Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should Know front House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: Getting across from me as always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: And that makes this say you again, howdy, this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Let jump the gun there. That's okay, awkward,
Speaker 1: I was talking a little fast. It's a little weird.
Speaker 1: How's it going, It's going good, good. This is a
Speaker 1: long awaited podcast. It is. We've been putting this off
Speaker 1: for like a year at least, maybe even two or so. Um.
Speaker 1: There is a guy, um who we need to give
Speaker 1: a huge shout out to. His name is Will Sovey.
Speaker 1: Is that who wrote us? Initially? Yeah, initially. He is
Speaker 1: a clinician who studies PTSD, started out at Walter Read Hospital.
Speaker 1: From the hospital. Basically he's like right there on the
Speaker 1: front lines, not just treating, but like learning about PTSD
Speaker 1: and uh no, no, only do we have to thank
Speaker 1: Will for Basically we handed him this document, this article
Speaker 1: and said, hey, how up to date is this? And
Speaker 1: he sent back this great like annotated copy with all
Speaker 1: this new stuff and basically said this is don't say this,
Speaker 1: don't be stupid. That kind of stuff. Um, so we
Speaker 1: have to thank not only Will, but we have to
Speaker 1: thank his wife, Meg, who was the one who originally
Speaker 1: turned Will onto stuff. You should know. So without Meg,
Speaker 1: we would have no Will, and without Will, we would
Speaker 1: probably have a grossly out of date and laughable PTSD
Speaker 1: article to work from that would have haunted us. We
Speaker 1: probably would have released a podcast and just pissed us off.
Speaker 1: Still exactly. Yeah, So you have now taken his information
Speaker 1: and redid your original article and now we are pretty
Speaker 1: much up to date. Yeah, and I need to go
Speaker 1: onto the site and like update the actual article, which
Speaker 1: is harder than the rounds, you know, but to just
Speaker 1: listen to this podcast for the time being, Okay, uh,
Speaker 1: And this is really good timing, Chuck, because I found
Speaker 1: out after we decided to do that, June is PTSD
Speaker 1: awareness month. Yeah, and specifically June is PTSD Awareness Day.
Speaker 1: So if you have a friend or a loved winn
Speaker 1: or a coworker who suffers from post traumatic stress disorder,
Speaker 1: be extranized to him on jun So we're talking about PTSD,
Speaker 1: which is of course um abbreviation for post traumatic stress disorder,
Speaker 1: and um, it's not a new disorder. I don't I
Speaker 1: can't imagine like when it really first came about, although
Speaker 1: it was first described in the Civil War. My guess
Speaker 1: is that it came about the first time people started
Speaker 1: encountering big time stresses, traumatic events. Yeah, they just didn't
Speaker 1: know what the heck they call it exactly, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: But it wasn't I guess until about the Civil War
Speaker 1: that we saw casualties on such a colossal level that somebody,
Speaker 1: a doctor named Jacob Mendi's Da Costa um described what
Speaker 1: he called soldier's Heart. Yeah, before that, they were just like,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with Goody Johnson? Exactly? It's just always freaking
Speaker 1: out whenever, like he hears us play this song, right, well,
Speaker 1: Goody short for good wife, So there's there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on with Goody Johnson. Um that he she um,
Speaker 1: So Da Costa is he he calls his things soldier heart,
Speaker 1: soldier's heart, and it basically is like you you seem
Speaker 1: to have some sort of heart failures techniccardia. Um, You're
Speaker 1: you're very much stressed out. And Da Costa said, this
Speaker 1: is probably a result of some sort of uh trauma
Speaker 1: from the war. Right, But they initially, like you said,
Speaker 1: thought it was cardiac based, because I'm sure dudes were like,
Speaker 1: you know, my heart's racing exactly, you know, I'm freaking
Speaker 1: out right, it's your heart. Then it can't possibly have
Speaker 1: anything to do with your mind, which we know pretty
Speaker 1: much nothing about. Right. That came about during World War
Speaker 1: One when it was famously called shell shock. Charles Myers
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen described it as and he was actually
Speaker 1: onto something here that it could have been a resulting
Speaker 1: from pressure from you know, artillery shells exploding nearby, and
Speaker 1: how it affects the brain, like physically affected the brain, right,
Speaker 1: And that's actually what he's talking about. Is called today
