based on your ⁓ generational aspects. Maybe your DNA, maybe you have some snips in your DNA that make you have a genetic vulnerability. that your genetics cause the disease, but it’s the nervous system dysregulation that made that vulnerability become your disease.
Emma McAdam (43:36)
Yeah. Mm-hmm, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (44:00)
And so it’s not all these separate conditions. It’s one common route, which is we’ve got to get our nervous system healthy, flexible, regulated. And that is how no matter what we’ve been through, no matter what our ancestors have been through, no matter what genetic susceptibilities we have, we will be in our best health and our best self.
Emma McAdam (44:24)
Yeah, okay. I wanna go into like, how do we do that? We don’t have a ton of time, but I wanna go into how we do that. But first I have this like very random segue. When you were talking about like temperature regulation, I have this theory and I wanna run it by you and you tell me if you think this is like Emma being crazy and connecting the wrong dots or not. But you know, I think there’s a lot of talk about how, you know, kids these days aren’t as resilient as they used to, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I think there’s like…merits and not merits to this argument. Like kids these days are great too. But here’s one of things I wonder. More kids than ever are growing up in homes with temperature regulation, right? like I didn’t grow up with ⁓ AC but my kids are growing up with AC, right? Like more homes have air conditioning and heating school didn’t have AC growing up, right? Like it was hot in there sometimes, it was freezing in there sometimes, right? So here’s my theory that if our bodies do not have a very broad spectrum for temperature regulation that will have a little bit less resilience with emotional regulation. What do you think? Am I making stuff up here? I have not seen any research on this. I’m just like supposing.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (45:30)
I’m going to support your hypothesis and maybe we should do a proper study on this, Emma. I don’t know how we would get all the control factors, but there are many places in the world that still don’t have temperature control. So we possibly could do this study. But here’s what I’m hearing you say is that really it’s that building of capacity. The building of capacity is only done through practice.
Emma McAdam (45:33)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right, like experiencing a difficulty within your window of tolerance and then overcoming it, building that learned ability to like, yeah, like I can regulate my sadness, I can regulate my cold, I can regulate my heat to a degree, right? To a degree, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (45:59)
Breathe. Exactly. Because it’s all this, it’s the same nervous system that’s regulating it all. Yes. Exactly.
Emma McAdam (46:15)
Yeah, and my sugar, my insulin levels, my immune system response, like it is, it’s the same nervous system that’s regulating it all. What a random tangent.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (46:23)
Now there is some research that we can extrapolate with some degree of confidence to say that your theory is supported by research. And that would be the research on the immune system, So they have shown that kids who grow up in a more immune-controlled environment, there’s no germ, a very clean environment, that their immune systems are actually worse off later on because it
Emma McAdam (46:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Yeah, yeah, very clean environment. Yes.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (46:53)
Doesn’t have the flexibility. It doesn’t have that ability to adapt and respond because that’s what it has needed to do since it was childhood. it was built their capacity within their window of capacity. So this is the same thing that you’re talking about, right?
Emma McAdam (46:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (47:11)
That goes for temperature control too. If your body never had to build those muscles of flexibility and adaptability, well then it’s a decreased capacity that will extend to all the other areas of your nervous system and its capacity to adapt to anything and everything.
Emma McAdam (47:30)
Yeah, and that’s why I think like, you know, we see this emergence of like cold water immersion and like Wim Hof stuff where people are really like stretching their nervous system capacity and they’re doing it with their bodies with physical challenges. But I think that does apply to like our emotional nervous system resilience. And I think, I think when it comes to working with trauma and stuff, some people often think, what I need to do is decrease the stressors in my life. And that may be true. I need to like avoid triggers in my life, but the
Dr. Aimie Apigian (47:45)
Absolutely.
