The Biology of Trauma® With Dr. Aimie

• Essential Oils and Nervous System Regulation: Using Smell to Heal Grief and Trauma with Jodi Cohen

  Why does the simple act of smelling essential oils directly regulate the nervous system during trauma and grief? How can practitioners support clients who struggle with feeling their bodies? What if smell is the most underutilized tool for creating safety and embodiment? Seven years ago, Jodi Cohen's 12-year-old son died suddenly in a car accident. Her 14-year-old daughter, about to start high school, needed her mother to stay present through the unimaginable. This episode shares Jodi's journey of daily choosing what helps and what hurts, discovering that smell became her most accessible pathway to nervous system regulation when everything else felt too overwhelming.  You'll learn the science of why our sense of smell is our most direct connection to the limbic system, how rose essential oil counteracts the fear response in the brain, and why smell allows us to titrate our emotional experience in micro-moments rather than getting flooded. This episode bridges functional medicine and somatic trauma healing for both practitioners and individuals navigating grief, chronic pain, or trauma recovery. Whether you're supporting clients through loss or learning to regulate your own nervous system, you'll discover how to use essential oils as deliberate cues of safety that shift your state without anyone noticing. In this episode you'll learn: [00:01:28] Jodi's Story of Loss: How her son's death became a daily practice of choosing what helps and what hurts while parenting through grief [00:03:08] Why Smell is Critical to Survival: The science of olfactory receptors and how rose essential oil counteracts the brain's fear response [00:05:27] Stories Follow State: Why shifting your nervous system state automatically changes your thoughts without working on the stories [00:07:04] Parasympathetic Blend Behind the Ear: How applying essential oils on the vagus nerve regulates sympathetic dominance during overwhelming moments [00:09:11] Flooding Shuts Down Problem-Solving: Why you must regulate your nervous system before you can think clearly or make decisions [00:12:36] When Bedtime Brings Up Everything: How stillness at night surfaces all the grief and feelings we've avoided all day [00:14:24] Creating Neutral Space for Dorsal Vagal: Recognizing shutdown and using oils to observe feelings without reliving trauma [00:21:05] Titrating with Smell: Using essential oils for micro-moments of feeling followed by safe action to build capacity without flooding [00:24:37] Fascia, Lymph, and Nervous System Integration: Why addressing all three systems together creates coherence and lasting regulation [00:27:16] Where to Apply Essential Oils: Finding the divot behind the ear, belly button, and feet for maximum nervous system regulation Main Takeaways: Smell is Our Most Powerful Survival Sense: Of the five senses, smell connects most directly to the limbic system because it alerts us to food, water, predator odor, and fire—making it the most critical sense for survival and the most underutilized tool for nervous system regulation. Rose Essential Oil Counteracts Fear Biology: Research on olfactory receptors shows that rose essential oil directly counteracts the fear response triggered by predator odor in the brain, making it a powerful tool for trauma healing and embodiment. Your Stories Follow Your State: Thoughts and narratives automatically shift with your nervous system state—when you're in calm aliveness you notice beauty, in stress you spiral with worry, in shutdown everything feels hopeless. Shifting state is often easier than changing thoughts. Smell Creates Space Between Stimulus and Response: Essential oils provide the easiest accessible tool to create that critical pause between what happens and how we react, allowing us to move from automatic survival responses to conscious choice. Titration Makes Healing Sustainable: Using smell to titrate emotional experience—feeling for 30 seconds, then shifting attention—builds capacity to stay present with difficult feelings without getting flooded or retraumatized. Go Slowly When Activating Parasympathetic: People who've been sympathetic dominant for years will start detoxifying when they finally feel safe. Start with just smelling oils before topical application to prevent overwhelming the lymphatic system. Fascia, Lymph, and