Chronic Fatigue, Functional Freeze, and Depression

Welcome to Trauma Rewired, the podcast that teaches you about your nervous system, how trauma lives in the body, and what you can do to heal. I'm your co host, Elizabeth Christoph, founder of Brainbased.com, comma, an online community where we train the nervous system for resilience and trauma re patterning. And I'm also

the founder of Neurosomatic Intelligence coaching certification. And I'm your co host, Jennifer Wallace, a neuroseomatic psychedelic preparation and integration guide, bridging the powerful modalities of your nervous system and psychedelic healing spaces. And I'm also an educator at the neurosomatic intelligence coaching certification. Last week, we opened this conversation with our exploration

of burnout. And today we're continuing that conversation and diving a little bit deeper and also getting into chronic fatigue, functional freeze, and depression. And so we're joined today with our lead NSI educator, Matt Bush, founder of Next Level Neuro. I want to jump back in to looking at functional freeze and burnout a little bit more before we get into depression, because, jen, your story of functional freeze was so powerful and so relatable, and it's such an

interesting topic. Functional freeze, because there's a part of us that shut down, and there's another part of us that's still performing, that's masking to stay afloat and to survive, to keep functioning in our life. And so part of us is able to still show up and in many other ways, we're immobilized and we're disconnected while we're doing so. And I think that's so interesting to explore what's going on neurologically. How is that

happening and what's the cost of that on our nervous system? Yeah, so what we have to remember, I think, is that there's different parts of the nervous system that can be experiencing different levels of freeze at the same time. So, like, there may be a full emotional shutdown, like numbness to emotions, difficulty feeling

emotions. There may also be a shutdown of the interoceptive system, but you can still engage enough to take care of responsibilities when you need to, knowing you're gonna come back to that shutdown state. So sometimes when we just describe freeze as a first line traumatic response, we think of a full blown physiological freeze response, where I physically freeze, as well as emotional, mental. All of the parts of me are frozen, and it's very

short term because we say freeze to fight or freeze to flee. We're looking for another opportunity. I think at functional freeze, it's like this emotional and interoceptive system kind of stays shut down, but not physical. Freeze. I'm not immobilized physically. I can still show up for a call, I can still record a podcast, but I'm not all the way there. I am masking, and certain parts of

me are still frozen and kind of shut down. So it's just multifaceted, where parts are really down regulated and the brain is repressing them. Other parts, it's like, you have to show up because that's how you're going to put food on the table, right? You have to show up because that's how you're going to protect your family or protect yourself. So you don't. In some of those, we kind of feel like we don't have a choice, but the nervous system is still not totally

engaged. Like, even Jen, in your examples, you show up for the client or you show up for the podcast, but you're not all the way there. And, like, you know, you would acknowledge that. Sure. There's a lack of disconnection to the world, right. There was a misunderstanding of why I was in this state, because at the same time, life looks so good. Life is exciting right now, you know, like, it's all around really big stuff that's happening. And then all of a

sudden, like. And I'm so burned out, and now I've pushed myself further, and I do. We're going to get into chronic fatigue. So this is an area where we're getting into a lot of nuance between these different states of burnout, where our nervous system is really depleted, and we experience chronic outputs of fatigue and pain and exhaustion and functional freeze, where there's a real nervous system component of immobility and disconnect and perhaps

dissociation. And in a functional way, parts of our system may still be able to perform and to show up and be mobilized, while other parts of our system, the ability to feel and experience emotions, to stay fully cognitively present, to be whole and embodied in that experience, is not there at a neurological level. And then there's a whole other landscape that we're going to explore, which is depression, and the emotional and chemical components of that as well.

I think of these four, like, almost a Venn diagram with four circles that are kind of overlapping, right? Think of the four circles as being, like, in four different quadrants, you know, so everyone is overlapping every other one in some way, but then there's also, like, two that are right next to each other that are more closely related, maybe than one that's in the corner so the functional phrase is more of a short term state where I can emerge out of it when I

need to. Maybe then there's burnout where we have just a full emotional and physical exhaustion, mental, emotional, physical exhaustion, generally from over producing or over giving. And we often hear about that with work, but it doesn't have to be limited to work. Burnout. Right. You can have burnout from a relationship. You can have burnout from caretaking of another individual. You can have burnout from

showing up in social situations. Like, there's all types of different areas where burnout can occur, but it's basically this more long term state, more chronic state of exhaustion that comes from maybe over giving. And it's characterized more like cynicism coupled with fatigue and lethargy. I don't have a positive outlook, and I don't have any energy to contribute at this point. So often we'll lose our compassion, disconnect from our sense of empathy, harder to relate to other people.

Another way to say it is we become more selfdevelop focused in that time, I think, as a protective response. And we're just like, for lack of a better way of saying it's like, don't mess with me. Don't give me more stuff to do. Don't put more responsibility on my shoulders. All right, now I need to focus on me or I need to rest. I've been giving too much, doing too much, extending myself too far, and I have to gather my energy again in order to come back. So those two are

very closely related. Right. Then the third one is depression. I think your example, Jen, is a really beautiful example of the overlap. Do you want to flesh that out a little bit more? Because I think there's components there of both functional freeze and burnout happening at the same time. Yeah, for sure. Life has gotten big. Thank you to the listeners and NSI and trauma rewired, and we're

finding our place. We're finding ourselves. Elizabeth and I continue to step into places where we thought of in the future where we are finding ourselves living lives that we want to live. I find myself in a place that's really kind of cush a lot of days where I get to experience work and be outside and go on hikes and hang out with my dog and, like,

really create this life. And I find myself also times pushing against and asking too much from my system and pushing against my capacity and engaging in ways that aren't aligned with my energy sources and my energy field and not kind of not staying in my sovereignty and taking on the energies of the podcast and NSI and Elizabeth's drive is very

different from mine. And sometimes, as the mirror of that, I find myself not being able to create as much or keep up as much, much and do the doing of what she does. But it's honestly because I'm just, I'm not wired that way, right? Like, I'm not her and she is not me. But I can, I can push against that of myself and really self abandon myself in the realms of the way that I work and the way that I show up and not honor what my capacity is on

a fuel level. And so I'll start to burn out because I'll just ask too much of my system, and then I'll be like, to match her idea. I'm like, hey, let's do Instagram lives. And then I've got us doing Instagram lives for a couple of months, or doing something that's kind of extra in the load that the two of us carry as small business owners in the trinities that we both live in, in our businesses and in the overlap. And so what happened was I just started to burn

out. Like, my fuel started to really, my light got very low and I found myself engaging in a lot of caffeine type behaviors to fuel my energy levels. And I have a slow metabolic response to caffeine, so that ends up disrupting my sleep later. And then, you know, that just starts in another rest pattern. But with the functional freeze, I would setting my alarms. I had so many alarms that would set according to if I had to jump on a call. Luckily, we've, during this three week shutdown of mine,

we didn't have any podcast recordings. It happened on a break, and I ended up having to have my parents come out and support me because so much of my world had started to kind of crumble because I couldn't show up enough for it. I would be able to only show up in work, but I wasn't really showing up in like, cooking for myself, nurturing for myself. I would get enough energy to go out and pick up food or pick something up, or maybe I would just eat a little bit of fruit, or maybe

I would just eat a little bit of something. But it was all really small actions and really the bare minimum of what it felt like to survive because I just couldn't maintain it. And I was masking so much because it took me weeks, months, really, to get very honest with Elizabeth, to be like, hey, this is where I'm at. And I just had several breakdowns with her.

And the masking, it just takes so much energy, because it's just so much energy that's required to pretend like I'm passing, to pretend like I am getting by and that I am maintaining what I'm supposed to be doing. And it leads to depression, anxiety, fatigue, more burnout, and that more mental energy is required because it just gets harder and harder to maintain. Then fueling the burnout, fueling the depression, fueling the fatigue, it's all just this big

loop. And when the mask came off, I felt an immediate sense of relief just by being honest with her and telling her where I was, because I was failing and I was about to take, you know, thankfully, we weren't recording because I could have just, who knows? Right?

Yeah. Tanked. Totally. And thank you for sharing that, because I think so many people can resonate with it, and I being vulnerable, and we get a lot of questions around that because it is like you were saying, we have this big life that we want, and these things that do bring a lot of joy, whether that's relationally or business wise. And then there's a component of that, of honoring

capacity. And we recently got a question from a listener about. I'd love to see a podcast or information about being in functional freeze response, in business development and building. And I think that's really what happens there, is that we get excited and enthusiastic, and we have these big visions, and there's a level of nervous system capacity and being

able to honor that. And then when we think about burnout, thinking about that high stress state over time, constantly being at that pushing past capacity and the water level in the bucket, staying really high so that these protective outputs become. You're going to experience protective outputs from the constant dysregulation of the stress hormones and the effect that that has on the HPA axis, and just what happens to our bodies when we're under