Speaker 1: mild traumatic brain injury, yeah, which is UM with the
Speaker 1: symptoms of which kind of overlap with PTSD. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think we covered that in Concussion. Some didn't we I
Speaker 1: think we probably did too, because you know, some NFL
Speaker 1: guys are, uh, former NFL players are like committing suicide
Speaker 1: now here and there. Probably the same thing that was
Speaker 1: an interesting episode was in the shell shock Yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: so um, Charles Myers describes mild traumatic brain injuries and
Speaker 1: calls them shell shock. So if you just go slightly
Speaker 1: further afield and and um and kind of get a
Speaker 1: little more into the psychology behind it, you arrive finally
Speaker 1: at PTSD, the modern diagnosis of which first came about
Speaker 1: in nine teen eight. Yeah, thanks to UM they really
Speaker 1: started doing a lot of studying post Vietnam and UH
Speaker 1: in nineteen eight three, Uh, they did a case study
Speaker 1: that really just like opened up a wealth of information
Speaker 1: to kind of get the ball rolling. And since then
Speaker 1: we studied a lot, and we continue to because we're
Speaker 1: still not exactly sure the best way to treat it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we've learned many many things since nineteen eighty about it, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there's the part of the brain that stores memories of
Speaker 1: fearful incidents. I think that's a venturo medial prefrontal cortex.
Speaker 1: The size of that can have an effect on whether
Speaker 1: or not you're at risk for PTSD. Some folks are
Speaker 1: more prone than others. Uh. We'll get to all this
Speaker 1: and more detail, of course, UM, Like women may not
Speaker 1: get out as much then as men. Uh, how how
Speaker 1: much danger you perceived yourself to be in, how intense
Speaker 1: the danger was, how long the danger went on for
Speaker 1: All of those are contributing factor to the development of PTSD. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's and like you said, perception is the key
Speaker 1: because it's your perceived reaction to it. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the guy next to you might not have had any reaction,
Speaker 1: you know, and gone through the same incident. Maybe two
Speaker 1: people are in the same car accident, one person can
Speaker 1: have that one person might not right, and it can
Speaker 1: be that can be exclusively based on the perception of
Speaker 1: the event. Yeah, um, you were saying, we're still learning
Speaker 1: about it. It's true. We don't have even numbers on
Speaker 1: the number of people with PTSD. That's shocking. I think
Speaker 1: the v Yeah, I think the v A estimated UM
Speaker 1: as many as eight hundred thousand veterans alone have PTSD. Well,
Speaker 1: I think. I say it's shocking, but it is. It
Speaker 1: can also be confused with things like depression and just
Speaker 1: generalized anxiety, So it's very specific PTSD, So I sort
Speaker 1: of get that right. But it has a huge effect
Speaker 1: on people like depression and anxiety disorders in general. Do UM.
Speaker 1: PTSD specifically is known to um increase unemployment, failed marriages,
Speaker 1: domestic violence, and homelessness. In suicion, Yeah, suicide is a
Speaker 1: big one too. Um, we have no idea how many
Speaker 1: PTSD suffers commit suicide. But in two ten, I believe
Speaker 1: Chuck UM twenty two veterans a day active and UM
Speaker 1: former military a day twenty two we're committing suicide. And
Speaker 1: I believe to two thousand ten not all of those
Speaker 1: are necessarily PTSD related. But once we have a better
Speaker 1: idea of how many people have PTSD, how many people
Speaker 1: who have PTSD commit suicide, I have a feeling the
Speaker 1: numbers are just gonna get bigger and bigger. I think
Speaker 1: you're right, because we're still I mean, we're only like
Speaker 1: a few generations removed from the concept of shell shock,
Speaker 1: you know, and then even more from soldier's heart and
Speaker 1: even more from what's wrong with Diddy Johnson were in
Speaker 1: the lake swims? Okay, so I guess let's get on
Speaker 1: the brass tacks. UM. Simply defined, it is a set
Speaker 1: of symptoms that result from a trauma. UM. We hear
Speaker 1: about a lot in military, obviously because they experience very
Speaker 1: intense trauma more than most folks do. But it can
Speaker 1: come about from accident, an assault, UM, natural disaster, anything
Speaker 1: that you perceive as traumatic. It can come about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it can. It can the death of a loved one.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even necessarily have to be ama a trauma
