793_Dr. Aimie Apigian
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[00:00:00] JJ Virgin: Hey, I am JJ Virgin, PhD Dropout. Sorry, mom. Turn four time New York Times bestselling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, fitness Hall of Famer and globally recognized leader in health. I’m driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health. Into actionable strategies that help you thrive.

[00:00:27] JJ Virgin: I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here’s the fun part, when you send me your review, I’ll reply to you using My on Demand Virtual Me. That’s right. My team and I created a virtual JJ packed with my book Speeches and Wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here’s how you do it.

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[00:01:20] JJ Virgin: Here’s some people who, not many I’ll admit, say I sailed through menopause. It was no big deal, blah, blah, blah. Um, and then other people struggle, and then some people really struggle. And you know, sometimes it’s a head scratcher as to what’s going on. Well, there may be more to it that we haven’t ever even considered, and that could be the influence of trauma.

[00:01:43] JJ Virgin: And I am really thrilled to have back on the show Dr. Amy a Pigon, who is a double board certified doc. She’s, uh, double board certified in both preventive and addiction medicine, and she has a master’s degree in Biochemistry and public health, and she is the author of a new book, the Biology of Trauma.

[00:02:03] JJ Virgin: And we are gonna be unpacking that today, what trauma really is, how to know what it’s doing to you, if this is an issue, what it could be doing to you, how it could be the thing that’s been holding your health back, whether it’s autoimmune or hormonal struggles or weight, and why lifting weights is so important.

[00:02:24] JJ Virgin: Yay, I’ve had to sneak that in. Of course. And this all came through her own personal experiences. Um, she adopted a child during medical school. I was like, are you crazy? Dr. Rabey, uh, she had her own health crisis that made her start to, to dig in and go, what else could be going on here? What is going on at the biological level?

[00:02:43] JJ Virgin: And that’s when she really started to understand trauma. And that trauma really gets stored in our tissues. She is got a podcast, a YouTube channel. She’s done multiple summits on the biology of trauma. She has a practitioner training program and she has been helping people worldwide, um, heal from their trauma.

[00:03:03] JJ Virgin: And what you’ll hear today is that when you do this, you increase your capacity to be able to have so much more in your life. So I am super excited to have Dr. Amy with me. I’ve put together some of the show notes, the link to her book, her book bonuses, the the quiz that she can, uh, that she has that can help you assess where you’re at.

[00:03:24] JJ Virgin: That is all gonna be at jj virgin.com/b biology of Trauma. So make sure that you grab that and I’ll be right back with Dr. Amy Ian.

[00:03:44] JJ Virgin: Dr. Amy Pgan, welcome back to Well Beyond 40.

[00:03:47] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Thank you so much, jj. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

[00:03:50] JJ Virgin: Well, we had to have you on since you have your book finally coming out. Yay. The Biology of Trauma. Um, very excited about this and I think a really important place to start is defining what trauma really is because I think.

[00:04:06] JJ Virgin: For most people, myself included, until I took that, uh, the adverse childhood events assessment and I was like, oh, um, is that we think I don’t have any trauma. You know, I haven’t been through trauma. So, you know, what, what is trauma? How would someone know if this is an issue?

[00:04:24] Dr. Aimie Apigian: I get that so many times because even looking back at my own life, I would not have said that I had trauma as a child.

[00:04:31] Dr. Aimie Apigian: I don’t know if you would’ve used that word, trauma for your childhood, but it was not a term that I resonated with, and it wasn’t until I foster parented and then adopted, and I saw in my son all of these. Ways in which he kept his guard up in which he kept me at his distance, at which he prevented me from trying to love him.

[00:04:52] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And I realized, Ooh, I think I do the same thing. Not to the degree that he’s doing, but to a certain degree. And that’s when I started exploring and looking at, wow, I have patterns in my life today that actually show me that my body is holding trauma. And for me, it did develop into autoimmunity and weight gain and depression and anxiety and chronic fatigue.

[00:05:16] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And that for me was what the final wake up call was that I need to do my own trauma work. It’s not just other people who’ve had trauma.

[00:05:24] JJ Virgin: Yeah. I think when we think of trauma, we think of some massive traumatic event, not like it. I guess it could just be, I mean, what could it be? What, what, what could, ’cause I would assume one person’s.

[00:05:38] JJ Virgin: Trauma. Another person, it may not register on their screen.

[00:05:42] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Exactly. So for me, I needed a new definition of trauma ’cause I was the same way. And I’m looking at my child and being like, I didn’t have the awful childhood that my son had before I adopted him. And so looking at how the body experiences trauma was what changed it for me.

[00:05:59] Dr. Aimie Apigian: When I had been looking before at more of like the psychology and what brings me to a breaking point, I was still missing the mark. When I focused on the actual biology that happens inside of us, it made things so crystal clear and how the body experiences a trauma and why it’s different than just a stress is we have a critical line of overwhelm.

[00:06:22] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And once we cross that line, our body is going to go into a trauma response, which is essentially this immobilization, this paralysis. It’s more than just fear. It’s a level of terror that I don’t know if I’m going to survive this. I don’t know if I’m going to be okay. And as a result, the body shuts down and literally it does shut down from our mitochondria metabolism, thyroid, cortisol, it shuts down and we’re.

[00:06:51] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Left feeling exhausted. We’re left feeling heavy, and we’re left feeling like we’re just in a daze and in a fog, and having to push through not realizing that that is our body in a trauma response. So one of the key concepts in my book is this difference between stress and trauma. And so many people have just thought that what they’re experiencing with overwhelm should still be classified as stress, and it’s not true.

[00:07:16] JJ Virgin: And when does it go from, is it that it just crosses the line? Like you talked about an overwhelm line and I’m like, well, what’s the overwhelm line? Yeah. What is that? What’s that line? How do we know? ’cause I think I teeter on the line all the time and, and what I actually think I do is. If things are going to, if it’s everything’s easy, I, I do things to push myself up to the line.

[00:07:41] JJ Virgin: Is that a normal thing or am I just, do I need to like, move in with you? Tell me,

[00:07:46] Dr. Aimie Apigian: you know, this is a truth that I’m, I love that you’re being this honest with me because most people do this and just. Even don’t realize that they’re doing it or don’t realize the significance that it has for their body, jj, and it is true that so many of us are used to a certain level of stress.

[00:08:05] Dr. Aimie Apigian: We’re we’re used to a certain level of adrenaline, whether that’s from our childhood or also from our biology. ’cause we can have some methylation imbalances that create that inner state, and that’s where we’re most comfortable. So for whatever the reason, we have a certain capacity. And that capacity comes in terms of our biology, meaning how much nutrients do I have, magnesium, zinc, B six.

[00:08:29] Dr. Aimie Apigian: How much capacity do I have to upregulate my energy production when a new stress comes? But capacity is also my social support. Who do I have to call when I am in trouble? So there’s all these elements that go into capacity and essentially we cross that line of overwhelm when our sense of capacity is so small compared to the size of the danger in front of us.

[00:08:57] JJ Virgin: So then is the, before you get into that overwhelm, or is it just stress?

[00:09:02] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Exactly. It’s stress physiology that’s driven by adrenaline. Yes, cortisol is there, but it’s actually cortisol is to buffer the effects of adrenaline and protect your body from adrenaline. ’cause adrenaline is very harsh on our tissues, on our immune system, on our brain cells.

[00:09:18] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And so cortisol is there to protect it. And until we are in overwhelm, we are being driven in that. Activation state or the sympathetic nervous system that will upregulate our energy production and our energy utilization, meaning I’m using up my energy so that this is when we are actually superhuman.

[00:09:42] Dr. Aimie Apigian: You can see a mom lift a car off of her child. You can see a firefighter. Do things that they would nor never be able to do in the gym because they don’t have that level of stress driving that. So stress is a great state to have, which is why you and I and many others enjoy it ’cause we get a lot done and there is this critical line of overwhelm when our capacity just no longer matches what is in front of us to do.

[00:10:12] JJ Virgin: And so I would guess then that. You could actually, the more resilient people are the people who have better capacity.

[00:10:19] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Yes. And this is one of the things that I see in my work all the time. Many people come to me and they have no capacity for stress. Jj, the slightest thing. The slightest problem, even in email, a mail, a text message that they haven’t even read yet.

[00:10:34] Dr. Aimie Apigian: They just see where it’s coming from and they get triggered and they have no capacity for doing hard things, for feeling hard things. Wow. That’s why they need to lift weights. So it really is true. Like I, I, I mean, I think that you’re saying that jokingly, but actually, actually no, that’s so true because when you look at the word emotions, the whole last half of that word is motion.

[00:11:00] Dr. Aimie Apigian: So the more physically active we are, the more physically resilient we are. The more that our muscle mass is there to help buffer our physiological capacity, the more capacity we have for stress.

[00:11:13] JJ Virgin: You know, I remember, um, when Grant first got hit when my son was 16 and was in the, nearly died in the car accident where he got, was victim of a hit and run out walking.

[00:11:24] JJ Virgin: And I remember needing to go and do hit training in order to just get, like, release this energy. And then you look at animals in the wild and that’s what they do. They shake it off.

[00:11:40] Dr. Aimie Apigian: That’s exactly what they do, and somehow we’ve lost that. What we do instead is we sit in front of our computers and we stress, or we hold our phone and we scroll on social media, or we turn on the TV and sit on the couch and eat chocolate.

[00:11:53] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Yeah. Like that’s what we have done instead of moving through and moving through with our body just as much as our emotions.

[00:12:01] JJ Virgin: Yeah. It’s amazing. Well, when I think about times of poor capacity, like. And, and I think about my, when I was going through this, which incidentally was right during, right when Grant got hit, the whole thing happened at the same time where I started going into menopause of course.

[00:12:20] JJ Virgin: But that seems like that would be a time where your capacity would be really diminished. Um, and I just wonder, like you look at it and go. Here we have, you know, women saying, oh, my hormones are like going crazy. I feel this way. But could it be that their capacity’s going down and now the trauma, they don’t have the the capacity anymore.

[00:12:41] JJ Virgin: So they’re in a full overwhelmed trauma response.

[00:12:44] Dr. Aimie Apigian: That’s exactly what’s happening, and it’s fascinating to see that the hormonal changes will change our brain chemistry, which sets us up to experience more depression, more anxiety, and have less capacity. And so perimenopause menopause is a high risk time.

[00:13:01] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And also I will say that it’s a great opportunity to use those biology shifts to actually. Access some of this hidden trauma in our body. Serotonin is one of the key brain chemi, uh, chemicals that gets hit in menopause, and so we normally have this decrease in serotonin associated with the changes in estrogen and progesterone.

[00:13:23] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Well, so many women that I know, jj, their solution has been to go to their doctor and they get a prescription for a mood medication. Lexapro seems to be like the most common one. It’s just, oh, we’re just gonna start you on a low dose, help you out here with your mood. And yet at the same time, we’re putting them on a medication that’s only addressing the downstream symptom, not the actual root of what’s going on where.

[00:13:49] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Menopause. A time of hormonal shifts is a time when we are more sensitive and we could use that time to really look and say, I think it’s time to unpack this trauma.

[00:14:00] JJ Virgin: Well, how does one know, how does one know if it’s trauma or if it’s hormones?

[00:14:09] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Great question and. I think that this is something that you’ve taught from the very beginning.

[00:14:14] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Like there is no separation between mind and body. There is no separation between emotions and your physical health, and so there it’s just the body. We have the body and all of it ex. What it experiences, and when we look at even what we experienced early in life, whether that was maybe we were born premature or maybe there was stress that our mother was encountering while she was pregnant with us, or maybe we had illnesses or some other stress in our childhood.

[00:14:42] Dr. Aimie Apigian: When we can see that that is in some way still affecting us today, then yes, the hormonal shifts of menopause will exaggerate that by uncovering that this is still pain, fear, and overwhelm that our body has been holding onto

[00:15:00] JJ Virgin: well. So it’s, I don’t really know how you would get through life without having some level of trauma.

[00:15:06] JJ Virgin: It sounds like it’s just whether it’s pushing you over the edge or not, but wouldn’t you be better off. Getting through it, like unpacking it. And is that even possible to do?

[00:15:18] Dr. Aimie Apigian: You know, trauma becomes a burden that the body carries, and depending on the size of the burden will depend on the size of the, or the degree that it affects you in your life.

[00:15:29] Dr. Aimie Apigian: So it’s up to you and each person to decide, do I still wanna carry this or do I wanna put it down? Hmm. Who would wanna carry it if they didn’t have to? Lots of people, jj, and here’s what I’ve discovered. It’s all the people who don’t want to feel it. Feelings are scary. Feelings are hard. Feelings are awful.

[00:15:53] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And that is part of what happened when we experienced something that was overwhelming. It created feelings inside that are unbearable. We can’t believe what’s happening, and it creates these feelings that we don’t want to feel. And so we shut them down, we stuff them down, we numb them, we distract ourselves in order to not feel so those are the people that don’t wanna unpack it.

[00:16:15] Dr. Aimie Apigian: It’s like, I don’t even want to think about feeling. Those things that I know I would need to feel in order to heal them.

[00:16:25] JJ Virgin: So let’s assume that for a lot of of people, um, they’re just not even aware that this is a thing that they’re out there or even how to figure out what, what’s in there that’s really causing the problems.

[00:16:40] JJ Virgin: And then you go and do something and I’ll speak for myself, like I went and did therapy and. That was complete. Uh, like maybe it was just the wrong therapist, but I just saw this as the biggest waste of time and it just felt like salting a wound. Like I went, this is so not effective. Like, this is just, I don’t wanna come here and talk about these things, and this is not, I don’t have any answer to these things and this is not helpful.

[00:17:06] JJ Virgin: Is, am I just, was I a bad patient or

[00:17:11] Dr. Aimie Apigian: noncompliant jj or did I have like

[00:17:13] JJ Virgin: not the right fit therapist for me? Because I know some therapist are doing amazing work. Um, you know, yeah, maybe it just wasn’t the right fit for me. What’s the story?

[00:17:22] Dr. Aimie Apigian: The body needs very specific things to heal. And we have the science, it just hasn’t reached conventional psychotherapy yet, and it needs an integrative approach.

[00:17:34] Dr. Aimie Apigian: So much of what has happened is that we go in and repeat the story, and they ask us at the very beginning, like, okay, what happened to you? And we’re back telling our story. But when we tell our story in that way, we stay in our story. We’re just rehashing it. Like you said, uh, for my experience, it was more like stirring it up.

[00:17:52] Dr. Aimie Apigian: But without resolving anything. And the more that it stirred up, the more that it affected my health and I would wake up with more inflammation and joint pain, and my digestive system was out of whack. Talk about food sensitivities. It would be out of control when I would go into therapy, think that I had a great session because wow, we went deep into a story, but not actually resolve anything.

[00:18:15] Dr. Aimie Apigian: That’s why I ultimately left my medical practice because this was such a need that I saw that, that people are not getting the specific strategic, deliberate approach to what the body needs. And ultimately the body needs elements that will address the mind because we do need to address our psychology and the thoughts and the beliefs that we have about ourselves in the world.

[00:18:38] Dr. Aimie Apigian: But it’s also stored in the body muscle memory. I think even you had an experience with Joe Dispenza around, uh, trauma being stored in the body tissues in amazing ways that can be released. But a lot of what has still been missed as the biology piece, and the reason it’s been missed is because it’s kind of been pushed off into the health practitioner space, being like, oh, you have inflammation.

[00:19:01] Dr. Aimie Apigian: You need to go speak to your doctor. Not realizing that trauma. And inflammation are so closely connected, you can’t separate them. They need to be addressed together.

[00:19:11] JJ Virgin: Makes so much sense. And I mean, gut stuff. Oh my gosh. Like,

[00:19:16] Dr. Aimie Apigian: come on, like our gut holds so much, and it’s because of the direct relationship with the vagus nerve.

[00:19:22] Dr. Aimie Apigian: The vagus nerve is what comes from our brainstem and feeds into our enteric nervous system, or that whole second brain that’s in our gut. So it’s impossible to not have our gut be holding these emotions, holding the emotion of fear and overwhelm and terror. It, we will fill it in our gut.

[00:19:42] JJ Virgin: Okay, so let’s talk vagus nerve, because there’s, you know, now the whole, it, it’s starting to get to be really trendy.

[00:19:51] JJ Virgin: Yes. It’s Talk about the vagus nerve.

[00:19:52] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Uh, vagus nerve toning, vagus Yes.

[00:19:55] JJ Virgin: Toning base. So, so what’s the story with all of that? Is this one of the things that you could do to start to shift your biology?

[00:20:03] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Here’s the science about the vagus nerve that people need to know. The vagus nerve is just the train tracks.

[00:20:11] Dr. Aimie Apigian: It depends on which train is running down the tracks, and we can have the train that says, I feel safe and secure. We call that parasympathetic or social engagement. This is where you’re going to be in your best health and your best self, but that’s only one of the trains that run down that vagus nerve track.

[00:20:31] Dr. Aimie Apigian: The other train is the trauma response train. So the trauma response is communicated to the whole body through the vagus nerve. This is the train that will tell your cells, your mitochondria, your digestive system to shut down. And so that would not be the vagus nerve that you want to tone and strengthen.

[00:20:52] Dr. Aimie Apigian: But what happens to a lot of people is that if they’re doing breath work to try to tone their vagus nerve, or maybe they’re doing. Different humming or gargling, they can have some intense reactions and not understand it because they think, oh, I’m supposed to be toning my vagus nerve because it’s only going to bring me a sense of safety and security, and that’s not true.

[00:21:12] Dr. Aimie Apigian: When we work with the vagus nerve, it can also tap into the trauma that’s stored in our body and gut.

[00:21:18] JJ Virgin: Well, having been through a lot of meditation retreats, I have seen people releasing that trauma and it’s quite, I mean. It’s quite something. Like they have a whole medical team on board and people will be shaking uncontrollably, screaming, like, there’s a whole lot of stuff.

[00:21:36] JJ Virgin: You’re like, and I will tell you I look at that and go, well, I want that. ’cause I look, I go get better out than in, you know,

[00:21:44] Dr. Aimie Apigian: I want what they have. I want the outcome. Yes. And you know, this is where, I mean, I just, I love the science. I love to geek out on the science to really be able to see that the vagus nerve is what connects our emotions to our physiology.

[00:22:01] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And so when I am in a state of fear. In my daily life, I can know for sure that it’s affecting my biology, that it’s affecting my physiology, that it’s impacting my immune system, it’s impacting my metabolism. I don’t have to wonder, even if I don’t see it immediately, I know it’s happening underneath the surface, and so.