chronic stress for a long time. And that can look like pain, migraine, chronic fatigue, shutdown, these chronic symptoms of a prolonged stress period. Add in a little analogy here that I've had to learn the hard way, because I've been through similar story to Jen's with some serious burnout around work and family responsibilities. But I kind of had to learn that business sometimes runs almost like there's a season for planting and a season for harvesting, and you can't be planting all the

time. It's like what we think from our grind culture is, I got a plant, plant, plant, and sow all these seeds, and then I have to work my butt off to make the, the seeds grow. But, like, that's not how plants grow. That's not how nature works,

right? Like, for reals, you plant the seeds, and then you leave them alone, you know, take care of the weeds every once in a while, but you have to give the seeds time to gather nutrients and water and sunlight, and then the growth happens on its own, and then you move into a season of harvest. Sometimes the harvest might be bountiful, sometimes it might be a little thin and scarce.

I. And those times can be a little scary, but you can't have success in your business and in your life at the same time. If you're always trying to plant all year long, like, there's got to be some time to step back and actually to harvest and appreciate what you've done, have a little rest, and then go back into another season of planting

at some point in the future. It's such a great analogy. And, you know, we take breaks from the podcast because the first time we ever took a break from the podcast, we couldn't believe how we were rewarded from it. So that became sort of, oh, we did that one time and we won. Let's do that. Let's rest. Let's show up and be the message, be the living work, and to resolve my state of functional freeze. And I'm going to get into chronic fatigue here in just a moment. I needed sleep for like,

weeks. I sometimes slept for like three days. Did not. It was like, impossible to open my eyes. Like, I couldn't have done anything else. And so I know we're going to get to some of the resolve a little bit later, but, you know, I also really identify with chronic fatigue as an output, and it's also an output that I feel like kind of got pushed on me also from having chemo and being a breast cancer survivor, because chronic fatigue, you really. It's a unique experience

that I'm sure some listeners will identify with. But, like, chronic fatigue is really, really, from an NSI perspective, it's an output of an overflowing stress bucket. It's a protective mechanism of the brain where we're in too high of stress for too long, and it can be linked to burnout and to adrenal dysregulation. But chronic fatigue is a condition characterized by persistent and overwhelming tiredness that lasts for

six months or longer. And unlike regular fatigue, which can be alleviated by rest, chronic fatigue significantly impacts daily life and often prevents individuals from completing their usual routines, maybe even getting out of bed. So I do think there was an overlap of some of this chronic fatigue in with my

functional freeze and burnout. And what I was saying about having the chemo and experiencing that level of chronic fatigue is that I have a very measurable somatic experience in my body of really understanding fatigue on that level. I can hit a point where I'm like, oh, no, this feels like breast cancer recovery. This feels like chemo, like I'm in the place now. And chronic fatigue can include, like, extreme exhaustion, sleep disturbances, cognitive

impairments, dizziness upon standing. And that's one of the outputs where I'll also notice it, headaches, which will present more. I'm not someone who really gets headaches as a protective mechanism. So I know when I've gotten a headache that I have reached a new level of the bucket. We're overflowing now, if there. If a headache comes on, and then there can also be joint and muscle

pain that someone could experiencing. And so, you know, treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome, it typically involves a lot of approaches, meditation, sleep, hygiene, activity management, rest, tons of rest, neuro. And there was emotional processing that I had to do to really pull myself out of this. And once again, I really had to come to terms with my capacity and recognizing our capacity that comes with its own grief and anger. Sometimes it's like, why can't I do this? Why can't I

do this and show up? But just, you know, like Matt said with that beautiful example, we do have to honor the seasons, you know, that we're in and really honor where we are at the same time. And just understand that with our nervous systems, there's so much overlap, and this can all happen at the same time. So parsing out some of these nuances, it can be really helpful on a cognitive

level. Yeah. Just really quickly, as you guys were talking and thinking about chronic fatigue, and Matt's example of planting the seeds and then allowing them time to come to fruition was just this idea, too, of, like, we can. And, like, me too, girl, like, you know, also, too, I'm someone that can get pushed into overdoing and over giving and have periods of shutdown and was really

glad that you brought all of this up. But we can be at such a deficit for rest and recovery and repair that that can build up, and our system just needs more time for that regeneration and healing to take place. Because when we talk about adaptation to stress, we always talk about, you know, athletes need recovery just as much as they need training. There always has to be a component of recovery. For the system to be able to positively adapt to stress, to be able to