Nervous System Work Together: These three systems are woven together like a marriage—the vagus nerve is the masculine aspect, fascia is the feminine, and when both are in harmony the body moves into coherence. Grief Requires Daily Practice: Healing from trauma and loss isn't about being fixed or finding one solution—it's making a daily choice to lean into tools that work, even when you don't feel like it. Coherence Creates Lasting Change: When you align the nervous system, fascial network, lymphatic system, heart coherence, and limbic system together, you create deadbolts on the door of safety rather than just one lock. Notable Quotes: "When you're flooded, it turns off your access to your prefrontal cortex, which is kind of your problem solving skill. And so you need to regulate your nervous system so that you can problem solve." "It's not like I am fixed or I found this thing. It's that every day I live with chronic pain, I live with hard things, and every day I make a choice to deal with it." "The nervous system, lymphatic system and the fascial network are all woven together. The fascia is kind of the feminine aspect of the nervous system and the vagus nerve is the masculine, and I think they're married and they work together." Episode Takeaway: The healing journey from grief and trauma don't require you to be fixed—they require daily practice of choosing tools that work even when you don't feel like using them. Jodi's journey through the loss of her 12-year-old son reveals why smell became her most accessible pathway to nervous system regulation: essential oils create that critical space between stimulus and response because olfactory receptors connect directly to the limbic system, allowing us to titrate emotional experience in micro-moments, shift our state (which automatically shifts our stories), and regulate before our prefrontal cortex shuts down from flooding. Resources/Guides: Jodi Cohen's Vibrant Blue Oils - Jodi's Parasympathetic blend (clove and lime) applied behind the ear on the vagus nerve, along with her Rose, Lung Support, Limbic Reset, Fascia Release, and Heart blends mentioned throughout this episode. The Biology of Trauma book - Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy Foundational Journey - If you are ready to create your inner safety and shift your nervous system, join me and my team for this 6 week journey of practical somatic and mind-body inner child practices. Lay your foundation to do the deeper work safely and is the pre-requisite for becoming a Biology of Trauma® professional.  Related Episodes: Episode 100: 3 Power Stories: How to Reclaim Your Mental & Physical Health Through Biology of TraumaⓇ with Dr. Aimie Apigian Episode 97: Pain as Protection: Why Your Body Creates Chronic Pain & The 3 Questions to Ask to Release It with Georgie Oldfield   Guest: Jodi Cohen is a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, functional practitioner, and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, where she creates proprietary blends of organic and wild-crafted essential oils designed specifically for nervous system regulation. After her 12-year-old son's death in 2018 and navigating her ex-husband's bipolar disorder and suicide attempt, Jodi discovered that essential oils provided the most accessible pathway to regulation during overwhelming grief and chronic pain. Her #1 bestselling book "Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the Body" (Random House) synthesizes decades of scientific research on how essential oils support the body and brain. She has helped over 100,000 clients heal from anxiety, insomnia, autoimmunity, and inflammation, and was recognized as one of the 2024 Enterprising Women of the Year. Visit her website and follow her on Instagram. Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian, double board-certified physician (Preventive/Addiction Medicine) with master's degrees in biochemistry and public health, and author of the national bestselling book "The Biology of Trauma" (foreword by Gabor Maté) that transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. After foster-adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she desperately sought for answers that would only continue as she developed chronic health issues. Through her practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, she bridges functional medicine, attachment and trauma therapy, facilitating accelerated repair of trauma's impact on the mind, body and biology. Disclaimer: By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical, psychological, or mental health advice to treat any medical or psychological condition in yourself or others. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your own physician, therapist, psychiatrist, or other qualified health provider regarding any physical or mental health issues you may be experiencing. Comment Etiquette: I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Please share and use your name or initials so that we can keep this space spam-free and the discussion positive😌