[00:22:21] Dr. Aimie Apigian: The importance of a person being able to know moment by moment throughout their day. Am I in a place of fear right now? Am I in a place of overwhelm right now or am I in my window of capacity that I’m doing okay?

[00:22:37] JJ Virgin: So someone starting out and wondering if some of the things going on with them. Like an autoimmune disease or maybe they’re really struggling through perimenopause, could be trauma.

[00:22:49] JJ Virgin: I’ve never really looked at this before. What, how would this process look like? Where would they even get started? And I know you have biology of trauma books, so I’m hoping it walks them through it. But like where, walk, walk us through what, what it would look like to go from, from, you know, unaware to. To a, in a healing journey.

[00:23:09] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Mm-hmm. It really comes down to the nervous system. The nervous system is how we got here, and the nervous system is our key out. And so whether it’s autoimmunity, whether it’s fear, whether it’s depression, the root is still going to be the same. Let’s focus on the nervous system and being able to know your inner nervous system state.

[00:23:33] Dr. Aimie Apigian: We have three states of our nervous system. One is calm alive, where we feel safe enough right here, right now. The other one is the stress response that we’ve talked about. You’re gonna feel activated. You’re gonna feel like you have a higher level of energy.

[00:23:48] JJ Virgin: And to be clear, that’s That’s not negative necessary.

[00:23:51] JJ Virgin: No, no. ’cause I think people hear stress and I’m like. It’s not negative. It could be Not at all. Yeah.

[00:23:57] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Yeah. I think, again, I think that a lot of people misclassify stress and trauma and they’re thinking it’s the shutdown, it’s the overwhelm that’s bad, but they’re just labeling it still as stress or even chronic stress, and so it’s just incorrect labeling of what actually is happening inside of the body.

[00:24:14] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And so the fastest way to shift someone’s biology. And emotional state is to learn how to shift your nervous system from either one of those states, overwhelm or stress, and back into calm, alive. The fastest way that I have learned how to do that with my patients is somatic work. So these are ways in which I can move my body or teach them how to move their body, uh, touch into different aspects of their anatomy.

[00:24:43] Dr. Aimie Apigian: For example, like. The neck that has the brainstem right there, like the contact right there can be very helpful. But just these neuroscience hacks, if you wanna call them that are body-based, that help a person shift their nervous system. What I see happening so often is people are still trying to just change their thoughts, but their thoughts are just a manifestation of their state.

[00:25:05] Dr. Aimie Apigian: They’ve gotta shift their state and then the thoughts will naturally change as well.

[00:25:10] JJ Virgin: So it sounds like. So we have calm, stress, overwhelm, however. Likely throughout the day, you’re gonna wanna be in calm and stress because you wouldn’t wanna be in calm all the time. You wouldn’t wanna be in calm, going to deliver a talk for 5,000 people.

[00:25:24] JJ Virgin: That would be

[00:25:25] Dr. Aimie Apigian: exactly the, the natural, healthy state is to be shifting between calm and activation or that stress and sympathetic throughout the day. And based on even our hormones, that is what we’re supposed to do. So when we wake up, our cortisol is high. Why? Because that’s a natural time for us. To be in a more stressed state because it’s when we’re more productive, it’s when we’re more focused.

[00:25:48] Dr. Aimie Apigian: The calm, alive state is when we’re wanting to be eating. We’re digesting, we’re relaxing, we’re connecting. And so those are the two states that we want to be in all the time. The problem is, is that how do we handle that stress? Like we were talking about, the capacity, can we stay in that stress and not cross the line into overwhelm

[00:26:09] JJ Virgin: and, and I guess part of it is also recognizing.

[00:26:12] JJ Virgin: When you’re getting there,

[00:26:14] Dr. Aimie Apigian: exactly. The closer that we come to that line, the more we wanna say, okay, this is becoming a little too much. Because as soon as we hit that line, our body is going to shut down in order to protect us. There is no amount of logic or willpower that can stop that process. It is more powerful than our mind.

[00:26:34] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And the challenge that a lot of people have who have histories of trauma is that they love to live right at that line.

[00:26:42] JJ Virgin: And so people like to live at that line. Is that more of a they? Is it kind of a is because that’s what they’re used to, it feels like.

[00:26:50] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Exactly. Familiarity is safety. Even if that familiar is chaos, even if that familiar is conflict and fighting.

[00:27:01] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Familiarity is safety. And so one of the things that someone will need to do if they recognize that that’s them, is slowly start to change their thermostat for what feels familiar. Many people want to change it immediately, and they wanna go into their house or their body and be like, okay, our thermostat has been set at 85.

[00:27:23] Dr. Aimie Apigian: We wanna set it at 70, and it’s too big of a jump. And anything that is too extreme, our body will say, I can’t do that. That’s beyond my capacity. I’m gonna shut down to protect you from doing something dangerous. And so instead we wanna say, okay, if 85 has been my normal, if this is the normal level of stress that I put myself through, I myself create, then what if I work on making it 84 this month?

[00:27:49] JJ Virgin: And how would you do that?

[00:27:51] Dr. Aimie Apigian: One of the things that people do is they create stress for themselves by having to rush. Maybe they make themselves late, they leave the house late, and so they’re having to rush to get to someplace on time, and that’s a really common pattern that people have to create the adrenaline rush that they like to have.

[00:28:10] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Other people will create drama, they’ll pick fights. There’s, uh, ways in which people will use music or food in order to kind of stimulate. Higher level of activation. It’s interesting though, JJ, because a lot of the foods that they will go to are histamine foods, so foods that are creating a histamine reaction, ’cause histamine will trigger adrenaline release.

[00:28:33] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Oh. And so being able to be curious about why am I doing what I’m doing? What, how does this serve me? And if the answer is well, it gives me energy, it makes me feel more alert, more alive, more awake. Well then there you have your answer that this is the level of stress that you feel comfortable and safe with.

[00:28:52] JJ Virgin: Now is some of this level of stress I, I would assume. And, and I’ll give you just a story. I think back to when I used to see people one-on-one. And I remember working with this one woman and it was a time I was a single mom under massive financial pressure. And I walk into her house and she is married to a very wealthy guy.

[00:29:16] JJ Virgin: She has one child who seems to be like, happy, everything great. Um, no financial issues whatsoever, no health issues whatsoever. Family gets along great. And she was over the top stressed out because she had to put on with a lot of help, mind you, a bat mitzvah for her child. And I remember thinking to myself, wow, like this is, this is creating this level of stress for you.

[00:29:50] JJ Virgin: This is amazing. And it was, it was, it was so helpful for me to see how much stress is just our perception of stress. So. Is it as you dump out the trauma, could you increase your capacity and move your overwhelm line? And because I contend when I look around at very successful people, they actually have things that most people would perceive as hugely stressful.

[00:30:15] JJ Virgin: And it doesn’t really bother them, and I don’t believe it’s because they’re just not feeling all these things and eliminating it. It’s just that their capacity has increased. Is that the case? Do I have it right or have I created something to try to feed my own addiction of liking to work on?

[00:30:33] Dr. Aimie Apigian: No, that’s exactly it. And, and we can see historical figures who have gone through incredible experiences and yet they seem to have navigated it with a level of grace that tells me. Wow. Look at their capacity to do hard things and to feel hard things. So there’s two ways to increase our capacity. One would be to remove the burden.

[00:30:56] Dr. Aimie Apigian: So by removing the burden, you create more space and space means that you have more energy. You have more capacity to do something else. So removing burden is one way to increase capacity. The other way is a way that you are also very competent and master at, which is building muscles, right? We build muscles for emotions.

[00:31:19] Dr. Aimie Apigian: We build muscles for doing hard things by doing something hard. We build our muscle to do the next thing hard. We build our capacity. By practice and by being able to see it as a practice. So many people that I work with are stuck in perfectionism, and that has been one of their ways in which they have tried to keep themselves safe and feeling lovable as if I’m perfect, and that will hinder their ability to practice doing hard things.

[00:31:48] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And so then they stay in exactly that situation. Like this woman that you worked with where she’s never developed the capacity to do something hard for her. Because it’s not felt safe to practice and fail.

[00:32:03] JJ Virgin: So, and it would seem like doing both of those would be the way to go.

[00:32:07] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Both of them is the way to go.

[00:32:09] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Yeah. And this is where we, again, we wanna combine the stuff that we’re doing with our mind, with our body, and our biology. Because if I can decrease the inflammation in my body, guess what? I now have more energy. I have a greater capacity to do hard things. So it’s not just the emotional capacity, it’s also the biology that plays into that overall capacity.

[00:32:31] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And the perception of our capacity is really what determines that critical line of overwhelm. It is not based on reality. JJ. It’s not based on reality. Uh, well, I believe we

[00:32:41] JJ Virgin: create our reality. So

[00:32:43] Dr. Aimie Apigian: we create our reality. Exactly. And so this is the, the perception, there’s actually a term for it that comes out of polyvagal theory called neuroception or the perception of our nervous system.

[00:32:52] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And that is what creates our reality, and that is what it measures. Against the danger in our life. So it’s not measuring it against the actual reality, it’s measuring it against its perception of reality. Both what’s going on outside of us and inside of us to decide do I have the capacity to overcome this challenge in my life right now?

[00:33:15] JJ Virgin: Wow. In, when I think about this, the, the one way I’d had to look at this, I, I think you have a better way now or, or an additional way because there’s. Kind of the standard is this adverse childhood events, which I looked at and I went, well, what happens if it happened after childhood? You know, it’s like, you know, does it not count anymore?

[00:33:36] JJ Virgin: I know It’s like, oh, not a trauma. It happened later. So, um, let’s talk about what that, what that is, the adverse childhood events and then how you would look at how you’d be able to evaluate. Trauma in someone.

[00:33:50] Dr. Aimie Apigian: You know, the Adverse Childhood Experiences study came out of the Preventive Medicine Department in San Diego, and that was one of the reasons why I chose to become a preventive medicine physician, was to be able to study that and be able to then use that for what I wanted to create in medicine, which was this field of attachment and trauma.

[00:34:11] Dr. Aimie Apigian: The Adverse Childhood Experiences study. Changed medicine completely by even bringing the topic of trauma into the conversation and where it is now. It’s still focused on what happened or what did not happen for you in your childhood. Which there are so many things that you just can’t quantify. There are so many things that a person will never remember.

[00:34:38] Dr. Aimie Apigian: They’re not gonna remember all of the subtle disconnections. Like my mom was busy and she was never able to take the time to actually sit down with me and look in my eyes. And yet we know that a child does not feel that they exist unless someone is looking into their eyes. But how do you. How do you ask that on a test, right?

[00:34:57] Dr. Aimie Apigian: That’s not what’s being asked on the adverse childhood experiences test, so what has it? It’s created this, again, almost like a label and a, and a diagnosis of, well, what’s your score compared to someone else’s score? And justifying the amount of problems and dysfunction and health problems that someone has when they have a high ACE score.

[00:35:20] Dr. Aimie Apigian: But yet someone like me who has a zero score, then you have a zero score. Why does my body seem to hold trauma? Wow. Right? Mm-hmm. So there’s obviously something that it’s missing. And that’s why I put my focus in my book on let’s look at what’s happening in your life today, because if your body’s holding trauma, it’s going to show up in your life today.

[00:35:44] Dr. Aimie Apigian: We don’t need to look to your past. How is it showing up in your life and your relationships and your health? Those are the three areas that I have people look at and look for patterns of trauma. Okay.

[00:35:55] JJ Virgin: And we’re gonna give everyone this assessment. We’re gonna put [email protected] slash bt for Biology of Trauma.

[00:36:04] JJ Virgin: Says you as you get the book, which we’ll also put the link to the book and all the book bonuses you have. But you’ll see that Dr. Amy has spelled her name strangely, so I’m not gonna use her name. ’cause then you’ll have to figure out how to spell it. Um, or differently. I’ll say just, yeah. Yes. Differently.

[00:36:20] JJ Virgin: Differently. Um, that’s super helpful because I did find that. Childhood adverse one. I was like, eh, you know. What about now? What about the things that we’ve been going through? What about the divorce and the financial and like those had to have left a mark somewhere along the line? You know,

[00:36:36] Dr. Aimie Apigian: they did. And when we think back on everything that we’ve been through in life.

[00:36:40] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And realize that our body went through that, like our physical body has been through so much in life and every single one of those experiences was another rock that it picked up another burden that it’s been carrying until we know, like you say, to to know how to put it down, how to release it, and be able to then create more space for joy, for connection, for love.

[00:37:02] Dr. Aimie Apigian: ’cause that’s what gets pushed out.

[00:37:03] JJ Virgin: Yeah. That’s why I like to say your body is a bank account, a chemistry lab, and a history book. It really is trauma and toxins. And really trauma is just is a toxin.

[00:37:13] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Trauma is a toxin. Mm-hmm. Yes. And it’s so toxic to the body that the specific changes to your metabolism and your immune system are ones that will stay for life unless you know how to repair them.

[00:37:27] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And that’s, that’s why I’m so passionate about this is that. People don’t have to live even with the health conditions and symptoms that they have just become used to living. We’ve normalized this as this is just part of the aging process and it doesn’t have to be.

[00:37:42] JJ Virgin: So I know that you, you have the book Biology of Trauma and you’ve been also training healthcare practitioners and you’ve got courses for, uh, the consumer as well.

[00:37:50] JJ Virgin: What if someone’s coming in with this, like, how quickly can they notice a shift in their biology?

[00:37:58] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Yeah, this is really exciting for me and this is what I studied. Because it started with me running an addiction medicine clinic, and these are patients who don’t like to feel uncomfortable. They’re used to being able to numb feelings very quickly.

[00:38:14] Dr. Aimie Apigian: So I had to create some way in which even they could be successful at safely, starting to feel safely starting to open up this trauma because otherwise their life was never going to change. So it became something that I practiced and I experimented and I studied, and I’ve gotten it down to a very specific sequence of somatic exercises or body-based rather than cognitive-based, body-based exercises that within 21 days has completely changed people’s lives.

[00:38:46] Dr. Aimie Apigian: They’ve been able to get off of pain medications that they have been on for over 10 years. They’ve gotten off of thyroid autoimmune medications. The 30% decrease in anxiety, 30% decrease in depression. Symptoms are standard, normal across the board. 26% decrease in daily physical pain, 28% decrease in digestive symptoms and sleep issues.

[00:39:10] Dr. Aimie Apigian: And I’m looking at these changes in their health, their physical health, and realizing. We have the tools to really change medicine. We have the tools to really change someone’s life, and I’m excited to teach these to everyone who is ready for that because I think that they should have these tools themselves and not have to rely on their practitioners.

[00:39:31] JJ Virgin: Yeah. Well, I think the only reason someone would be ready is they aren’t aware.

[00:39:35] Dr. Aimie Apigian: They aren’t aware and they’re afraid.

[00:39:38] JJ Virgin: Yeah, but I think it’s. More scary having that in you and not addressing it,

[00:39:43] Dr. Aimie Apigian: and I think it’s the lack of a real guide. If I’m expected to try to unpack this myself. Yeah, like I’m really scared.

[00:39:52] Dr. Aimie Apigian: But to be able to be guided through the process, I, I think at least for me, for a lot of my patients, that’s what made the difference to say, okay, I think I can do this if I’m not alone in doing it.

[00:40:03] JJ Virgin: Nice. All right. Well, we will put everything [email protected] slash bt. I know you’ve got, what, what are some of the bonuses people get when they grab the book?

[00:40:13] Dr. Aimie Apigian: They get a section of the book. They get different workbooks. They have a quotations of the most, uh, powerful quotes from the book. There are a number of bonuses. There’s $400 worth of bonuses that I’ve packed into notes, and I was like,

[00:40:26] JJ Virgin: I put you on the spot. What are you giving them? Yeah, there’s always. I love the, the books nowadays, ’cause you get the book and then you get like an entire, you know, training library alongside it.

[00:40:36] JJ Virgin: It’s so cool. So, and I know you’ve been working on this now for years with all of your summits and trainings and everything else, so you really are the preeminent experts in the world in the biology of trauma. So it is very exciting that the book is out. And again, jj virgin.com/bt and at the very least, make sure you jump in and take the quiz.

[00:40:57] JJ Virgin: Because I think that alone will make you go, huh? Time to start to look a little bit deeper and peel the onion. That’s exactly. So thank you so much, Dr. Amy.

[00:41:05] Dr. Aimie Apigian: Thank you so much, jj.

[00:41:08] JJ Virgin: As promised, one of the things that I’m doing after each show is really what are the action items for you now that you’ve heard this and.

[00:41:17] JJ Virgin: For me, meeting Dr. Amy has been super helpful in working through some of the issues that I had with being an adopted kid and, uh, kind of just holding onto some things of feeling unloved, unworthy, abandoned all the stuff, despite the fact that I had wonderful parents who absolutely loved me. You know, a birth mom who basically wanted me to have the best of everything, which is why she, she gave me up.

[00:41:47] JJ Virgin: I mean, all, you know, everything was as, as good as it could possibly could have been. And then I created my own story as we all do, like perception creates reality. And it has been a process to go through all of this. And, and it’s, it’s a process, I will say so. Couple of the things that could be helpful here is number one, taking that assessment to really look at beyond just what happened during childhood, um, what’s happening now that could be contributing or, or could be indicative that this is an issue for you.

[00:42:21] JJ Virgin: And then looking at some of the tools that Dr. Amy has put together. You can find them in her biology of trauma books. She also has courses that can help you make the shift. From being in an overwhelmed state to knowing how to shift between the calm and the stress state so that you can really get so much more out of life.

[00:42:41] JJ Virgin: So I’m gonna highly recommend that and, uh, because gosh, we only get one shot at this. Let’s make sure we, we are having the best time ever doing it. And then of course, the other thing I’m gonna say is it’s just another, another plug for lifting heavy things that. The more you do, the more you can do, and that when you go out there and do hard things like high intensity interval training, when you push it, when you lift heavy things, you show your body that you can, you can push yourself hard and recover and get stronger.

[00:43:10] JJ Virgin: So putting in a shameless plug for exercise as well. All right, I’ll see you on the next show.

[00:43:22] JJ Virgin: Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips, and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Also, I’d love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast. Here’s. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review and third text at 2 8 1 3 5 6 5 2 6 2 7.

[00:43:51] JJ Virgin: That’s 8 1 3 5 6 5 2 6 2 7. When you do, I’ll reply using my brand new virtual jj. It’s my on demand virtual self built from my books. Talks and years of experience so I can interact with you directly. You’ll make my day and I can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you on the next episode.

[00:44:17] JJ Virgin: Hey, JJ here, and just a reminder that the Well Beyond 40 Podcast offers health, wellness, fitness, and nutritional information. That’s designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

[00:44:34] JJ Virgin: If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional. Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid, or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes, the use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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