grow from some. And so when we're constantly going and constantly planting seeds and then working, and working and working, there's never any time for the adaptation, there's never any time for the positive growth, whether that's in the business. If you think of the business as like a living organism or in yourself in your life. And so having that dosing of stress and training and growth combined with the time and the space to adapt. Yeah, and I think the depletion is

real. Like chronic fatigue and burnout are certainly outputs that the nervous system puts up to make a slowdown. But there's also an underlying depletion of resources, like with chronic fatigue, tying that into adrenal fatigue. Like we've literally given and given, and given so much that we've run ourselves dry. We've then operated on adrenaline and cortisol, like our survival hormones, and eventually there's nothing

left. We're either lacking the nutrients and the precursors to make the hormones, or the nervous system is just completely fatigued from having to run on overdrive all the time. And the crash of those comes from that depletion. It's like I just can't push anymore. And that's why it takes so long to recover. Jen's talking about needing so much sleep week after week after week, needing to sleep because one night of sleep is not going to recover.

Months of overexertion from, on a chemical level or at an organ or nervous system level from the body. It can be recovered. Right? Like, that's the whole message of today's you can recover from this, but it's not going to happen in a day or two, and it's not going to happen by just telling yourself to get back at it and push harder. It actually means like pausing to listen to your body and give it what it needs. Let's keep going down these nuances and

parceling things out. And let's talk about then depression a little bit, because the way that these things present are so similar, right? Like lack of emotional experience, lack of feeling, interest in things, feeling exhausted and depleted. And then there's also depression, which is. It's a little bit different. Yeah. Depression is more of a. It's considered more of a mood disorder, but it comes along with ongoing levels of sadness or kind of actually a physically depressed state.

There can be a loss of interest in activities, a change in appetite, greater levels of fatigue, difficulty concentrating, a lack of sleep, lack of libido. So a lot of stuff is wrapped up in this title of depression, but it's probably the area where there's been the greatest amount of research over the years. Over the decades, really. And there's a lot of different theories about what causes depression.

But when you look at the more current research, say, from, like, 2022 until today, just the last two years, what researchers and authors are primarily saying is that it appears that there's not one single cause of depression on a chemical level. It used to be thought, well, maybe there's a catecholamine issue, lack of catecholamines. This is way back, like, 80 years ago. Maybe it's lack of catecholamines, which are excitatory

neurotransmitters. And then it was maybe there's depletion of serotonin, which is the feel good chemical. And still to this day, serotonin reuptake inhibitors are the most prescribed antidepressant medication because there's this prevailing myth that low serotonin is the problem underlying depression. That's not entirely true. There are many different chemical causes. Okay? But that is still. Still often prescribed as a first line of treatment. But it's not just low serotonin that is

lacking there. Then there was, maybe it's low dopamine. And so we can talk about dopamine, mean depleted states and how we can raise dopamine. Very cool and interesting conversation. Then it switched over to noradrenaline. So now there's selective noradrenaline receptor inhibitors, or reuptake inhibitors, snris. So all of these different chemical causes have been targeted and tried to be treated by the pharmaceutical industry and by psychiatry. But the more modern literature is saying it's

not just one thing. So it could be a combination of these chemical levels in any or all of them can be off and can be contributing to it. It can also be an output, a protective output of the nervous system. That's saying, you know what? Maybe there's sensory mismatch happening, like we

talked about in the anxiety episode. Like, sensory mismatch can easily lead to depression, where if the whole world is confusing to my brain all the time and I can't figure out where I am, what's going on around me, am I safe? It's easier for my brain to just down regulate so that I disengage from the world, from social interactions, from relationships, and I lose interest. I become more fatigued, I stop moving. And it's almost like this inactive inertia takes over

at that point. So it can be protective in that way. So there's a lot of different contributors. But what depression tends to have that the other three don't as much is more connection to our mood and emotions. The one persistent common thread is that depression does include this downward or negative emotional feeling, this ongoing sadness or feeling of like, what's it all for? What's the point? Eventually kind of leads into some depressive apathy. That's the distinguishing factor

often with depression. So it may need to be medicated. There are some times where that's recommended, but a lot can be done with neurotools. To be able to reengage socially, to process stress and reduce stress that's chronic in one's life, to do daily neuro training, and then to reengage with movement and nature

as a way to overcome depression. Very interesting. Right now, there's a kind of a fringe field of research all about connection to sunlight, circadian rhythms, and overcoming depression that seems to be very powerful, very well grounded. It has not hit the mainstream medical world because when's the last time the medical world was interested in

nature? But it's out there. And I feel that it's actually very, very cool in looking at the way that different grades of sunlight and different parts of our daylight exposure regulate the chemical levels in the human brain far more effectively than medication. So anyway, lots of different stuff that could be addressed on that side of depression. Man, I really had something good to say and then I kind of lost it. So I'm just like, feeling so

bummed about that. I looked down to, like, look at one of my notes in this book and I just, like, lost it because I was, I was just really thinking so much about. It just hits so different to hear these breakdowns and these reframes. And I talked about it on the anxiety episode, like hearing the reframe of anxiety and like, feeling the relief in my body.

