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You're wasting time with "trauma work" without THESE Biohacks 🎙️ with Dr. Aleksandra Gajer by @jeroseland on 3Speak
▶️ Watch on 3Speak --- With Dr. Aleksandra Gajer, a doctor on the cutting edge of functional medicine, I tackle the topic of trauma work: tools, tactics, triumphs, and traps. Reclaim agency, health...
Tags: #podcast #interview #biohacking #health #trauma
I knew it was killing me, but I also believed that the monster I was drowning would overtake me if I stopped. I tried various ways of controlling it, always failing eventually. My fight against drugs and alcohol was all -consuming and exhausting. In moments of exacerbation, I cut my wrists and prayed for the courage to cut deep enough to let all the pain out. Luckily, I could never drive the knife that deep. That's a passage I found chillingly eloquent from a chapter that Dr. Alexander Geyer contributed to the book Triumphs of Transformation. In it, she lays bare her struggles with vice, and her long personal and professional path through traditional medicine to reclaiming agency, health, and happiness, by eight foundational lifestyle pillars, which we'll get into in this... wide-ranging discussion of the science of health and the art of transformation. I'm Jonathan Roseland, Dr. Geyer. Welcome to Limitless. You end up, happy belated birthday. By the way, you look great for 28. Wow, thank you so much. Yeah. So happy to be here. First question. Trauma resolution. in its various forms has broken through the mental health world into pop culture. Doing trauma work is now about as mainstream as going to yogurt. But might the man or woman going to their 12th talk therapy session be fooling themselves? their inability to break away from the pain and pattern of past to events that occurred years or decades ago when the cause and solution are, in fact, biological, metabolic, mitochondrial, and hackable. Yeah, that's a great question, and I think such a, you know, such a... deep discussion that we can have about the roots of trauma. And certainly, in the recent decades, trauma has become such a common thing to talk about. And most people can identify with some form of trauma or some experience with someone who's had trauma. For a long time, it was thought that trauma lives in your mind, that something happened, and you did not have the resources to cope. And then it said about these patterns that maybe were maladaptive and created a way of living that made life more difficult. But I think more recent research shows that a lot of trauma actually is stored in the body. and trauma can actually show up as cellular fear, which is another way of saying inflammation. And generally, there is some sort of triggering event or series of events that the body sees as a threat. And our ancient DNA, which for a long time responded mostly to threats, such as being chased by a predator, responds by... creating inflammation, bringing cells into the body that can potentially heal wounds, increasing blood sugar, and that physical response to trauma can lead to health issues down the road and can really kind of get stuck in the body rather than the mind. There was a book I read a while back. It was the tapping solution for pain, where you do, I forget the exact pattern, you do the tapping on your body, and it advanced the message that it was actually quite categorical about this, that all chronic pain was attached to... emotional trauma and it had a bunch of fantastic case studies of, like, really debilitating chronic pain going away when people tapped their way through some emotionally jarring, scarring incident in the past, but I guess I have a little bit of trouble buying. that because there are also mechanistic things in the body that result in pain and inflammation. And so I, I guess as a physician, this, maybe this is kind of a challenge you face, is that you want to, I suppose, strike a balance in between. that resolution of what happened in the past and addressing the biology before you and your patient. Absolutely. And I think it's both, you know, and if there was a clear-cut solution, you know, where we just... attack this cell and everything gets better, that would be really nice, but life, as we know it, is a little bit more messy than that. And I think it's, I think addressing, I think, you know, things grow in the dark. If there's something that happened in your life that you try to tuck away and never talk about again, that's going to grow and fester. At the same time, I think it's really important to understand how You know, the mind interacts with the body. And even if something feels like, you know, there was a period of great fear or great stress, and it feels all mental, there's definitely an effect on the body. And, you know, chronic pain, as you mentioned, is really interesting. And most chronic pain is really... You know, there are a lot of people who will go through multiple surgeries, try to fix it. There's often not a real mechanistic underpinning for that pain. The brain is just perceiving a stimulus, which for most people is not noxious or is not creating