If you've been told that your depression is a life sentence, or you've found medications lacking in the magic they promised, then this is the conversation for you. We're putting under the microscope the flawed logic that has perpetuated the chemical imbalance narrative and unpacking why depression can't be pinned down to a single cause. Dive into the significance of nervous system regulation, the groundbreaking polyvagal theory, and discover how the vagus nerve could hold the key to unlocking a brighter, more stable mood. It's not just about challenging outdated ideas; it's about embracing new, transformative strategies for growth and healing.
resources used for the podcast are cited below:
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392&type=printable
https://therapist.com/brain-and-body/polyvagal-theory/
interested in SHIFT? Want a free call with EMYLEE? Grab a spot for a free call here
Find more information and Free resources HERE:
https://hernextstep.limitlessfemalecoaching.com/landing-page-her-next-step
Have a question about the program or something you want answered on the podcast? Come chat with me on instagram!
@Limitlessfemale
If you've been told that your depression is a life sentence, or you've found medications lacking in the magic they promised, then this is the conversation for you. We're putting under the microscope the flawed logic that has perpetuated the chemical imbalance narrative and unpacking why depression can't be pinned down to a single cause. Dive into the significance of nervous system regulation, the groundbreaking polyvagal theory, and discover how the vagus nerve could hold the key to unlocking a brighter, more stable mood. It's not just about challenging outdated ideas; it's about embracing new, transformative strategies for growth and healing.
resources used for the podcast are cited below:
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392&type=printable
https://therapist.com/brain-and-body/polyvagal-theory/
interested in SHIFT? Want a free call with EMYLEE? Grab a spot for a free call here
Find more information and Free resources HERE:
https://hernextstep.limitlessfemalecoaching.com/landing-page-her-next-step
Have a question about the program or something you want answered on the podcast? Come chat with me on instagram!
@Limitlessfemale
Hi, I'm Emily with the Limitless Female Podcast. You're listening to episode 131, the Chemical Imbalance Theory Woman, welcome. If you're a mama who is feeling all the feels of motherhood the ups and downs of hormones and maybe even depression then you are in the right place. Limitless Female is your confident inner voice, helping you master your mood and create the epic life that calls you. My goal is to show you just how enough you are, so you can show up limitless in your own life. Let's get started. Good morning, good morning friends. I am so happy to be here with you guys today. You guys are going to love what we talk about today. I think it's going to be very eyeopening and if you have any friends and family who struggle with their mood in any way, it doesn't even have to be something that's been diagnosed as depression or anxiety they need to hear this. This is really really interesting.
Speaker 1:This information changed the way I approach my mental health, my emotional health, my physical, my chronic illnesses, because it's all root cause. Okay, and I am very, you know, I'm both right and left brain. I'm creative, but I also love facts. I never really gravitated toward manifesting or like the secret or things like that, one of the reasons I love life coaching and the type that I do is because it's neuroscience based. Okay, so I felt like the type of coaching I was doing was based on a formula that felt very similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, with some huge differences that make it safe for a coach to do, but I feel like being informed to help you basically rewire your brain but then also rewire your nervous system. Regulate and rewire your nervous system.
Speaker 1:There are two huge parts, because one is top-down. When we're talking about your thinking, we're talking about cognitively how do you interpret the world? Okay, and many of us don't even slow down or notice our thoughts. Thoughts come so quickly and we have so many that most of us encounter a situation and feel a certain way, and so we attribute our feelings to the world around us. Okay, now, that's the top down approach, right, stopping and noticing that before a feeling, there comes a thought. Your brain is offering you some kind of thought, whether you're used to it, whether somebody told you it, whether you're familiar with that thought or it feels very true to you. It's a belief. We all have thoughts. So looking at thoughts, doing thought work, is a top-down approach. But there's also the bottom-up approach and we're talking about the body. Your body receives cues all the time that color your thoughts. I want you guys to think about your body and the information it's giving your brain as, like the flavor of ice cream, it flavors your thoughts, okay. So if you're really familiar with overwhelm, if you've felt overwhelmed a lot in your life and you're used to it, it might not even be that you're really used to a thought that creates overwhelm, but it might be that when you experience your kids yelling at you, your body is coloring your thoughts right Before you even get to the thinking part. Your body remembers, okay, and this is your nervous system. This is what we're talking about when we say regulate your nervous system. So we're going to get into that more.