And I really love what Gabor Mate says when we're talking about this kind of emotional component, because he says that with depression, its original adaptive function is to distance oneself from emotions that are unbearable at a time in life when we want to experience them. And I think about what he says about authenticity and attachment, and I think about trauma. Complex trauma is the attachment wound. And I think about my own relationship to my mother and complex

trauma. And my Ace score, right? I have an ace score of four, which automatically is like a three times increase in depression when you have an ace score of four. And like, 42% of women have an ace score of 430 percent of men have an ace score of four. And so every time we get a point on the adverse childhood experiences, what that means is that we have an increase in the way that physical

symptoms could present for us in the world. Like our increase more likely to experience physical ailments, such as like cancer, heart disease, diabetes. So the higher your ace score, the higher of a chance you have to experience this. And depression, it goes up even if you have an ace score of one. So with an ace score of four, you're 3.6 times as likely to be depressed.

But, you know, when I think about going back to my mom and being a young person who was developing with a single mom who was under a lot of stress, and to feel not only like her nervous system, but to really feel and experience what she was suppressing and that we go into these automatic places. The brain goes into automatic places. And when we talk about neuroplasticity, you know, we get better at what we do, and our brain will make us better at feeling the

depression, at being depressed. And so when we've grown up and we've absorbed these grief stricken sights, the states of our mom's nervous systems or their dissociation or their terror or their panic, I mean, it's almost like as a child, we could even learn to mimic and mirror these responses from our primaries, right, to ensure our survival. So it's like depression has this also other way of kind of sneakily getting wired in there just to make ourselves relatable to the person that we base

all of our survival needs on. And, like, if the mother is suffering, the baby suffers too. It's so layered. There's so many layers. And as you guys were talking, I was just thinking about, as Matt was talking about all the different theories about it's this neurotransmitter or this chemical or this part of the brain and how that keeps

changing. It just seems like, again, there's just this over compartmentalization in a lot of healthcare where it's looking for this one specific thing to address when really it's a system wide dysregulation. It's the stress hormones. It's the way that the nervous system has developed and responded and how that affects the hormones, the neurotransmitters, leads to deficits, affects the different receptors. And all of that can, of course, be shaped by our developmental experiences, the way that we

are patterned, to respond, to connect to people. And then again, like we've talked about so much in here, it becomes this loop that feeds on itself. Because then the depression or the burnout disconnects us from other people, it disconnects us from nature. It makes social interaction harder. We don't have the energy and the safety to connect with other people. And we need

that at a nervous system level. Our sleep disturbances, the way that we are able to get natural light and have our biorhythms be set, all of it compounds on itself and comes at us from so many different angles, I. Think we're ready to talk about the social connections and the endogenous opioids.

So one of the things that both of you just touched on is the social component where Jen kind of talked about this insidious way that depression can be wired into our brain by mimicking someone that we're around, like our primary caretaker. And one of the best ways to overcome depression. I mean, if I had to pick my top three, I would do neuro training, I would do sunlight exposure and circadian rhythms. And my third one would be social connection.

And the reason for that is we have endogenous opioids, which means these are opioids that our brain creates, that we create them ourselves. So they're made within our human body, and they're basically chemicals that help us to feel better. They reduce pain, they increase pleasure. And we have opioid receptors throughout our nervous system. But in the research, people who suffer from depression or even suicidal ideation or suicidal attempts have decreased opioid receptors

in their brain. So there's less receptors to take up these feel good chemicals. On the flip side of that, like when we connect with people socially in a relationship, our opioid reception increases. We create more endogenous opioids, and we receive them because they pass from one neuron to the next, over and across the synapse. When we are isolated or abandoned or neglected, our opioid activity plummets. So a break of social connection can be a big driver of

decreased opioid state or activity. And that's been linked to depression in lots and lots of different research. So it's like, the more that we around people that we love and really engage socially, the more that the brain becomes awash with these opioids. Our receptors get more activity, and it reduces our pain physically, but also emotionally in that time. And so, like, Jen just introduced this idea of the said principle that we've talked about before,