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• Understanding Your Relationship with Goodbyes and Closure

  What if your struggle with goodbyes isn't just about being emotional—but reveals something deeper about how you've been protecting yourself from grief? In this mini episode, Dr. Aimie Apigian shares one of her most personal stories about transformation: how her lifelong pattern of avoiding goodbyes led to carrying decades of unprocessed grief, and how learning to stay present through endings completely changed her life—and became the foundation for the 21-Day Journey. This episode explores the hidden costs of emotional avoidance, why goodbyes can feel unbearable, and how learning to feel complete with experiences is essential for moving forward without regret. Dr. Aimie vulnerably shares her journey from someone who would literally book trips to avoid final goodbyes, to someone who could sit with her dying friend David and ask the question she'd never been able to ask before. In this episode you'll hear more about: The pattern of goodbye avoidance: How Dr. Aimie would emotionally distance herself long before endings arrived, protecting her heart but never feeling complete with experiences The hidden burden of unfinished goodbyes: Getting busy, finding escapes, leaving early—even booking trips specifically to avoid being present for closures The grief underneath: Why each goodbye felt so hard—it was tugging on a lifetime of accumulated, unprocessed grief from every goodbye she'd never properly faced The embarrassment of emotional sensitivity: Hiding her feelings to appear strong and tough, then sobbing alone once she was by herself The pattern of depletion: Always wanting more, never feeling like there was enough time, never feeling complete—and how this connected to her inability to say goodbye David's story: Meeting an 82-year-old man who became a dear friend during the pandemic, and the decision to bring him home from isolation when he was dying alone The question that changed everything: "Is there anything you feel you need to feel complete before you pass on?"—a question Dr. Aimie had never been able to ask patients in her years working in general surgery The moment of transformation: Sitting with David as he held her hand over his heart, not bracing herself, heart wide open—becoming a completely different person than the Aimie who would've found dishes to do or papers to file The birth of the 21-Day Journey: How the specific exercises and sequence were designed in those final hours with David, born from the realization that if she could change this much, anyone could The commitment to not do it alone: Why Dr. Aimie designed the journey to safely guide others through their healing, just like she did for David—providing not just exercises, but the science and support so no one has to figure it out alone Your relationship with goodbyes reveals more about you than perhaps any other aspect of your life. Learning to stay present through endings, to feel complete with experiences, and to honor what's been while still moving forward—this is the gift of true closure. 🎧 Want more on nervous system healing? This week's full episode is Episode #144: The Perimenopause Revolution: Trauma, Transitions and Tools with Dr. Mariza Snyder, where we explore how perimenopause brings everything up for review—relationships, obligations, and patterns that no longer serve you. Just like learning to be present for goodbyes transforms your capacity for closure, perimenopause becomes an invitation to discern what matters enough to maintain your nervous system regulation in the second half of your life. Don't miss this powerful conversation about why everything you've been tolerating suddenly feels intolerable, and how to navigate midlife transitions with nervous system support!

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• The Perimenopause Revolution: Trauma, Transitions and Tools with Dr. Mariza Snyder

  Many women enter perimenopause unprepared for the brain remodeling and nervous system changes that make this transition feel destabilizing. For practitioners supporting clients through midlife, and for women navigating perimenopause themselves, understanding how stored trauma amplifies symptoms and shrinks capacity changes everything about this journey. This episode features Dr. Mariza Snyder, author of The Perimenopause Revolution, who shares her personal journey through perimenopause while carrying complex PTSD from childhood abuse.  You'll discover why stabilizing blood sugar becomes foundational for cellular energy, how the critical line of overwhelm shifts during perimenopause, and why brain inflammation during this transition feels like cognitive decline.  Dr. Mariza reframes perimenopause as an invitation to review what's up for change—relationships, obligations, and patterns that no longer serve your nervous system—rather than something to survive. In this episode you'll learn: 02:16 Why Blood Sugar Stability Is Pillar One: How stabilizing cellular energy through food becomes foundational during perimenopause and nervous system dysregulation 04:30 Perimenopause as Neuroendocrine Transition: Understanding neuroinflammation and brain remodeling during erratic hormone decline 08:14 When Executive Function Falters: Why women who effortlessly managed 100 tabs suddenly can't multitask the way they used to 11:22 Change and Stored Trauma: Why perimenopause triggers those carrying trauma—change means the unknown, and the unknown feels more dangerous than familiar suffering 14:18 Everything Up for Review: How perimenopause forces discernment about what you've been tolerating, prioritizing, and saying yes to 17:03 The Critical Line of Overwhelm Shifts: How perimenopause shortens your capacity threshold and why that might be the invitation you need 20:53 The Cake Pop Phenomenon: Why women operate disconnected from their bodies and how perimenopause demands new attunement 23:14 Progesterone, GABA, and Melatonin Decline: The alarming rate at which women lose these calming neurochemicals during perimenopause 27:09 Shifting State Through Grounding: Practical strategies like naming objects in the room to get prefrontal cortex online 28:34 The Five Week Midlife Reset Plan: Movement, sleep strategies, meal plans, recipes, and symptom trackers to create wins without overwhelm Main Takeaways: Cellular Energy Determines Everything: Blood sugar stability creates homeostasis that supports mood regulation, stress tolerance, and nervous system capacity—making it foundational for both perimenopause and trauma healing. Perimenopause Shrinks Your Critical Line of Overwhelm: Your capacity threshold shortens during perimenopause, forcing discernment about relationships, obligations, and patterns that push you over the edge into dysregulation. Brain Inflammation Mimics Cognitive Decline: The erratic decline of estrogen, progesterone, GABA, and melatonin creates neuroinflammation that feels like early dementia but is actually your brain remodeling for the second half of life. The Hundred-Tab Brain Stops Working: Executive function that allowed effortless multitasking begins to falter—it's a time your brain is recalibrating to focus on one thing at a time. Stored Trauma Amplifies Perimenopause Symptoms: Women with childhood trauma, hypervigilant nervous systems, and complex PTSD experience perimenopause as more destabilizing because change triggers survival responses rooted in the unknown feeling dangerous. Everything Comes Up for Review: Perimenopause forces examination of what you've been tolerating—work obligations, relationships, people-pleasing patterns, and the habit of prioritizing everyone else before yourself. Disconnected Demands New Attunement: Operating disconnected from your body (all cerebral, nothing below the neck) no longer works—perimenopause demands you drop into your body and form new relationships with its signals. Notable Quotes: "If we could just optimize, stabilize our cellular energy through stabilizing our blood sugar, we really set a great foundation." "We could have a hundred tabs open and manage them effortlessly. And then I remember the day where I was really having to effort because that level of executive function begins to falter." "Nothing is wrong. Stop trying to find something to do right now. Like, just be present in the moment." "I feel like a cake pop sometimes. Everything is just happening here and what's below my head, there's nothing below. You know, I'm so disconnected." "Perimenopause is a time for discernment, because everything is up for review. We get to work on the trauma because it's probably coming up for review." "The critical line of overwhelm—you have less of a line. It shortens. And I don't necessarily think that that is a bad thing if you can become aware." Episode Takeaway: Perimenopause isn't just about hot flashes and missed periods. Your brain is literally remodeling itself. Hormones that showed up predictably for decades now arrive erratically. For women carrying stored trauma, this feels destabilizing. Change means the unknown. The unknown feels dangerous. You don't know who you're becoming. You don't know what your capacity will be. You don't know if you can trust your brain anymore. Your nervous system responds the only way it knows how—by staying on alert. The critical line of overwhelm shifts during perimenopause. Your capacity threshold shortens. What felt manageable last year now pushes you over the edge. The relationships that drain you. The obligations you never wanted. The people-pleasing patterns you've carried for decades. They suddenly feel intolerable. Your nervous system no longer has bandwidth for what doesn't serve you. Stabilizing cellular energy through blood sugar becomes foundational because dysregulation multiplied by time creates the neuroinflammation that mimics cognitive decline. Women who operated as "cake pops"—all cerebral, disconnected from body signals—discover that perimenopause demands new attunement. Your body is no longer willing to be ignored. The invitation is to grieve your former self, accept your brain's recalibration, and choose what you're calling into the second half of your life with fierce discernment about what matters enough to maintain your nervous system regulation. Resources/Guides: The Perimenopause Revolution by Dr. Mariza Snyder - The comprehensive manual for navigating perimenopause with nervous system support, blood sugar strategies, movement plans, meal plans, and the five-week midlife reset. Get the book and access over $700 in bonuses at drmariza.com/book The Biology of Trauma book - Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy Foundational Journey - If you are ready to create your inner safety and shift your nervous system, join me and my team for this 6 week journey of practical somatic and mind-body inner child practices. Lay your foundation to do the deeper work safely and is the pre-requisite for becoming a Biology of Trauma® professional.  Related Episodes: Ep 166: The Body Keeps Score: How Trauma Rewires Your Nervous System with Dr. Bessel van der Kolk Ep 123: Light, Sleep and High-Impact Habits To Heal Your Nervous System   Guest: Dr. Mariza Snyder is a functional practitioner and author of The Perimenopause Revolution, the comprehensive guide helping women navigate perimenopause with nervous system regulation, cellular energy optimization, and practical strategies for the decade-long transition. With her own experience of complex PTSD and hypervigilant nervous system, she brings both clinical expertise and personal understanding to supporting women through midlife brain remodeling. Learn more at drmariza.com and connect with her on Instagram @drmariza. Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian, double board-certified physician (Preventive/Addiction Medicine) with master's degrees in biochemistry and public health, and author of the national bestselling book "The Biology of Trauma" (foreword by Gabor Maté) that transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. After foster-adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she desperately sought for answers that would only continue as she developed chronic health issues. Through her practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, she bridges functional medicine, attachment and trauma therapy, facilitating accelerated repair of trauma's impact on the mind, body and biology. Disclaimer: By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical, psychological, or mental health advice to treat any medical or psychological condition in yourself or others. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your own physician, therapist, psychiatrist, or other qualified health provider regarding any physical or mental health issues you may be experiencing. Comment Etiquette: I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Please share and use your name or initials so that we can keep this space spam-free and the discussion positive😌

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• Fear From Breast Cancer: How Two Mothers Reject 'Normal' & Find Freedom

  After treatment, Dirci was told by her oncologist to go back to her life as "normal." But as she steps into the cancer support groups, everyone is in fear of remission. Melanie received the diagnosis of breast cancer, felt the fear of if treatment would get it all, and decided now was the best time for nervous system healing -not later. She finds herself on the radiation table using her somatic tools and finding a calm and a freedom that surprises the nurses.  Many people receive cancer diagnoses without anyone explaining how stress, trauma and nervous system dysregulation create the biological conditions where disease can be welcomed.  For practitioners supporting clients through cancer treatment, and for individuals navigating their own healing journey, understanding the connection between stored trauma and physical health changes everything about experiencing freedom from the fear that accompanies a diagnosis, even after successful treatment. This episode shares two stories about breast cancer and the nervous system regulation work that became essential to their ability to find freedom during and after the treatment.  You'll hear from Dirci, a mother of twins who developed breast cancer during the pandemic after years of daily overwhelm, and Melanie, whose postpartum anxiety and childhood hypervigilance preceded her diagnosis.  Both women went where their oncologists said wouldn't make a difference—yet addressing their nervous system dysregulation became the missing, foundational piece for their emotional health. Their journeys reveal what becomes possible when we heal the underlying Biology of Trauma® instead of returning to the patterns that created illness. In this episode you'll learn: [02:01] Dirci's Story: How her sister's death, twins' therapy sessions, and daily overwhelm preceded breast cancer [10:54] When Doctors Say "Go Back to Normal": Why returning to life as usual after treatment felt wrong [14:09] The Moment Everything Clicked: Discovering trauma in her body through Dr. Aimie's interview [18:30] From Information to Embodiment: How the 21 Day Journey created awareness and presence in daily life [21:04] The Transformation Others Noticed: Looking better after cancer treatment than before diagnosis [27:02] Melanie's Story: Postpartum anxiety, rage, and hypervigilance that preceded her breast cancer diagnosis [36:04] Using Rage as a Pause Button: How anger became a coping mechanism to control overwhelming environments [41:45] Going Through Treatment with Peace: Using the heart hold on the radiation table instead of panic [48:26] Tools That Don't Wear Out: Why nervous system regulation practices remain effective years later [49:40] Healing the Next Generation: Breaking intergenerational trauma patterns by regulating your own nervous system Main Takeaways: Normal Was What Made Them Sick: When doctors said "return to life as normal," both women recognized that normal—daily overwhelm, hypervigilance, pushing through exhaustion—was what had created the conditions for illness in their bodies. Too Much Too Fast and Too Little for Too Long: Dirci's story shows how these two trauma patterns combined—sudden losses and daily therapy stressors—created chronic nervous system dysregulation that manifested as breast cancer two years later. Cancer Communities Can Create More Fear: Traditional cancer support groups focused on recurrence statistics and survival rates kept both women in fear states, while trauma healing communities offered a path toward joy and aliveness instead. Awareness Creates Different Parenting: Learning to regulate her own nervous system helped Dirci recognize when her children were in sympathetic or shutdown states, allowing her to parent from understanding rather than trying to change behaviors. The Body Needs Tending During Treatment: Melanie went through radiation and biopsies with peace by using tools like the heart hold and orienting—creating connection with medical staff instead of panic. Healing Tools That Don't Wear Out: Unlike other modalities that lose effectiveness over time, the nervous system regulation tools from the 21 Day Journey remained relevant and powerful for both women years later. Moving From Hours to Presence: Dirci shifted from feeling like she never had enough hours in the day to actually being present in her life—the essence of the healing journey.   Notable Quotes: "I knew that the way my life was happening was what put me into cancer. So I needed to find help." - Dirci Souza "I don't want to have fear, I just want to support my body. I would rather be working towards finding a path to feel joy and feel alive than to take a path that brings along the fear." - Dirci Souza "Until then, I had no idea. Didn't cross my mind. Trauma. Am I traumatized? For me it was just life. What I was going through and I needed to be brave, I was surviving." - Dirci Souza "I used anxiety to fuel myself. So I would keep doing whatever it is I needed to do. That's the energy I ran on." - Melanie "I could not have imagined remaining so calm and centered going through cancer treatment. I could put my hand over my heart right there on the radiation table. That was one of my favorite moments through the whole cancer journey." - Melanie   Episode Takeaway: When oncologists say "return to life as normal" after cancer treatment, they miss a critical piece: normal was often what created the conditions for illness. Both Dirci and Melanie's stories reveal how years of nervous system dysregulation—chronic hypervigilance, pushing through exhaustion, using anxiety as fuel—created the biological environment where cancer could develop. Dysregulation multiplied by time creates disease. Their diagnoses arrived after years of too much too fast combined with too little for too long. The remarkable insight: both women looked better after cancer treatment than before diagnosis. Why? They finally addressed underlying nervous system dysregulation, not just the cancer. Simple tools like the heart hold and vu breath created immediate regulation—Melanie used the heart hold on the radiation table and experienced peace instead of panic. Most powerfully, healing your nervous system heals the next generation through co-regulation, breaking intergenerational trauma biology that manifests as chronic illness decades later. Resources/Guides: The Biology of Trauma book - Available now everywhere books are sold. Get your copy Foundational Journey - If you are ready to create your inner safety and shift your nervous system, join me and my team for this 6 week journey of practical somatic and mind-body inner child practices. Lay your foundation to do the deeper work safely and is the pre-requisite for becoming a Biology of Trauma® professional.  Related Episodes: Episode 32: What are the Ways the Body Communicates Stored Trauma? with Dr. Aimie Apigian Episode 74: Why Stored Traumas Become Syndromes & Somatic Solutions with Peter Levine Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian, double board-certified physician (Preventive/Addiction Medicine) with master's degrees in biochemistry and public health, and author of the national bestselling book "The Biology of Trauma" (foreword by Gabor Maté) that transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. After foster-adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she desperately sought for answers that would only continue as she developed chronic health issues. Through her practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, she bridges functional medicine, attachment and trauma therapy, facilitating accelerated repair of trauma's impact on the mind, body and biology. Disclaimer: By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical, psychological, or mental health advice to treat any medical or psychological condition in yourself or others. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your own physician, therapist, psychiatrist, or other qualified health provider regarding any physical or mental health issues you may be experiencing. Comment Etiquette: I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Please share and use your name or initials so that we can keep this space spam-free and the discussion positive😌  

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• Understanding the Freeze Response and Brain Fog

  What if the brain fog you're experiencing isn't just tiredness—but your nervous system's way of disconnecting you from an unbearable reality? In this mini episode, Dr. Aimie Apigian answers a question from Rachel, a therapist in Seattle, about why the freeze response is associated with brain fog. Many people think of the freeze response as simply paralysis, not understanding the sophisticated biological mechanisms happening at the cellular level. This episode dives deep into the freeze response—when it happens, why it happens, and the brain inflammation that creates the disconnection and fog we experience. Understanding this biology helps us recognize when we or someone we're working with has a chronic functional freeze, so we know where to start with healing. In this episode you'll hear more about: The five steps the body takes to go into a trauma response—starting with activation and crossing the critical line of overwhelm The two reasons we cross that critical line: "too much too fast" (excessive activation) and "too little for too long" (prolonged stress without recovery) Why your nervous system decides certain situations are life threats—even when logically they're not (like being berated in residency or hearing hurtful words from someone you care about) The cellular biology of brain fog: How immune cells in your brain (microglia) unleash inflammation, cytokines, and chemokines that create the mental disconnection and fog The surreal feeling of freeze: Why voices sound distant, why you feel like you're in a daze, and why people around you seem far away even though they're right there Chronic functional freeze: The state where you're still functioning and going through life, but secretly wanting to hide, using substances like caffeine or food (especially histamine-producing foods) to push through Why anxiety is often your body fighting the freeze—using stress to stay out of shutdown, which is why relief from anxiety can sometimes make you fall into that heaviness The brain inflammation protocol: Specific nutrients and practices to keep your microglia in their resting state, including NAC, magnesium L-threonate, luteolin, GABA, resveratrol, and turmeric Ocular-cardiac reflex (eye support): A simple but powerful tool where gently pressing on closed eyes activates the vagus nerve for immediate calm Why starting with the freeze is essential—opening up the chronic functional freeze gives you more energy to dedicate to the healing journey Dr. Aimie's personal story of a biking accident and concussion—experiencing the freeze response firsthand as she regained consciousness on the sidewalk The freeze response isn't weakness or paralysis—it's your nervous system's sophisticated survival strategy when it perceives a life threat. Brain fog is always part of the freeze response, created by immune cells in your brain that help you disconnect from unbearable reality. Understanding this biology helps you recognize the freeze in yourself or others, and know that working with it is where healing must start. 🎧 Want the full conversation? This mini episode expands on Episode 142: Why Stress Isn't Trauma: How to Spot Overwhelm and Start Healing Your Nervous System with Dr. Aimie Apigian, where Dr. Aimie explores the difference between stress and trauma responses and how to recognize when you've crossed the critical line of overwhelm.

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