this sensation of pain, but the brain starts misinterpreting certain signals as pain. And, you know, I'm not exactly... I don't think you could tap your way. If it only was that simple, you do a few tapping exercises that it's all over. But at the same time, I think if you don't address both, if you don't have an understanding that something has changed in your biochemistry and, you know, one more surgery is not going to fix it, and at the same time, you know, you have to work through some things mentally and emotionally, but at the same time, you have to... you know, understand what's changed in your body and work with that as well. And do you have many patients that come to you at the gyre practice who immediately identify a psychosomatic emotional trauma connection to what they're dealing with in the health department? So I want to say yes. But I think it's a little bit more subtle than that. I often see people who are coming in with symptoms of not feeling well. you know, not feeling like themselves, so sort of losing themselves, maybe just being exhausted all the time, or living with a level of anxiety that's unbearable, or maybe it's that they can't lose weight. They're doing everything right, they're eating everything they should, and they can't lose weight, or they're not sleeping. So it may be a complaint like that, and then when we start talking about it, we start talking about their military service and what happened over there. and, you know, how maybe all this started after that, or maybe this extremely demanding job where they are working 80 to 100 hours a week, maybe, let's say, for a law firm, where they feel extreme pressure all the time. So, you know, there's... trauma that we think of, like, the big T trauma, which is child abuse, watching someone get murdered, you know, some, some, a real, a car accident where somebody else dies, and people have that, you know, there are people who have that, and sometimes I think that's almost easier to deal with than this sort of little T trauma or that... life circumstances that just wear at you slowly, that your mind and body isn't sufficiently resource to handle, like that demanding job or like maybe being in a relationship that's subtly abusive. I think that also really, it adds up, and it changes our hormonal milieu, it changes our gut microbiome, and can really change how the body functions. regards to the little T trauma, emotional trauma, it seems that yours of talk therapy is probably one of the more expensive and circuitous routes to resolving that. I'm curious if you know about like some newer trauma resolution tools that are More of a shortcut. And then I've got three to share myself. Okay, great. Yeah. So, I think there's, again, I think that at least bringing to light what might be going on is important. But I agree with you that there are times where people spend so much time talking about things and just, you know. talking and talking, talking, talking for every different angle, talking it out. And the data and the results are not that promising when it comes to that sort of therapy. Maybe it's supportive for some people, but in terms of trauma resolution, I think, you know, EMDR, which is a little bit more focused on eye movement and retraining the brain on how we respond to some stimuli, has shown some promise. I think internal family systems sometimes allows people to reinterpret the events of the past in another way. But I think somatic therapies, therapies that potentially... work with the body in addition to the brain can be very helpful, experiential therapies. Of course, everybody's talking about psychedelics now, and I think there's a lot of promise there. I think that is a very, and it's not a place where I have a lot of expertise, but I think there's a lot of promise in psychedelic therapy and unlocking the brain and the body in a way that... helps people move through some of these events. And I think that's the important part. What you're talking about is people who never move through, people who just stay in that place because it continues to feel sticky or, like, thinking that eventually you will talk through this in a way that it will feel different. And for a lot of people, maybe that never happens. But I think more experiential processes can be helpful. I'd love to hear your three as well. So I'll tell you a bit of a sad story with a happy ending. And I actually haven't talked about this a whole lot on the podcast. So I have conceived three children, but I only have the one, Phoenix, that you met, before we started recording. We had a twin pregnancy that we lost, what was that, three years ago. COVID might have had something to do with that. And then about a year after that, we lost... another pregnancy, and it was pretty well advanced. And so we were, like, hoping that would be our rainbow baby, they call it. But it turned out that Phoenix, who's now 7th months old, is our rainbow baby. And the day and the subsequent days after that loss were the worst. days of our lives. The, um, when she needed to deliver the dead baby, the, uh, social-like medical care here did a horrendous