that our brain gets better at what it does. So the more times we have social connection and derive emotional and physical pleasure from that experience, the more active those opioid sites will become. And they'll stay more active. It's like we're training them to turn back on. Okay, so training through social connection, training through nature, and training through neuro, those kind of all blend together. But the social piece is so big, I just don't think we can overlook it in

trying to rewire depression. And we see, you know, when people have, I mean, we see the coping mechanisms through the social anxiety episode that we just do, how people will engage in food and stimulants and drugs and in alcohol to create that felt sense of safety inside. And really they're just, we, I won't say they because I was part of that

too. Like, really we're just, we're really altering the way that our bodies sort of mimic because there is, let's just say, first of all, there's like a huge connection between addiction and depression. And that I think is this is going to kind of come off of that social anxiety episode because what happens is that substance actually drive more depression and drive more chemical imbalance, and it shifts those dopamine levels that you're talking about. And there are real, those real

neurobiological reasons for depression. And it's just like this. Once we bring in substances, it's this really downward spiral of using the substances to create relief. But what happens is like the drugs interfere with the way that neurons send, receive and process signals via those neurotransmitters. And so certain drugs like cannabis or heroin, it activates a certain, certain neurons and their chemical structure begins to mimic

that natural neurotransmitter. But it can't actually do that because although it's mimicking the brain's own chemicals, they can't activate the neurons in the same way as the natural neurotransmitter. And it leads to those abnormal messages being sent through the network, through our network, right? And so they're, all of the drugs are going to affect us really differently. Amphetamines and cocaine are going to prevent normal recycling of brain chemicals, interfering with transporters.

And it really amplifies and disrupts, they really amplify and disrupt normal communication between neurons. And so I just want to also, I feel it is my place, as someone who works in the psychedelic industry to just pause and say something right now. Like your serotonin receptors. This is the big push for psychedelics when we're talking about anxiety and depression. And this all has to do around your serotonin receptors. While we're here talking about receptors, your serotonin one a and two

b, they're like a yin and yang in the body, right? And so your yin receptor is that one one a. And that's what all of the western medication is targeting, that one a receptor which is passive. It's a calm state of being. But what western medicine can't do that the psychedelics, like acid, DMT, and psilocybin can do is that they activate the two b receptor, which is the yang part of that, of your receptors, and

that's the active serotonin receptor. That's the thing that makes you organizational and plan and I think for the future and think like, hey, we can actually do this and stay passive and calm at the same time.

So it's like both of those receptors are activated. I just want to say also right now, like, I don't believe psychedelics are for every nervous system and that you should work to prepare your nervous system for a psychedelic experience so that you can actively work with your body and its natural composition. So back to the dopamine, that neurotransmitter dopamine, you know, it's that reward and that also that reward, it actually drives addiction. Right? Because

we love that feel, good feeling. Got to chase that dragon, right? I think that's getting into much more heavy drugs. But I think, you know what I'm saying here. We're chasing a pleasurable experience, a burst of dopamine, a signal that maybe it's also the receptor or transmitter that says, you know, something memorable is happening, right? It's a signal that changes neural connectivity, and it makes it easier to repeat the activity again and again without thinking of it. And that's what

leads to these dangerous habits. And just like those drugs produce intense euphoria, they also produce large surges of dopamine. And that powerfully reinforces the connection between the drug, the resulting pleasure, and the external cues of the experience. And so large surges of dopamine teach the brain to seek out drugs. Behavior at the expense of it could be at the expense of your life, really, but at the expense of really healthier goals and activities instead of engaging

in. The tricky part is where initially the drug creates a really big dopamine response. After some time, our nervous system adapts to that and we don't get the same dopamine hit from the same substance. So our usage has to grow to get the same chemical response until it's to the point of addiction where that's almost uncontrollable, that we're reaching for that again and again and again seeking the dopamine hit. But then it's not coming. And depression often soon follows because the

dopamine has disappeared. We're now using a substance that intellectually, or maybe cognitively, we would rather not maybe be using. But the emotional pull or the rewarding dopamine pull is so strong that we continue to use it, even when that action becomes detrimental to our life, health, relationships. This is the real issue with cannabis, because cannabis users, the more they engage in cannabis, the more those receptors, they need the activation. So they need

more and more and more and more and more cannabis. And then, you know, luckily, it's 2024. People can get a lot more strain specific. But if you're. If you are seeking out something that's also depressing you, right, that's back to that dangerous loop of, this is actually a depressant that. And it's not. Once again, I found that pattern in my own cannabis use. It just took more and more and more, but yet I was never really coming out from the

depression. Yeah, I mean, I think that's a huge, really powerful overview of addiction there. When we're looking at getting our needs met through substance, that ends up further depleting us. And also the underlying causes there of having the neurological issues, the nervous system, dysregulation, and the developmental issues that lead to really needing alleviation from pain and dysregulation and

depression, and then with the social component, too. I just keep thinking back on all of season three and how much we talked about that real social survival need. And that can be really difficult for someone with complex trauma, because there is so much dysregulation and threaten that also comes with having those connections. And then we find ourselves in places of

depression. I loved the three things that you talked about, Matt. Neuro training, nature and social connection, as, like, the pathway to get out of some of these states, and maybe saying some of the nervous system training would be at the forefront of that, so that

the connection is possible. Right. So that I can start to re pattern my responses to expressing myself, experiencing intimacy, being around other people, being in social situations without that also causing such a huge amount of dysregulation and stress at a really physical level for my body and my nervous system. Yeah, we can use the neurodrills to regulate stress in that way and reduce the threat from our threat bucket. But

doing the neurodrills also produces dopamine. The other secondary benefit is when you engage in an activity that's movement based, every intentional, voluntary movement that's a little bit complex is going to generate dopamine and then if you're doing vision, vestibular breathing, integrated drills, sensory inputs, every time you do something that's a little bit challenging, and then you use the assess and reassess process that

we talk about. When you reassess and get a positive reassessment, that dopamine producing part of your brain goes, yes, I did it. And it gets the dopamine reward from the drill. So it's working on both sides of the equation to lower the stress, lower the threat that we have to deal with, and increase the dopamine at the same time. So I think it's totally possible to rewire and change brain chemistry with neuro training drills. It doesn't necessarily require medication. You can change

it. It's not an overnight thing. It takes a little time, takes a little effort, but totally possible to be able to do that. I think it is totally possible. And then, you know, when we talk about, you know, there's all of these overlaps with complex traumas. We've just finished the CPTS series in our mid season. You know, we have that attachment wound that

makes relationships stressful. It makes them threatening, and it leads and drives more loneliness and detachment and what the very cool thing about nature is like, yes, we have that component of neuro that you just talked about. And like nature, we are really made up of what you see outside. The microbiome internally is a representative. The microbiome that you see outside reflected. And the way that nature heals us is through so many components, negative ions releasing the vitamin D circadian

rhythm. But then also through your sinuses, through going out and breathing in the places in the green belt spaces that you live in, you are breathing in what you are made of. And your sinuses are the first part of that connection between our biome and the biome that we exist in. And so when we go outside in nature and we breathe what is around us, we are taking in the elements of what we are comprised of and then starting to balance and regulate to the nature that

exists within us and outside of us. It's one of the most beautiful relationships that you can secure for grounding and safety and new thought processes, actually. Inspiration. Yeah. I think for me, nature has been one of the most healing parts of the whole journey. And in addition to the very beautiful and complex ways that nature inherently heals us and that we are so connected, it's also a really safe way to start

reconnecting socially. And we've talked about this in other episodes, too, where, you know, maybe it feels really threatening to start to have these new relationships and be vulnerable in this new way. But we can go outside and we can connect to other living things, the trees, the earth, we can have pets, we can start to explore relationships that way. Those are other living organisms that we're connecting to, because healing, it can't occur just in a

vacuum. There does have to be a relational component to that. And while the neurotraining is so important, I also have to be careful of not using my neurotraining as a replacement to allow myself to stay in more isolation. I have to have this time for my neurotraining and do my drills and do my practices and actually letting that disconnect me more from other people and social engagements, growing and developing safety in

that realm as well. And really being mindful of like, yeah, use the tools around creating those new relational experiences, around being able to show up and connect with other people, process the stress of that somatically, and dose it appropriately, knowing how my nervous system responds. But at some point, there does have to be a relational component to that. And nature

is also a really great place to start with that. I think a point, too, getting back to the neuro, is that the neuro is what creates, that strengthens the interoceptive system we talked so much about in the anxiety episode and in that it really cultivates sovereignty, it really cultivates boundaries. And so that neurotraining practice, although it is like this physical thing that we do, it really moves into an energetic way, the way that we present and the way that we feel

in that safety. And it's like, if I can feel safety now, I can say hi, I can maybe ask for the support that I need or just engage a little bit more to get my needs met. And what it also helped me do was sort of identify where I was in my pattern so I could find myself, like, oh, I'm starting to. I'm in the grocery store and now I want ice cream. Do I want ice cream or do I need connection right now? Because I know what ice cream and the binge cycle represents for me as the

threat. So that's why I say that. Back to the social part. And a lot of times I can just pick up the phone, reach out, leave a WhatsApp message to one of my friends, and get a little bit more vocal about where I'm at. And that's all really thanks to the, to the daily neuro practice, the emotional stuff, the emotional processing and the nature, back to just like wrapping up those, those three that you said. And so then

theres also socioeconomic stress. Elizabeth, you want to talk to us a little bit about that structural trauma and increased rate of depression? Yeah, so I think as were talking about all this, its important to understand that this doesnt all just fall on an individual level. Its not just the way that our unique nervous system developed because of our complex trauma, but that we live in a society

that does kind of disconnect us from a lot of these things. And even, Jen, as you were talking about going out in nature, there's people that don't have access to green spaces that are healthy and positive for their nervous system. There's many ways that we have been disconnected from one another, where we start to find relationships primarily through digital means. And that

has a real impact on our nervous system. There's the constant stress load of socioeconomic stress, financial stress, and then big systemic stress of racism or oppression or gender bias. And again, as we were talking about all of these issues being driven by the dysregulation and the stress on the nervous system and how that affects our brain chemistry, our hormones, there are larger forces that are also there for people to contend with that make a real difference in our

experience of depression. I think that's one of the places where NSI makes a big difference. And for each person who's listening to the podcast and training and regulating your nervous system using some of the tools that Elizabeth and Jen talk about, here you have the opportunity to start to make a difference in your community, in your family, in your

social tribe, whatever that is. Like, there's a very interesting conversation that I hope we get to get to on a future podcast about how societal and cultural state translates into the individual nervous system and affects, like, my brain or your brain and nervous system, and then also how it translates back out and affects the larger society and culture. Because all the western research on neurology is individually focused. It's like your individual brain

neurons. There's only now becoming some researchers who would be considered on the fringe that are starting to talk about the holistic or the community nervous system, the tribe nervous system. That type of like, larger social regulation of our bodies and our nervous system and emotions have been around thousands and thousands of years, obviously, but it's never been researched in the modern, like,

western culture. So it's a very, very interesting conversation to talk about how the larger society does have an effect on the individual. Like, I perceive safe or unsafe, based on what's happening to my culture or what's happening to my people, what's happening to my tribe makes me, as an individual person, feel safe or unsafe, even if it's happening across the world.

And right now, as we're recording this, we're clearly seeing that with two different wars that are happening in our world, that people all over the planet are highly engaged with what's going on completely across the globe, right? So something can be happening to a group that is translating into a singular individual feeling, emotion, or kind of threat. And then as we regulate, how do we put energy back out that's going to affect the culture of the society

that is literally around the world? It's a very interesting topic, but I think what you just said all about that socioeconomic and cultural and structural stress and trauma, the more we can start to understand that, the more we can be the ones to bridge the gap, because even NSI and our neurotools have largely been focused on the individual brain. How do I regulate my nervous system? But the goal isn't just to regulate me inside of a

bubble. It's to regulate and then to share that with other people around me and to help them manage their threat and then to help the whole culture or the whole society change the way that it perceives and views some of these issues and then how we can respond to it. So I think it's, like, becoming the catalyst for that change so that those types of things can happen. I really like that, Matt. It's like the input, interpretation, output on the macro. Like, I really. I love that. I think that's a

great conversational idea. And, you know, like, for people out there who don't have access to green spaces or being outside, like, there are grounding tools that we can use outside. At least try and get yourself outside and get some sunshine. Like, do. There's lots of free things that you can do. And then there's including being on the brain based wellness site for two free weeks. Like, we offer that.

We offer a free course as an entry point, but, you know, there are grounding things that you can do through PeMF tools and grounding mats and ab belts. And I don't mean the ab belt that I'm wearing for my interoceptive system. I mean more of, like, red light therapy and all of this wellness, it lives on a spectrum from free to as much as you want to invest in your healing. And I couldn't implore you more to jump on and do some neuro with us and do some emotional processing.

Join the brain based wellness site@rewiretrial.com. and. And get some tools, get some resources. All of the links from all the entry points will be in the show notes. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered medical or psychological advice. We often discuss lived experiences through traumatic events and sensitive topics that deal with complex developmental and systemic

trauma that may be unsettling for some listeners. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. If you are in the United States and you or someone you know is struggling with their mental health and is in immediate danger, please call 911. For specific services relating to mental health, please see the full disclaimer in the show notes.