Speaker 1: that happens directly to you. It can indirectly affect you,
Speaker 1: and you can still develop PTSD from it. Um. But
Speaker 1: the thing is that there's uh, if if somebody experiences
Speaker 1: a trauma, I'm not going to develop PTSD. They normally
Speaker 1: shake it off. Right. There's actually some some criteria for
Speaker 1: an actual PTSD diagnosis. UM, So you have to the
Speaker 1: symptoms basically have to present themselves over a certain period
Speaker 1: of time for certain length of time, and certain symptoms
Speaker 1: have to appear in the cornerstone of what's called the
Speaker 1: symptom cluster of PTSD. All the symptoms you put together
Speaker 1: to form a diagnosis. The cornerstone of those is re experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and some of that can happen. But the thing I
Speaker 1: kept coming across in these studies is what they called
Speaker 1: excessive retrieval. So just like you know, it's one thing
Speaker 1: to get an accident and be a little weird next
Speaker 1: time you drive in the rain, or more careful or whatever,
Speaker 1: but excessive retrieval means that it's like consuming your life. Nightmares,
Speaker 1: day terrors, I mean, you name it, like a song
Speaker 1: can spark it and you're just re experienced this thing
Speaker 1: over and over in your mind. Yeah, And it doesn't
Speaker 1: even necessarily have to be from something like a song
Speaker 1: like the song that was playing on the radio when
Speaker 1: your car you crashed your car um to trigger. It
Speaker 1: can just come without any apparent trigger whatsoever. And the
Speaker 1: big problem with this is not just like, oh man,
Speaker 1: that was such a bummer that that happened to me.
Speaker 1: It's your brain is remembering this in such a way
Speaker 1: that the the same chemical cascade takes place as it
Speaker 1: did when you were initially going through it. So for
Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, at that moment, you're fully going
Speaker 1: through that same experience again. And this happens again and
Speaker 1: again and again and again. And that's the re experience
Speaker 1: of the trauma. And that's the cornerstone symptom of PTSD. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what of UH, one of what they call symptom clusters,
Speaker 1: one of four. The other three are avoidance, which is
Speaker 1: obviously speaks for itself. You're gonna avoid thinking about it.
Speaker 1: Avoid you know, let's say you're in the military, might
Speaker 1: not go to Fourth of July celebrations or other places
Speaker 1: where they're big booms, um, numbness um. Doing anything you
Speaker 1: can to numb it withdrawing alcohol and drugs. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: can be a big problem with PTSD, going into it
Speaker 1: and afterward, right right, And if you already had a
Speaker 1: Drugger alcohol problem and you you develop PTSD, that can
Speaker 1: be a really hard thing to treat and separate. And
Speaker 1: the last one there is hyper arousal, which basically UM,
Speaker 1: when you see movies, they'll portray this way movies A
Speaker 1: lot is a soldier that's just jumpy and irritable and
Speaker 1: I can't sleep. They feel unsafe, sort of paranoid, always
Speaker 1: on guard. It's like your fight or flight response is
Speaker 1: always on and it's gonna be exhausting. Yeah. Well, we
Speaker 1: talked about like you can die from that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: from prolonged stress, heightened stress, like it depletes your immune system,
Speaker 1: and um, you can die as a result. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the hallmarks of PTSD is you're just constantly
Speaker 1: on guard. Yeah. Yeah, I can't imagine how tired you
Speaker 1: must be. Plus you can't sleep on top of that, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's a pretty awful condition to to have. UM.
Speaker 1: And uh, one of the one of the criteria for
Speaker 1: diagnosing this is that it's it's not short this can
Speaker 1: go on a very long time. Um, there's three three
Speaker 1: different types. There's acute, which is um acute PTSD the
Speaker 1: symptoms come on uh and last about three months, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has to to be PFC. It has to go
Speaker 1: beyond the one month period right after that. It's kind
Speaker 1: of most people, I guess shake off a trauma within
Speaker 1: a within a month. Yeah, if it keeps going on
Speaker 1: after that, then you're in PTSD territory. If at lasts
Speaker 1: three months, that was a cute PTSD, and you probably
Speaker 1: should consider yourself lucky that that's all it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. You could also develop chronic PTSD UM where
Speaker 1: the symptoms last more than three months and possibly a lifetime. UM.
Speaker 1: And then there's delayed onset where the symptoms don't show
Speaker 1: up for at least six months. And then I guess
Speaker 1: it could be acute delayed on set or chronic delayed
Speaker 1: on set. Yeah. And you point out here that kids
Speaker 1: can get it too. It's not you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about adults oftentimes, but uh, kids can present differently. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, really poor behavior, really needy behavior, drawing things out.
Speaker 1: And that's something you always see in movies too, Like
Speaker 1: the kid drawing the plane car right and stuff like um,
Speaker 1: or acting it out with dolls. That's another one too.
Speaker 1: But as they grow up, they become a little more
Speaker 1: just regular adult symptoms if they haven't you know, gotten
Speaker 1: over by then, which is super sad. Yeah. So for
Speaker 1: a very long time, Chuck researchers thought that everyone is
Speaker 1: at equal risk of developing PTSD after going through trauma.
Speaker 1: But they found, UM, I guess from studying really hardcore
Speaker 1: since that Vietnam study, UM that there's actually risk factors
Speaker 1: and protective factors that can keep people from developing PTSD
Speaker 1: or can make you more likely to develop PTSD. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the big ones is, um, if you've already
Speaker 1: experienced a prior trauma, Yeah, because um, it's additive. So
Speaker 1: it can actually mount up these things over the years,
Speaker 1: and then there could be one final trauma that finally
Speaker 1: triggers the PTSD. And you're more likely too if you've
Speaker 1: experienced these things exactly. And you were saying, like, the
Speaker 1: military's at greater risk than the average person because there
Speaker 1: they are experienced a prolonged, intense trauma, and um, it
Speaker 1: seems to me that PTSD is moving very quickly toward
Speaker 1: it almost entirely brain based model UM. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why is it finding like all these chemicals
Speaker 1: and and UM genetic markers that are responsible for different aspects,
Speaker 1: and it's like this clear pictures emerging. One of the
Speaker 1: big ones is a gluco corticoid. Yeah, that's right, I
Speaker 1: got it. It's a class of brain hormones and they
Speaker 1: help control our stress response. So we were talking about
Speaker 1: how UM, if you experience one trauma, you you're gluco
Speaker 1: corticoid UM levels are depleted, because it's like, come on,
Speaker 1: let's just hang in there. We'll hang in there if
Speaker 1: you get another. If you experience another trauma and those
Speaker 1: hormones are depleted already, then you're going to experience the
Speaker 1: fear and stress of that far more acutely then you
Speaker 1: would have had your glucocorticoid levels been normal. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why it's compounding and additive. Well, and they also have
Speaker 1: found that UM cortisol, which is a glucocorticoid, Elevated levels
Speaker 1: of this can affect your memory in a negative way,
Speaker 1: which can be positive if you have PTSD. So they
Speaker 1: did a study in two thousand eight three month blind
Speaker 1: double blind placebo controlled study, our favorite kind that sounds
Speaker 1: like a real deal, where they gave these three soldiers
Speaker 1: low low doses of cortisol or hydrocortisone, and um, they
Speaker 1: found significant effects with no side effects and even evidence
Speaker 1: of prolonged effect. So, um, I know later on in
Speaker 1: the article you talk about one of the things they're
Speaker 1: doing now is injecting people with hydrocortisone and like the
Speaker 1: er Yeah, like immediately after an event, and it's it's
Speaker 1: basically shown to decrease your memory, like you just don't
Speaker 1: remember that stuff as well. Yeah, and it lowers the
Speaker 1: stress response. I mean think about this, you're you're the
Speaker 1: stress response is part of your immune system right where
Speaker 1: it's at least connected in some really close way. Hydrocortizone
Speaker 1: is like an anti dampens your immune response, So they
Speaker 1: think that PTSD is like maybe a heightened stress response
Speaker 1: or a heightened immune system response, and just giving somebody
Speaker 1: like a regular shot of hydrocortizone, it's it's working. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so weird. Well, because as to do with memory,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're decreasing your ability to remember something,
Speaker 1: you're going to increase the likelihood that you won't suffer
Speaker 1: from bad memories, you know. Um, so some other risk
Speaker 1: factors and protective factors. Uh, like what type of personality
Speaker 1: you have factors? And this makes sense. If you're an
Speaker 1: optimistic type, you're probably going to be less likely to
Speaker 1: suffer PTSD. Yeah, you haven't here belief that there's order
Speaker 1: to the umerg Does that is that specific to like
Speaker 1: a belief in God. I think that that's one of
Speaker 1: the accepted definitions of optimism or the optimistic personality. It's
Speaker 1: interesting somebody who believes, yeah, not that it's not chaotic,
Speaker 1: that there's reasons for things. Things happen for a reason.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if an atheist is more likely to
Speaker 1: get PTSD. I could see that interesting. Um, But it's
Speaker 1: also that other people are generally good is another It's
Speaker 1: like the second part of that definition. Uh, if you
Speaker 1: are someone who tackles things head on and don't put
Speaker 1: your problems on the back burners, obviously this is gonna wait.
Speaker 1: If you're not putting it on the backburner, that means
Speaker 1: you're going to have a less likelihood. Yeah, I got
Speaker 1: all confused there. Yeah, because avoidance is one of the deal.
Speaker 1: And if you have problem avoidance behavior avoidance behavior UM,
Speaker 1: or you just like don't like to talk about problems
Speaker 1: or don't like to think about things, You just rather
Speaker 1: just kind of push it. It's probably true for any
Speaker 1: mental disorder. If you're not prone to tackle it head on,
Speaker 1: then it's just gonna get worse. Yeah, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's one of the things about PTSD is like
Speaker 1: your memories become exaggerated and bloated and way worse even
Speaker 1: than the actual experience. If you are college graduate or
Speaker 1: maybe even just went to college, then um, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be less likely to have it. And we also pointed
Speaker 1: out earlier that women are less likely to experience it
Speaker 1: than men. Yeah, they're not entirely certain why. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but that's strictly from the Vietnam study. I think, um,
Speaker 1: it was something like thirty six percent of Vietnam veterans
Speaker 1: who experienced hardcore combat. I don't know if that's the
Speaker 1: term that you use, but you know what, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to work combat. Yeah, thirty six percent of males in
Speaker 1: that situation had PTSD and eighteen percent of females did.
Speaker 1: So what that's like twice as likely if you're male,
Speaker 1: then a female UM. They think genes may have something
Speaker 1: to do with it. They're looking to a gene called
Speaker 1: the serotonin transporter gene. And there is a paper out
Speaker 1: there that indicates that if you have a mutated gene
Speaker 1: serotonin transporter gene, than it could impact your attention to
Speaker 1: environmental threats, which could impact whether or not you get
Speaker 1: PSD PTSD. Geez. So you remember we did that episode
Speaker 1: Can my grandfather's diet shortened my life? About epigenetics? Well,
Speaker 1: epigenetics possibly factor into UM PTSD as well. So epigenetics
Speaker 1: is basically where the function of a gene is um
Speaker 1: affected within somebody's lifetime changes basically right, So it's like
Speaker 1: evolution on the basis of years rather than you know,
Speaker 1: generations and generations UM. And there was a study in
Speaker 1: Detroit of a hundred people who fit the criteria for
Speaker 1: PTSD diagnoses, and they found that they had six or
Speaker 1: seven times the epigenetic changes of the control group, and
Speaker 1: that a lot of those epigenetic changes, most of them
Speaker 1: UM had to do with genes that that were responsible
Speaker 1: for keeping up the immune system. Interesting, did they factor
Speaker 1: in the fact that they've lived in Detroit? Well, that
Speaker 1: was funny. I guess, in some horribly dark comic goal
Speaker 1: way is that the researchers were from New York City
Speaker 1: and they traveled to Detroit to find a hundred people
Speaker 1: with PTSD. I'm sure they could have found that New York.
Speaker 1: I guess they cast their lot in Detroit for some reason.
Speaker 1: We love Detroit. By the way, We've been getting a
Speaker 1: lot more emails lately because I think people pick up
Speaker 1: newly and hear us dashing Detroit and they don't realize
Speaker 1: it's been a running joke now for five years, as
Speaker 1: almost six years. We love Detroit. Who doesn't exactly um.
Speaker 1: And then, of course, the most important factor with this
Speaker 1: or any other mental disorder is what they called a
Speaker 1: trauma membrane, which is that support network your friends and
Speaker 1: your family if you've got a strong one, and it's
Speaker 1: a strong one in the right way. Like you point out,
Speaker 1: they can be well meaning, but the person receiving that
Speaker 1: membrane and that protection it has to do do right
Speaker 1: by them. Yeah, and then they can't just be like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, just just on the bright side, you know,
Speaker 1: don't worry about that. Like, however, you're you're experiencing this
Speaker 1: and getting over it. You're doing it wrong. Do it
Speaker 1: this way. That's not gonna help, right. But basically the
Speaker 1: point is if you are single alcoholic veteran that is
Speaker 1: a loner living by yourself, it doesn't like to think
Speaker 1: about your problem. Yeah, and like your tiny little apartment.
Speaker 1: Then that's like the worst case scenario for PTSD. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like we said, the military is at a greater UM
Speaker 1: risk just from being exposed to these situations and being
Speaker 1: exposed to him over and over and over again. UM.
Speaker 1: And but one of the other reasons that the military,
Speaker 1: especially the military of late UM is at risk is
Speaker 1: be because brain injuries where the quote signature wound of
Speaker 1: the Iraq War I don't remember thanks to UM roadside
Speaker 1: bombs I e. D. S UM, there are a significant
Speaker 1: amount of head injuries. Are treatment of head injuries advanced
Speaker 1: enough so that we could save lives where they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been before, Like people were exposed to head injuries
Speaker 1: like in countless other wars. But now we've gotten to
Speaker 1: the point where we can save those people's lives. The
Speaker 1: problem is that their brains are changed. They've undergone what
Speaker 1: Charles Myers called shell shock mild traumatic brain injury, which
Speaker 1: again is almost indistinguishable and possibly one and the same
Speaker 1: in some cases as PTSD. Yeah, and imagine the uncertainty
Speaker 1: of guerrilla warfare and things like roadside bombs. Um, Like,
Speaker 1: you can be prepped somewhat for for battle and we'll
Speaker 1: get to that here in a little bit. What they're
Speaker 1: trying to do the more and more of these days
Speaker 1: with that, but with these guerrilla tactics that are going
Speaker 1: on in the Middle East, with with suicide bombers and
Speaker 1: car bombs and things like that, it's like kind of
Speaker 1: the perfect prescription for eventual ps PTSD. Yeah. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to trick to take the trauma out of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, we mentioned earlier, remember the optimistic personalities less
Speaker 1: likely in the optimist believes in order in the universe. Well,
Speaker 1: guerrilla warfare is like the opposite of order in the universe.
Speaker 1: Are you starting to see like this pattern, Like all
Speaker 1: this stuff is on the table. Yeah, it's just now
Speaker 1: a matter of connecting it. And it seems like neurology
Speaker 1: is going to be the field that does that, I think, so,
Speaker 1: you know, so counseling obviously is step one. Um, and
Speaker 1: this goes down in a couple of ways. The old
Speaker 1: favorite cognitive behavioral counseling, which we talked about quite a bit,
Speaker 1: which apparently I'm told by will Savey is not really
Speaker 1: called that. It's cognitive processing therapy. I think he said,
Speaker 1: I haven't really I've seen it call that, but okay
Speaker 1: in his note, so we'll stick with the cognitive processing therapy. Well.
Speaker 1: A couple of the aims there um are to basically
Speaker 1: limit the amount of that excessive retrieval to sometimes it's like, hey, um,
Speaker 1: every day for like from from nine to nine thirty,
Speaker 1: you can think about this in a healthier way and
Speaker 1: then you put it away for the day. So that's
Speaker 1: one way they can do it. Yeah. Another way is
Speaker 1: to just lessen the um, lessen the memories impact on
Speaker 1: like how bad it was, maybe by pointing out some
Speaker 1: of the good things, like what about the valorie you
Speaker 1: showed during battle right by saving your buddy's life. He
Speaker 1: died and you watched him die, but you also tried
Speaker 1: to drag him his safety. So you tried, and that
Speaker 1: you put yourself at risk and you really need to
Speaker 1: commend yourself for that. Like carry that around too, it's
Speaker 1: gonna balance out the horrible nous. So not like you
Speaker 1: need to forget all this, but you need to bring
Speaker 1: it back to an acceptable level where you can live
Speaker 1: your life exactly. And one of the reasons are one
Speaker 1: of the reasons it's not an unacceptable levels because this
Speaker 1: memory has become so grossly exaggerated through the process of
Speaker 1: this um this I guess memory retrieval, fearful memory retrieval,
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. Like I think most
Speaker 1: memories are enhanced or bad, you know, like you remember
Speaker 1: like that prom in high school is way better than
Speaker 1: it really was, or that breakup that you suffered was
Speaker 1: really actually those usually get better with time. But you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, right, Yeah, But I think, Chuck,
Speaker 1: imagine that while you were see when whenever you retrieve
Speaker 1: a memory, you're adding to it. That's how like sense
Speaker 1: go from you know what you initially thought of, what
Speaker 1: you know ten years after smelling the thing, you think
Speaker 1: of the same thing with fearful memory retrieval. But when
Speaker 1: your memory is being retrieved and your life is in
Speaker 1: the gutter and you're addicted to drugs and you're scared
Speaker 1: out of your mind, and then you compound that under
Speaker 1: the original memory over and over again, then it's just
Speaker 1: gonna get worse and worse and more and more exaggerated.
Speaker 1: And yeah, one of the one of the or the
Speaker 1: point of cognitive processing therapy is cognitive restructuring, like literally
Speaker 1: reordering the brain by taking that memory head on and
Speaker 1: saying no, no, no, like this didn't really happen like this,
Speaker 1: and you're not paying enough attention to that, right. Another
Speaker 1: type of therapy that is not is fun, although I
Speaker 1: don't know if the other is actually fun, but exposure
Speaker 1: therapy it's pretty hardcore. It's like to pull your knees
Speaker 1: up to your chest and just rock back and forth
Speaker 1: kind of therapy. Yeah. I mean it's basically to relive
Speaker 1: it over and over and over um in great detail,
Speaker 1: sometimes taking you to the actual place that it took place, um,
Speaker 1: with the idea that eventually that fear extinction will happen
Speaker 1: and you'll get over it. Right. Well, remember you were saying, like, um,
Speaker 1: the song that was playing on the radio when when
Speaker 1: you got in a car, right, they'd like to play that. Well,
Speaker 1: welcome to hearing that song over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: It doesn't again, when you're retrieving that memory in a
Speaker 1: certain context and bad things aren't happening, and there's somebody
Speaker 1: reassuring you saying like, look, you're okay, Like everything's okay.
Speaker 1: Then you're relearning that memory again without the fear associated
Speaker 1: with it, but you have to go through hell to
Speaker 1: get there. Yeah, And it also stops avoidance in its tracks,
Speaker 1: which is you know, if you if you're avoiding something.
Speaker 1: The complete opposite of that is immersion therapy like that.
Speaker 1: And then what they're finding is the best the best
Speaker 1: results they are coming from a combination of therapy UH
Speaker 1: and medication of course, because it helps to not be
Speaker 1: freaked out of your mind when you're having to go
Speaker 1: through exposure therapy and removing it. And a class of
Speaker 1: drugs that helps with that. Our SSR eyes, our old
Speaker 1: friend SSR eyes UM the two approved by the h
Speaker 1: U S Food and Drug Administration or Zoloft and Paxel,
Speaker 1: and those are actually the only two drugs approved by
Speaker 1: the FDA to treat PTSD on label, not just the
Speaker 1: only two SSR eyes, so use those with your therapy. UH.