job of treating her and just put her through torture for about 12 hours. And so that was, that was really bad. Um, but being... Being a biohacker, after that happened, I said, okay, I gotta go down the research rabbit hole on the emotional trauma, because it was rough on me, but I know that that kind of loss just, like, hooks in really, into a really deep, deep, painful evolutionary psychology place in her. So, of course, I came across EMDR, and the downside with EMDR, as I gather, is that a lot of times it requires repeat, it requires, like, a lot of repetition of the therapy, doing, reliving of the traumatic event. And she didn't really want that. So I did some more research. And I came across Advanced Resolution Therapy, or it's often called A-R-T. And this is the cutting edge EMDR. And then I Googled it and was so happy to find that there was actually a practitioner about 15 minutes away from where we live here in... Sophia. That's part of the reason I really love this city. It has a couple of downsides. It's kind of an ugly city, but we have, like, actually, this city is, like, very on the forefront of a lot of the kinds of things I'm interested in. So, we went in for the ART therapy, which is similar to EMDR, where you've got... kind of this long thing with some lights on it, and she watched the lights and held onto some handles that were giving her some kind of tactile feedback, while the therapist walked her through things. And I think she ended up going for five sessions of that. And... I do think, I do think that that helped. I do, you know, a lot of, a lot of women, after going through that, they would say, okay, I tried the pregnancy thing, and horrific endings twice, maybe this isn't for me. But she, yeah, she found the courage. And now we have the... apotheosis of that in our hands, spitting up on us every day. So, yeah, if people are looking for the most shortcut biohacker edition of EMDR, looking to ART, and there's practitioners in many major western cities, and I hope I don't, I hope I didn't make you a sniffle too much with that story. Wow, gosh, that's really something, but I'm so glad that you've found that. That's really an incredible outcome, and I'm so happy for you, and Phoenix was so adorable, and I got to see him on screen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally worth it. Okay, next trauma hack is a neutropic, which is Methylene Blue. You're probably familiar with Methylene Blue. I am, yeah. And there's a study on methylene blue where they showed that it decreased fear attached to different emotion. And so that's pretty useful because, yeah, a lot of... A lot of, boy, a lot of what makes us dysfunctional in life or limits us is that we have a little fear trigger that pops up when we encounter something that echoes something bad that happened a long time ago. So, I put her on Methling Blue, and that particular effect on... fear, I don't have a vivid anecdote to share about that, but it's an anti-aging agent with such broad positive effects that we make it a point to take it every day. Then thirdly, and this kind of gets into art of transformation. And my website is limitless mindset.com. I registered that domain name 14 years ago. And so I've done all kinds of investigation and self-experimentation with every kind of weird, wacky mindset thing that you could probably find out there on the internet and one tool for transformation for identity. reprogramming that I find particularly effective is the epigenetic mindset meditation that was developed by Joe Dispenza. Are you familiar with him and his books? I am. Yeah, really interesting stuff. Yeah, so for the audience who may not have read his book, you are the placebo. This is a book worth... reading, and it delves into how to yield the power of the placebo, which is the power of the belief. The power of belief is the most proven thing in gold science, in gold standard science. And so he had developed over working with many, many thousands of conference attendees. a 50-minute meditation protocol. So you've got to sit down and take a little bit of time meditating. It's a little boring maybe the first time. You do it, but it's a thing where you swap out a old limiting belief or identity or expectation of the world. and then exchange that for something new and empowering. And, yeah, I found that to be real helpful when I kind of noticed myself in patterns that I really didn't like, and I needed to break out of those patterns. So I wish I could convince the whole world to do a 50-minute session of that meditation before paying another $150 an hour on the therapist couch. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you brought that up. I think being willing to shift your identity is so important. Because I think where a lot of people get stuck is they identify with the trauma. Perhaps they identify as a victim of the trauma, but they become, it becomes such a large part of their lives that they see everything in context of the trauma. And our minds are so amazing and so plastic in some ways, where you are allowed to change your mind. You're allowed to change your identity. You're allowed, you know, I think the process of identifying some of those limiting beliefs, identifying identities that no longer serve you, and being willing to change your mind. I love that you brought up meditation, too, because that has been a huge part of my personal journey. I'm doing a silent retreat this weekend. It's something that I set aside time to do because I found it one of the most powerful tools for training my mind to live the life that I want. And at the same time, I think... it influences so much of how our body functions as well. And I think we often underestimate, you know, we can overestimate the effect of trauma or, you know, be sort of overwhelmed by the effect of trauma, but those sorts of things like engaging in a longer meditation or developing those sort of practices, they can be so incredibly healing on so many weight, on so many levels. Okay, so talking about cellular fear and neuroinflammation, how do you know if you're neuro-inflamed? Right, so there's not a test that will tell you if you're neuro-inflamed, but, so most of... Our mental health treatment, and especially for depression, anxiety, and trauma has centered around serotonin, sometimes a little bit of dopamine. But nobody ever proved that people who are depressed, anxious. PTSD had low serotonin. We just sort of made up these drugs SSRIs that increased people's serotonin levels. And some people felt better. Others did not. But they often have a lot of side effects as well. And they certainly don't work for everyone. And I think the more recent research that's really exciting into the underpinnings of anxiety, depression, all those sort of... difficult states is about neuroinflammation. So I can bet that if you are suffering, if you can't break out of some degree of chronic anxiety, of daily stress, of panic attacks, of this low-lying depression, lack of motivation, there's some neuroinflammation going on in your brain, and this microglial activation is now a really promising... process and the research that we can address for people who are struggling with some of these issues, you know, and it doesn't have to be major depression where you're not getting out of bed. A lot of people are struggling with that low-lying depression, where it's just hard to motivate, where you sink into fear or sadness, and... The underpinnings of a lot of that is neuroinflammation, or that these microglial cells are activated in the brain and cause this sort of foggy, depressed state. You've written about people running off of stress, and I have to admit, that's me. Entrepreneurship is, it's not exactly a 24-7 thing for me. but I work every day of the week pretty intensively. I'm running biohacking experiments. I research and write every day, do calls with coaching clients, do sales calls, try to make time to exercise. I have a book launch in a few months, and I'm a new-ish dad. And so I like to think of this all as you stress. but the positive kind of stress, I mean, it feels positive, I'm excited about life, but I only get about 30 precious minutes of chill time a day for someone like me, and I know there's lots of people like me in the audience, neuroprotective neutropics, enough to keep up with this? So that's a good question. And I do think that everybody is a little different. And just, you know, going back to trauma for a second, the same event witnessed by two different people, they have completely different effects. You know, it really depends on... where you're at in life, how resource do you feel. There are people who maybe experience or go through something traumatic, but they're able to sort of move through it, and it's never an issue, whereas for other people get stuck in their brain and their bodies. And I think it's the same thing with high stress jobs and career paths, where there are people who are well-resourced enough and balanced that this... this feels good, and it's not causing significant consequences for your body. So are neutropics enough to sort of keep this going? I think that for most people, they find that at some point, especially as we enter our 40s, 50s, 60s, and beyond, perhaps what we were doing when we were younger is no longer sustainable, and there's some collateral damage from the stream of cortisol that's pouring through our veins most of the time. You know, I am a big fan of peptides. I think there are peptides that can help support people who are high achievers. In addition to some lifestyle factors, I think you, you know, just like you can't outrun a bad diet, you can't out-medicate a lifestyle that is deleterious to your body. So I think, you know, at some point people will have to consider a foundation of sleep. They'll have to consider how... activating the parasympathetic nervous system or that vagal nerve for even if it's five, 10 minutes a day, you know, but we, during periods of very high stress, whether it's positive stress or negative stress, your body is…
@hivebuzz: Congratulations @jeroseland! You received a personal badge! Hive Birthday! You are on the Hive blockchain for 4 years! You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking