How does trauma impact the “hidden spaces” of our body, making emotions and toxins deeply connected?

Welcome to today's episode, where we're diving into a fascinating frontier of healing that might just explain why traditional approaches to trauma and chronic pain sometimes fall short. 

Whether you're a practitioner working with clients or patients or someone on your own healing journey, you've likely noticed that trauma and stress seem to leave their mark on the body in ways that talk therapy alone can't always reach. Maybe you've experienced or witnessed how emotional stress shows up as physical pain, or how physical treatments sometimes trigger unexpected emotional releases. 

There's a reason for this, and one reason lives in a part of your body that, until recently, has been largely overlooked: fascia and extracellular matrix.

Don't worry if these terms are new to you – we're going to break down these complex systems into practical understanding that you can use. What's exciting is that this knowledge bridges the gap between physical and emotional healing.

To help us understand this topic, I’m joined by my friend Dr. Christine Schaffner, a board-certified naturopathic physician and an expert in treating complex chronic conditions from her clinic in Seattle, where she uses innovative therapies that focus on the body’s natural ability to heal.

In this episode, we’ll explore:

• How trauma is stored in the fascia and extracellular matrix
• How fascia impacts everything from chronic pain to emotional resilience
• Why lymphatic health needs to be part of trauma recovery 
• Why a detox can cause emotional reactions 
• How to safely approach detox 
• Practical simple steps to support your body’s healing process that you can do at home.

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

What are common beliefs we form about ourselves that leave us unable to connect, trust and receive love later as adults?

Have you ever wondered why success doesn't automatically translate to feeling fulfilled? 

Or why, despite all our achievements, there's still that nagging feeling that we need to prove ourselves? Today's episode sharing an adoption story might just explain why. 

Today, JJ Virgin joins me to share a deeply personal story that is part of her reason for her remarkable professional success. In this episode, JJ talks openly about the challenges of growing up feeling like she had to rely only on herself, how those feelings drove her to professional success, and the breakthroughs she’s experienced that have helped her heal old wounds, become a proud mom and find love. 

Yet, this conversation isn’t just for those who have been adopted— though it will help you understand yourself better if you have and help you understand anyone in your life who has been. Rather, this episode is about recognizing the unconscious pain that we carry from our childhood. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How early experiences shape our beliefs about love, trust, and self-worth  
• The conundrum of relying only on ourselves 
• Simple ways to build trust when we haven’t been able to trust others
• How to better support those in your life who have a history of being adopted 

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

Have you ever wondered why you are so reactive - to people, foods, smells, sounds and stress - while other people around you seem completely fine? 

You are going in overdrive or even going into overwhelm, and think you just must be having a bad day or looking for what triggered you. 

The answer might surprise you. A specific cell of your immune system, mast cells, could be actually causing trauma responses in your body, putting you into emotional states, that have less to do with the people around you and more with a compound those cells release, histamine.  

Today we're tackling a commonly overlooked underlying reason for anxiety. We will be answering the question, How do mast cell activation and mold toxicity keep us stuck in our responses and triggers to trauma?

Before we dive in, I want to dedicate this episode to the loving memory of our guest Beth O'Hara, who passed away in July 2024. 

Beth was a pioneering functional naturopath who transformed countless lives through her work with Mast Cell 360, helping people understand and heal from complex cases of Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), mold toxicity, and related conditions. She was a friend to me and I am sad to not have more time and conversations with her.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How to recognize if histamine is driving your anxiety 
• Why mold exposure can keep your body stuck in trauma responses long after exposure
• How mast cells bridge your immune system and emotional overwhelm
• Why and how mast cells will block your ability to create inner safety 
• Practical tools to decrease reactivity and build resilience

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

How does mold and stored trauma in the body create a feedback cycle that makes us susceptible to the other?

Studies are confirming that common mental health symptoms, like depression and anxiety, are associated with brain inflammation. I want to share with you some two often overlooked sources of brain inflammation and emotional fragility, toxins from mold exposure and Lyme infection. More importantly, the feedback cycle that they create with stored trauma in the body. 

This is important because we have a mental health crisis with unprecedented numbers of anxiety, depression and related effects like, burnout. While we usually assume a person, place or situation is causing us stress, we want to consider the increasing amount of mold exposure and undetected chronic Lyme disease. Many are unaware of the association between the two and without knowing to investigate, get on a recommended mood and sleep medications that cause problems and are difficult to get off of later, and are addressing the real problem. 

My good friend Kirkland Newman, is my guest for this episode. She is a journalist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, who faced postpartum depression and couldn’t find answers in the traditional healthcare approach. So she did her own research and created Mindhealth 360 an integrative Mental Health website to be a resource on information for others also trying to find mental health solutions.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How trauma responses from adverse childhood events cause brain inflammation 
• How brain inflammation can pre-dispose you to a long-haul syndrome with mold or Lyme 
• What mold does to our nervous system to lead to anxiety and depression
• How we might know if we have mold or Lyme toxins
• How to approach our trauma work or therapy when we also have mold or Lyme
• The different modalities we want to integrate for therapy

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

Have you ever wondered if you have an addiction? Maybe you have openly struggled with one or know someone with one?

As an addiction medicine physician, there are more people than the studies estimate who live with an addiction, either because they don’t know yet or because no one is asking them the questions to have it be documented.

People pull me aside at social events and want to ask me if they have an addiction to their prescription pills for sleep, anxiety or pain or to things like work, exercise and adrenaline. 

I wanted to share this specific episode on addiction and its antidote connection because the risk for addictions is higher than ever. 

Our modern world - with increased isolation, social media dependency, and decreased authentic community - creates conditions that make addiction more likely. The increasing rates of anxiety, depression, and overwhelm in our society mean more people are vulnerable to using addictive behaviors as coping mechanisms. In fact, it is a hidden epidemic. Many people are "functional addicts" without recognizing it because society normalizes various addictive behaviors. This makes it critical for each of us to understand the underlying patterns that drive addiction. Whether it is to be mindful of our own vulnerability or to navigate recovery with better success than the traditional approaches, addiction is something we all need to understand now. 

I'm honored to share a powerful conversation with Joe Polish, founder of Genius Network® and Genius Recovery. Joe's journey from nearly losing everything to addiction to becoming one of the world's most connected entrepreneurs offers hope and practical wisdom for anyone touched by addiction - whether personally or through loved ones. We will be answering the question, “How does creating genuine connection and safety accelerate healing from addiction?”

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How addiction is a survival strategy to disconnect from the pain of stored trauma in the body
• The four essential pillars for sustainable recovery: community, biochemistry, environment, and trauma work
• Why unlearning harmful patterns is often more important than learning new ones
• Practical tools to move from shame into courage
• How to build genuine connections that will buffer us from an addiction and support long-term healing for those in recovery

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

What does it mean that our behaviors, conscious and unconscious, serve as state propellers, actually giving us exactly what we need in the moment, whether energy or numbing and disconnecting?

By answering this question in this episode, you will not only come to understand yourself better, and why you reach for that second or third cup of coffee or binge watch T.V. shows, but it will give you  new eyes to understand addictions and their recovery.  It will be a window into your own inner world and felt sense of safety or danger. 

We will explore emotional regulation and the states of the nervous system through the lens of addictions. One of the reasons I chose to become an addiction medicine physician was because of what I would be able to learn about trauma and the nervous system, and how the body adapts to survive and function despite inner pain. 

That is why it was important for me to bring you this episode with my friend and guest, Dr. Janet Winhall, an author, teacher and psychotherapist. Author of ‘Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why current pathologizing model for treating trauma and addiction is failing
• The important distinction between neuroception and interoception
• How behaviors and substances can be state regulation strategies 
• Why it’s important to include body-mind connection in addiction recovery treatment 
• How to connect with your body and allow yourself to feel without numbing or disassociating
• How chronic conditions may be treated with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model
• Practical strategies on how to apply the Felt Sense practice in everyday life

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

Why are empaths more susceptible to experiencing trauma than most?

Are you a sensitive person? Are you an empath with a more sensitive and perceptive system?

What is happening is that our nervous system is more sensitive, receiving information that others don’t, feeling things that others don’t, which means having an uncontrollable body response to imperceptible changes in the environment.

Like being in a noisy crowd and not able to turn it off, our sensitivity can lead to overwhelm. Which leads to the hard truth, while being sensitive may be a superpower sometimes, it more often than not is overwhelming for our system and causes a trauma response in our body. Pretty soon we can be having emotional meltdowns, or physical health symptoms that are embarrassing or ones that we think are random.

In this episode, I chat with Dr. Judith Orloff to explore the ways in which this can lead to a greater susceptibility to trauma, as well as how to embrace the unique gifts that heightened sensitivity brings.