Speaker 1:But what I really want to talk to you guys about today is the myth or the what's the word I'm looking for Legend of the chemical imbalance theory, legend of the chemical imbalance theory, and I want to put it next to the polyvagal theory. Okay, and I bet that a lot of you are going to be like I've sort of knew this. I, I kind of felt this way, but I never knew how to put it into words. I didn't know that there was science behind it. And I really want to not just coach you guys but also offer you education around emotional health, because I think sometimes we put a lot of stock in the wrong places, in the wrong cures, if you will right In the wrong areas in trying to feel better. And I don't want to tell you guys what to do, but I do want to educate you. I do want to tell you the things that I'm learning that are helping my clients and I think are really, really going to help you.
Speaker 1:So first let's talk about the idea of healing your depression. When I say this, I get some pushback, not from my own clients, not from my people, but when I put it on an ad on Facebook, when I put the word heal anywhere near depression anxiety, people feel very threatened. And I understand why. Okay, I understand why. Because your whole life you've gone to the doctor and no one's ever said this will heal your depression. Okay, the idea was that you would be on that medication forever. Now, in recent past, I feel like doctors say, like you can try and wean off of it if you want, but I've never heard a doctor offer to me that I could heal my depression. And I understand why Because medication is not the way to heal depression. In fact, if you guys think about it, depression is not a diagnosis, but a bundle of symptoms. You are depressed, you are experiencing depression. When we say that as a diagnosis, we are not explaining where it's coming from. Depression is not explaining where it's coming from. Okay, depression is not explaining where it's coming from.
Speaker 1:Now, you may have heard the word chemical imbalance and then you thought, okay, that's the reason that I have depression. I just have a chemical imbalance. And we got this idea from a lot of pharmaceutical companies creating commercials. If you guys think of like the Zoloft commercial with, like the little round guy that's bumping around and like has a sad face and is not enjoying himself. They use the word chemical imbalance like 20 times in that commercial. So I think it was a really simplistic way of encouraging patients and people and consumers to continue to consume medication.
Speaker 1:Now I first want to preface, before I get further into this, that I am not against medication. In fact, I am on medication for depression. Okay, I'm really grateful for it, but I didn't advocate for myself. I didn't continue to find the way to heal and the way to keep feeling better and tools to improve my mood and regulate my nervous system and rewire my brain, until I understood that depression was not the reason for my mood. It just was my mood. Are you guys following me? So if you've heard that you had a chemical imbalance, you're not alone. Okay, I've been told I have a chemical bounce.
Speaker 1:If you go back to my podcast, in fact, I've said the word chemical imbalance a few times in the very previous parts, but I also always said and other physiological and cognitive causes, because there's so many things that affect our mood. But today I want you guys to question whether it's a chemical imbalance at all. Okay, this isn't to say that medication won't work. We have some studies that medication does work. But I want you to consider, you guys, that going to the doctor is how we put out the fire. Going to the doctor is like you need intervention right now. You don't have time to make lifestyle choices. You don't have time to regulate your nervous system. You don't have time to learn, to change the way you interpret the world. You're struggling right now, today, okay, and you can't get out of bed. Medication's a great option if it works. But if you guys listened to my last episode or maybe two back.
Speaker 1:I talk about a better way to heal your depression. That's the name of the podcast, and for a lot of people, medication doesn't work, and when I explain the chemical imbalance theory, you guys are going to understand why it doesn't work and depression rates are going up. How come, if we have so many people on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication, then why are depression rates going up? Might we be missing something? Okay, I also want to credit Amanda Armstrong. She has an amazing podcast called Regulate and Rewire and she helped me understand this as well, as I believe I want to say Jodi Peterson. If I get it wrong, you guys, I'll put her in the show notes, but she is another coach that's actually inside my membership. She created a class all about regulating your nervous system that you'd had access to if you're in my membership, so I learned some stuff from her as well, and I've also referenced in the show notes below all the articles that I read from different med journals explaining what I'm talking to you guys about today.
Speaker 1:Okay, so before you guys put your backs up or you get defensive, I just want to challenge you to be a little open-minded. Listen to the podcast and see if anything lands with you. Now we want to talk about ways to use our physiology to shift and heal our psychology right, that bottom-up approach. Without understanding what depression is and where it's rooted, you guys have no clear roadmap to healing. So when we talk about the chemical imbalance theory, or it's also sometimes called the serotonin hypothesis, we have no clear roadmap. Do you guys know how to show up in your life to balance your chemicals? I don't. No one's ever told me this is what you can do to balance your chemicals. Okay, so it really leads us with no clear roadmap.
Speaker 1:The chemical imbalance theory, you guys, was first proposed in the 1960s as like the serotonin hypothesis, and it was put forth that depression came from low levels of epinephrine, later thought to be serotonin, and this happened because they noticed that people who were on epinephrine or serotonin had improved mood. So they came up with this serotonin hypothesis or chemical imbalance theory. Now, because they noticed that people's mood improved, they assumed that it was because of the increased serotonin. And if the increased serotonin helped people's mood, they did some backward reasoning and decided, oh, people must be low on serotonin and other neurotransmitters. Okay, but I want you guys to think about this, this backward logic. That's like saying, when you have a headache and you grab for some acetaminophen or Tylenol and your headache goes away, that you must have been low on acetaminophen. Or when you're really exhausted and you grab for a Dr Pepper because of the caffeine and you're no longer tired, oh, I must be short on caffeine. You guys see how this logic is flawed. Now, yeah, they could be right. However, you guys.
Speaker 1:The Stanford psychiatrist, david Burns, did full-time research for a couple of years when he started on brain serotonin metabolism, and he never saw any evidence that depression results from a deficiency of brain serotonin. Okay, in fact, he said, we cannot measure brain serotonin in living human beings, so there's no way to test this theory. Is that fascinating, right? They did many attempts to reproduce this neurochemical alteration of the brain and to look at the nervous system of patients who were diagnosed with depression, and they could not reproduce it. Okay, they could not find it without just the backward logic of well, if increased serotonin makes them feel better, they must be low on serotonin in the first place. Okay, um, they also tried to induce depression by depleting serotonin levels, and they never had any consistent results. Okay, another thing they did, you guys was. They tried to increase serotonin through tryptophan Okay, and it was ineffective at relieving depression. So, like, just flood the system with serotonin and it didn't work. And in an article titled An Urban Legend Remains an Urban Legend from the Mental Health Journal, they said no academic psycho pharmacologist ever proposed a sweeping chemical imbalance theory. So it's actually never been proposed.
Speaker 1:And I want to reference back to a podcast I did with Jacob Hess, um, and he actually talked about the healing power that we have. There is healing that we can do from this physiological approach right, looking at our nervous system and healing our nervous system as well as our cognitive thinking. Okay, and this takes me to the polyvagal theory. Okay, this is so fascinating. Now, if we're going to talk about the polyvagal theory, I got to tell you what the vagus nerve is and, like I told you, this all sounded very familiar to me and it's what I already believed. I knew it wasn't a chemical imbalance, but I've heard reference to the vagus nerve a lot and when I learned, I was like, oh yes, that makes sense. So the vagus nerve is the longest nerve in your autonomic nervous system. Okay, and it runs from your brain all the way to your gut. Now. Your autonomic nervous system is responsible for all those things that you do without thinking about it. We're talking about heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, digestion, et cetera.
Speaker 1:Okay, now I want you guys to picture for a second a ladder. This is a really common visual that psychiatrists and different people will use to help explain the neuroscience behind rewiring and changing your nervous system, regulating your nervous system. Okay, so picture for me a ladder and you're on the very top of the ladder. On the top of the ladder, you have perspective, you can see what's around you, you feel really safe. You're above everything. Okay, you're not below anything. You're not next to anything. You're above everything. You're not below anything. You're not next to anything. You are above everything. You have a very clear view of where you want to go and where you've been, and you know who you are.
Speaker 1:This is a regulated nervous system and I know you guys have had days like that where you feel like the kids are really calm, or even if they're not, you can handle it. They're yelling at you and you feel very calm. I know I have a lot of moms that come to me in coaching and they're like I don't understand how some days I feel like I can't handle any of it, and some days I feel like it's all so easy and I want to replicate those easy days and I don't know how to do it. I know I felt like that. Well, that's because your nervous system is regulated and probably because of some other stuff too, but that's probably because your nervous system is regulated. That day, either you did things that helped you or you had a break, or you're just already feeling that way.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, if you step down two rungs in the ladder, you are in the sympathetic state. Okay, I want you to picture for a second that you can't see as well anymore. You're scared, you are feeling anxious. You're scared, you are feeling anxious. This is the fight or flight state. Okay, this is the state where you feel like you need to react Okay, and you need to defend, and you feel anxious and you feel nervous and you feel overwhelmed. Okay, this is the sympathetic state. That's something that your vagus nerve goes into. Okay, now, if you step down to the bottom rung of the ladder, you're in the dorsal state. Your vagus nerve is in the dorsal state. This is the freeze response. This is what your body does when you're feeling depressed, it's in the dorsal state. You're going to start to dissociate. You're going to feel so overwhelmed that you just don't do anything. When you don't feel like you can't get out of bed, when you feel like you can't even get started, this is the freeze response.
Speaker 1:Now, the reason I'm telling you about these states is that these are your survival states, y'all. There is nothing wrong with you, and this is one reason why I love to explain the polyvagal theory, because when we talk about a chemical imbalance, yeah, maybe at one time it really helped you feel less shame about your emotions and your mental health. You know, you could really separate yourself from it. No, I'm not wrong. I just have a chemical imbalance. Okay, but there's also probably been times in your life where you felt like I'm broken, I have a chemical imbalance and I don't know how to fix it.
Speaker 1:Like we talked about before, what's the roadmap to fix something that you don't have control over? Well, one of the reasons I've got to this place, where I learned about these things, is because I was tired of feeling out of control of my mood. I was tired of waiting for a doctor's appointment. I was tired of hoping my medication would keep working or that when I tried the next one, I wouldn't have to go in like a big downward spiral until the next one kicked in. I was just tired of relying on something outside of myself.
Speaker 1:Like I said, medication can be fantastic, but it's not always effective because it's not going to change the way you think about the world and it's not going to regulate your nervous system. Okay, it might produce more serotonin, but you might not have ever had a lack of serotonin in the first place. So wouldn't it be better if we helped to regulate what already wasn't working, rather than just throw some serotonin on it? I want you guys to consider it's like I've used this analogy before, but I feel like it works in this way too If you're in a stinky car and you have a blindfold on and the car has covered in trash and like old food wrappers just spraying Febreze all over the car, like, yeah, that's good, the car smells good, but when you take off the blindfold, like your car is still a total mess, right, you still have to face the mess in the car. You still have to face the mess in the car.
Speaker 1:And so when we take medication, yes, we might feel better, but if the medication stops working, or our body gets used to it, or we get pregnant. We need to go off of it. Or life gets crazier, or our nervous system bigger things come at us, our nervous system bigger things come at us. Right, we have those rolling hills of life, right, your child becomes depressed, or your child is struggling in school, or you have a loss of a loved one or loss of a job. Your medication is not going to help you with those things. It will only help you as far as it has. Okay. So having tools to do that are really powerful, and the fact that there's nothing wrong with you your body is just going into survival modes might help you drop some of that shame.
Speaker 1:Okay, when you go into fight or flight and feel anxiety, or you go into the freeze response and you feel depressed, I want you to know your body is working correctly. It's supposed to do those things. It's protecting you. Okay, now people come to me because they get stuck in those states. They get stuck in the sympathetic state or the dorsal state and they can't seem to get out.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what we can do is we can take a proactive approach by learning ways to regulate our nervous system so that we can stay up high on the top of the ladder longer. And what you can consider, if you guys can see the ladder in your minds, that the top of the ladder is like three rungs, what if we could bump that next state, that fight or flight, sympathetic state? What if we could bump that down like three rungs so that our top state, where we could see the whole entire future past perspective, we feel really safe from the lions and the tigers and the mean girls what if we could extend that ladder so that you could go up and down five or six rungs and never hit fight or flight and never hit the depression state? That is the goal and that is what the polyvagal theory says. Okay, really, you guys, the polyvagal theory gives us a scientific framework that supports integrating physiological bottom-up approaches with cognitive top-down therapies like thought work approaches to help change and improve the way we think, feel and connect with the world and others. That's what the polyvegal theory says. Okay, that we approach both physiological and cognitive therapies when we're trying to heal our depression and our anxiety, not just this physiological approach to something that may even be a myth, the chemical imbalance theory. You guys, I've talked to kids about this before.
Speaker 1:But neuroception is how we perceive the world. Okay, and neuroception is, you know, it's affected by our previous beliefs. So if I believe that I will be successful, that's really how I feel that day and I believe that then my brain is going to scan for things that support that story. Because your brain can't possibly take in every piece of input, every stimuli, okay. This is why when a fly lands on you, at first you feel it and then you stop feeling it, okay. Or when you put clothes on like leggings, at first you feel them but then you don't feel them anymore because your brain stops taking in that stimulus. There's just too many other stimulus going on. So we have cognitive thoughts that basically will choose what we take in from the world from a cognitive perspective. But when we're talking about a physiological perspective, okay. So that body to brain approach, we're talking about neuroception and how our body, our nervous system, the vagus nerve, flavors our thoughts. Okay, if you feel like one day it's really hard to think those thoughts that you got this, that you're a champion, that you're this amazing mom and you can do anything and you've done hard things before, do you feel like it's really hard to think that some days it might be because your nervous system is not regulated.
Speaker 1:Sometimes my clients will be like I just feel like I can't do thought work some days. Or like, right in the middle of a conversation with their husband, they're like I can't just like do thought work. I'm like absolutely you can't. It sounded like I was going to say absolutely you can. But I was thinking of Dwight Schrute, how they're always like every time Dwight says something to Jim, he's always like absolutely. I do, always say yes and always say absolutely, but absolutely you can't. You can't do thought work with an unregulated nervous system.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's like when you're at the bottom of the ladder and you're in fight or flight or freeze mode and you're trying to do thought work. It's really challenging. And this is when we do reactive things. Okay, like we sit in our feelings, like doing a dead hangman approach where you literally hang your body limp. Stand up and hang your trunk of your body down low, let your arms be loose, let your head be loose and signal from your body to your brain that you are not in danger. Okay, there's nothing to be afraid of. Relax your shoulders, let your tongue drop to the bottom of your mouth, let your jaw fall open, let your eyes get kind of heavy, relax everything. If you've ever been in yoga and they've talked you through the meditation, at the end your body is literally signaling to your brain that you are not in danger. Okay. So the more work we do on regulating our nervous system, the taller that ladder gets and the more space and area we had to do the cognitive work, the thought work, okay.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you guys are as interested in this as I am. If not, that's all right, no biggie. But I found it so fascinating and so empowering to know that there is so much we can do to improve our mood and it is not a chemical imbalance that you are just stuck with. Now, if you still want to believe the chemical imbalance theory, you go for it. Girl, okay. Or guy, you go. You do that, you go.
Speaker 1:What did they say in that movie? Sorry, guys, I quote movies all the time. I was hanging out with my best friend for my birthday and I realized I watch way too much TV because I was like quoting movies and TV like 24, seven, and she does not watch YouTube and TV. So I was really feeling like what a lazy little squirt. I just watched too much TV, but anyways, doing good things. Now, right, giving a podcast. So if we can regulate our nervous system, it helps to flavor our thoughts and it gives us a wider space Okay, a taller ladder in which we have room to do the cognitive work.
Speaker 1:Okay, this neuroscience and cognitive base approach to healing our mental health is what I do in shift, which is my monthly membership for women and moms who want to feel better, who are looking for something that's not a one size fits all approach. If you guys are interested, you can absolutely hop on a free coaching call with me where we can talk through what kind of triggers you have where you feel like you're stuck, what things throw you into fight or flight or freeze, anxiety and depression, and I can kind of walk you through what we do in the membership, why it's helping, how we're teaching proactive and reactive approaches to those stuck feelings, and you guys are going to love it. It's just such a beautiful place. I love it so much. Every week we hop on a coach, we have a class every single month and it's live, and you guys have access to text coaching to me the rest of the week, as well as online worksheets to help walk you through it and rewire your brain, and tools to help you regulate your nervous system.
Speaker 1:Another thing that's really cool about the shift program is we have an expert section. This is a section where I refer you to other people who are doing amazing things in their specialty in their wheelhouse. So we have nutritionists who treat root cause of emotional health through looking at lifestyle changes and nutrition okay, who know it far better than I do. We also have a epigenetics counselor in there who really, really helped me with the way that she taught me about how to learn about how my body works and take a really specific approach to what food I choose, all the way to what chemicals I have in my house, based on my genetic makeup.
Speaker 1:If you guys are interested again, you guys just click on the link below and you can get a free coaching call with me. I only leave open about three spots a week, so if you guys want one, don't wait. All right, you guys talk to you next week Bye-bye. If you have questions about anything you've learned here on the podcast or want help with something going on in your own life, hop on a free coaching call with me In just 30 minutes, you'll have real tools for your unique situation. Go to limitlessfemalecoachingcom. Forward slash, work with me, or you can find a link in the show notes below. Spots are limited, so grab one before you miss it.