Emma McAdam (47:57)
Strongest indicator that someone’s gonna be more likely to be functional is that they’re increasing their capacity and their resources, their physical, emotional, relational, mental resources to be able to like be resilient in the face of these stressors.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (48:16)
And I see that as different phases of the journey. The first phase we know is safety. You’ve got to create your safety. You have to. It all starts with safety.
Emma McAdam (48:18)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. We have to start with safety. That’s right. We can’t just say, get over it, like you should be handling this. That never works, right? Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. So I’m glad you’re clarifying that because it is, it’s like we got to return to a sense of safety and security. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (48:32)
Exactly, right? Be resilient in the bad kind of way. How’s the start with safety? But to your point, like that’s where I then see people staying. I only want to stay safe, which means that I need to stay small to stay safe. And it’s like, no, we got you as small as you needed to be to find your safety. And now let’s build your window in which you can still feel safe enough and you can navigate more of life. Don’t stay small to stay safe. Now the next phase is bringing in the repair so that you can build your
Emma McAdam (48:47)
Mm-hmm. That’s right. Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (49:11)
Capacity in these areas that your body is designed to have this expansion and this capacity building.
Emma McAdam (49:18)
Yeah, okay, I love it. That’s very good clarification. Thank you.
The Role of Somatic Work and Nervous System Regulation in Healing Trauma
So let’s go back to this. Like when we’re talking about healing trauma, people are developing all these biological changes in their body and their nervous system when they’re dysregulated. And if we want to heal, we have to get more regulated. What do we do, Aimie? What do we do?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (49:38)
Well, there’s…There’s going to be many ways to help regulate the nervous system. And that’s a really important piece. And that’s why it took me so long to write my book because it was like, no, this really isn’t just about biology. I need to show how somatic work influences biology. need to show how working with the different parts of you actually changes your biology because it’s all angles that we need to come from in order to have that ⁓ final effect of regulating nervous system. So for me it’s all about what will help regulate the nervous system. What will hinder the ability of the nervous system to be regulated. And if we’re just looking at biology, since we’re talking about that at this point, realizing that when I have low energy, my mitochondria are compromised either because I haven’t been taking enough magnesium or the other elements that are needed to make energy, I’m nutrient deficient. Well, that will create dysregulation because it sends a message to my nervous system that says we have to stay small to stay safe because we can’t actually make more energy. So any additional adrenaline and our cells are shutting down and saying, nope, can’t do that. So we’re looking at what aspects of our biology will help build that regulation or will block our ability to stay regulated. I find that somatic work
Emma McAdam (50:59)
Yep.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (51:13)
Can be some of the fastest shifts in our internal physiological state. But how do people stay there?
Emma McAdam (51:19)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (51:23)
Because once they get done with the somatic exercise, once they walk off their yoga mat, they’re back in survival mode, whether that’s stress or overwhelm. So again, that first phase is find safety because most people still don’t even know what that feels like. They’ve never experienced true safety. So that is your first step. Find it.
Emma McAdam (51:39)
Yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (51:43)
Our next step will be bringing in this biology aspect and the other aspects that will help you stay in that safety zone, stay regulated.
Emma McAdam (51:55)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (51:56)
And that’s where the bulk of the work is, is learning how to stay in that place so that we can be responding in the ways that we want to, so that we can be showing up in the world in the ways that we want to and not be back in our dysregulated responses of, oops, I’m overdoing it here or I’m underdoing it here.
Supporting the Biology of Trauma: Everyday Habits for Nervous System Recovery
Emma McAdam (51:59)
Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. So like where would people start? It’s probably like they could read your book I’m sure but where could people start?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (52:24)
That would be a good place to start. Read the book, Understand Your Physiology. And in terms of finding safety, that would be where I would have most people start unless they’ve already found their safety. And then let’s talk about the deeper repair tools. But in finding safety, how do we create a biology of safety?
For most people, taking magnesium is a great place to start. For most people, they are magnesium deficient. It’s the most common deficiency in the Western world. And yet magnesium is needed for over whatever it is, 30,000 reactions in your body every day. So if you are magnesium deficient, your body is definitely running on fumes and it’s going to be conserving energy because it can’t make more energy without more magnesium.
Emma McAdam (52:48)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (53:14)
The magnesium is a relatively safe place for most people to start and that would be a way that people can be very practicable about addressing their biology of trauma.
Emma McAdam (53:14)
Yeah. Interesting.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (53:25)
But then looking at their blood sugar levels, looking at what am I doing that creates more adrenaline for myself? And can I start to decrease that? I guarantee that as they start to decrease that, they’ll realize why they’ve needed that. And now we get to work on those aspects of that, chronic functional freeze showing up and learning how to work through that so that it frees that up and they don’t need as much adrenaline every day just to get through their day.
Emma McAdam (53:39)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Aimie (53:52)
Looking at their sugar, eliminating those things that will make your nervous system see signals of danger like high sugar levels, low sugar levels. These are all things that will cause signals of danger to our nervous system.
Emma McAdam (54:07)
Mm-hmm. Okay, so watching your sugar intake, basically.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (54:11)
Watching your sugar intake. Yeah. Eliminating processed foods. None of those foods contain the healthy elements that your body will actually be able to metabolize and digest in a healthy way. So move more towards whole foods, whatever that means for you in terms of, know some people are on a carnivore diet, keto diet, vegetarian, vegan diet, whatever works best for your body and make it be one that is truly nourishing and you’re not putting poison into your body.
Emma McAdam (54:43)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (54:43)
And even just looking at, then can you bring in air filter? Can you take the fluoride out of your water?
Having that toxin in your brain and in your neurons that’s causing signals of danger. What about sleep? Can we improve the quality of your sleep? I know that for many people sleep is challenging. All the more reason to make it an experiment and see I’m going to change this tonight and I’m going to do the same thing for three nights in a row and I’m going to measure and track how did this affect my sleep so that you can do the work to improve your quality of sleep because that is where so much of the repair our body happens is when we’re asleep. So if we’re not getting that quality sleep, we’re not getting that lymphatic flesh, we’re not getting the toxins out, we’re not getting that oxidative damage out. So antioxidants would be another key aspect of this. So oxidative stress is a very important aspect of how a biology of trauma becomes disease and even is passed on in generations.
So taking antioxidants increase your antioxidants and whether that’s vitamin C, that’s an easy way, that’s a cheap way, take more vitamin C even when you’re not sick. This is not about being sick, this is about addressing a biology of trauma. So take more vitamin C and just overall increase your intake of antioxidants. Blueberries and broccoli are some of the most powerful antioxidant foods we have. So eat more of those, eat more of those.
Emma McAdam (56:12)
Yeah. Bright, colorful fruits and vegetables. Yeah, usually have a lot of antioxidants. Huh. That can help decrease ⁓ that oxidative stress and inflammation,
Dr. Aimie Apigian (56:19)
Yes. It can help decrease the accumulation of a trauma burden on our biology.
Emma McAdam (56:29)
Mm-hmm. Interesting. Well, that’s all fascinating. can’t wait. I’m very curious to read your book. Haven’t read it yet, so looking forward to it.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (56:40)
I’m looking forward to having you read it and sharing your thoughts.
Emma McAdam (56:44)
Yeah, can you tell my audience where to find it?
Dr. Aimie Apigian (56:47)
Biologyoftrauma.com. So the book is called Biology of Trauma. They can find it on Amazon. They can order it there. I do have resources that go with the book that they can find on my website. So whether they purchase it on Amazon, they should still come to the website to get those resources. And that is Biologyoftrauma.com.
Emma McAdam (56:58)
Awesome.
Cool, that’s great. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you taking the time out of your very busy schedule to come share these things with my audience. And would love to keep talking for hours and hours, but we gotta wrap things up. So thank you so much.
Dr. Aimie Apigian (57:18)
Thank you so much Emma.