Dr. Orloff is a UCLA trained psychiatrist and has been called “the godmother of the empath movement”. She synthesizes traditional medicine with cutting-edge knowledge of intuition, energy, and spirituality, and believes in the power of integrating this wisdom.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why highly sensitive people are more prone to trauma 
• The different types of overwhelming situations an empath might encounter 
• The hidden needs of empaths
• Why empaths are more vulnerable to physical health symptoms 
• How this level of sensitivity can actually be a superpower
• Practical strategies for empaths, like sensory inventories and boundary setting, to not just survive but thrive

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

What can we do about the brain inflammation that holds us back in fog, fatigue and trauma responses? 

To help answer that question and share brain inflammation with you is my guest, Dr. Austin Perlmutter, is a board-certified internal medicine physician, New York Times bestselling author, published researcher, and the executive director for Big Bold Health, a food-as-medicine company focused on helping people rejuvenate health through better immune function.

In the evolving field of trauma therapy, we're increasingly recognizing that healing isn't just about processing memories or changing thought patterns. The application of The Biology of Trauma lens is that it is just as much about addressing the impact trauma has had on our biology, which now keeps us stuck in our trauma responses. 

One crucial aspect of this biological impact is brain inflammation. It is one of the most common yet most overlooked gatekeepers of trauma healing. Brain inflammation creates many of the symptoms that people attach to their trauma responses, yet often is what is triggering those trauma responses. Yes, you heard me right. It is not just people, places that can trigger our trauma response. It is also a specific immune cell in our brain - microglia. 

In this episode, you’ll learn why:

• Good insights from therapy seem to fade by the next day
• Small stresses feel overwhelming to your brain
• What you eat affects how well you can process emotions
• Relationship conflicts leave you mentally exhausted
• Your diet can dysregulate you just as much as your partner
• Your mind feels clearer in nature than in therapy

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

As you know, this is a very special episode. We're both at the two year anniversary and the 100th podcast episode, and what a milestone. I'm even surprised and shocked at how much content I've been able to put out into the world through this podcast, and I'm very grateful and humbled and honored that I get to do that.

To celebrate this special episode, I wanted to bring in some amazing women around the world who have really been doing this inner journey and work with their nervous system. And I invited these three because they are both so unique and different from each other, and yet, they've all had incredible shifts and insights as they have learned about their nervous system and learned how to work with it, develop a very different relationship with their body and have tools for repair that has allowed them to experience more regulation in their life, and we're going to hear about how that's opened things up for them.

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/

Why should medicine consider trauma as a diagnosis of inclusion and not just when nothing else is found wrong?

The failure to recognize and treat the stored trauma that drives many patients' health challenges has profound and far-reaching consequences. It perpetuates a cycle of ineffective care. It worsens patient outcomes and undermines the overall effectiveness of the healthcare system. As a medical physician and also one who has been this type of patient, this episode and the Trauma-Informed Medicine Project coming out of this was really important to me. 

One of the key problems is that trauma manifests in diverse ways across multiple bodily systems, making it difficult to identify as the common thread. Patients may present with a range of symptoms such as migraines, chronic pain, digestive issues, sleep problems, and mood disorders. 

Rather than recognizing these as interconnected signs of nervous system dysregulation stemming from trauma, the medical system often compartmentalizes the symptoms, referring patients to various specialists to treat each one in isolation. This leads to a "medical merry-go-round" where patients bounce from one provider to the next, undergoing test after test, without ever getting to the root of their issues. 

Which is why I bring in Dr. Jorina Elbers, a board certified physician in neurology with a masters in epidemiology and former assistant professor and pediatric neurologist at Stanford University. She has authored over 25 research articles and book chapters, and really focuses on what's going on in the nervous system in regards to stress and trauma and how to recognize it. She is currently the director of the Trauma Recovery Project at the Heart Math Institute and runs her own trauma sensitive neurology clinic. 

In this episode, you will hear Dr. Elbers journey of how she discovered the critical link between trauma, stress, and neurological disorders. You will hear how she started asking better questions of her patients, uncovering stories of family trauma from her patients and just what to do especially when labs and tests show nothing wrong.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to ask better questions that lead to discovering the true causes behind seemingly inexplicable diagnoses
• What tools can healthcare practitioners integrate into consultations to uncover patient’s trauma history and why this is so important 
• The importance of including trauma in differential diagnoses, especially when conventional medical tests don’t reveal a clear cause.
• How to move away from treating symptoms on a neurotransmitter level and into treating the whole nervous system
• The autonomic nervous system and heart rate variability
• Medical trauma from procedures and treatments that actually contribute further to symptoms and chronic conditions

For more information and show notes, please visit our website: https://biologyoftrauma.com/biology-of-trauma-podcast/