Speaker 1: They also have something called d clike co serine and
Speaker 1: UM that is actually is that the one that's a
Speaker 1: anti tuberculosis drug, and they found that it also helps
Speaker 1: with PTSD. Yeah, they they noticed that, like it UM
Speaker 1: cut down on fear by basically it agonizes your N
Speaker 1: methyl d aspirtit receptors in m d A. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: the and that enhances learning. So if you're going through
Speaker 1: exposure therapy, you got a little um zolof going to
Speaker 1: keep you calm and chilled out and able to go
Speaker 1: through therapy, and you're taking dcs at the same time
Speaker 1: to make you learn faster. UM, then that would probably
Speaker 1: be a a good treatment for PTSD for some people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Beta blockers like uh, prop pen and all that's have
Speaker 1: been long known to decrease stress levels. Yeah, and kill
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson really is that what he was on? That
Speaker 1: was the one his milk he called it. Oh he
Speaker 1: had like the drip going yeah, yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: a little different than like described the pill. But this
Speaker 1: is this UM. This drug specifically goes in there and
Speaker 1: basically like m disconnects neurons so that there you don't
Speaker 1: have that memory any longer. I read a paper once
Speaker 1: on im using this drug to treat PTSD, and like
Speaker 1: this guy was like, this is so effective that you're
Speaker 1: basically rewriting history. It's like transhuman. It's it has like
Speaker 1: that level of impact on some people. Interesting. Well, we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier the Army UM preparing soldiers for battle. Uh,
Speaker 1: it is not just happening in a physical training way,
Speaker 1: like learn how to shoot guns and do things like that.
Speaker 1: Now it's happening very much on the mental level. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was formerly called battle mind anymore, so that that
Speaker 1: surprised me that they changed it. When was it from?
Speaker 1: That was from Walter Reed Hospital too? Yeah, exactly. Now
Speaker 1: they call it resilience training. That's way better exactly, and
Speaker 1: it it actually didn't even start out as something to
Speaker 1: help with PTSD, but they're learning that it can help. UM.
Speaker 1: It's basically this, they handle the seven phases of deployment mentally.
Speaker 1: They prepare you mentally for the seven phases like predeployment, deployment,
Speaker 1: post deployment, redeployment, UM and everything from Hey, when you're
Speaker 1: out of the Army or the Marine Corps and you're
Speaker 1: driving your car around, you can't drive like you're angry
Speaker 1: and like you were over there. If someone addresses you
Speaker 1: in an aggressive manner, you can't handle it like you
Speaker 1: did when you were in battle. Um, you didn't have
Speaker 1: alcohol over there. Now you're back home, there's booze everywhere.
Speaker 1: You can't go crazy with that stuff. And so all
Speaker 1: of that put together they figured out ends up helping
Speaker 1: out UM with PTSD, like rely on your family, they're
Speaker 1: trying to encourage stuff like this, right. Well, also they
Speaker 1: think it works because they're using it ahead of time,
Speaker 1: like predeployment as part of training as well. So I
Speaker 1: think like being exposed to horrors ahead of time, we'll
Speaker 1: kind of keep you from going through I guess as
Speaker 1: much of a trauma when you see it the real
Speaker 1: thing a month later. Whatever. Yeah, what's interesting, Chuck, is
Speaker 1: the Iroquois um had something like this. Yeah, after like
Speaker 1: going and going to war, they were basically sequestered from
Speaker 1: everybody else after they came back and we're assimilated. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's like a step down cooling period. Wow that the
Speaker 1: Iroquois used because they would go totally insane while they
Speaker 1: were in battle. Right, that makes sense where they won't
Speaker 1: go berserk, know, the Vikings want berserker. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think I think that you're equid took. Okay, So we're
Speaker 1: talking about neurology being the key to this one chemical
Speaker 1: that they have been studying is called Staffman Jason Staffman,
Speaker 1: and that basically allows us to form fear memories from
Speaker 1: our experience. So they're obviously working with this and mice
Speaker 1: finding that lower levels of that are gonna decrease our
Speaker 1: fear memories or our ability to form them at least.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty you know, they're viding us on a
Speaker 1: lot of fronts. Yeah, well, they're doing a lot of
Speaker 1: research and you just need to put it together. What
Speaker 1: else gastrin releasing peptide. Yes, they found that. Um. Apparently
Speaker 1: this this chemical like signals the brain like calm down,
Speaker 1: calm down, and um, if you have uh not enough
Speaker 1: of it, you have an increased chance that you're going
Speaker 1: to become fearful. Right. Um, so that's another one, uh
Speaker 1: narrow peptide. Why we what do we talk about that in?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I we definitely talked about it. It's
Speaker 1: it's basically our own bodies anti anxiety drug and um.
Speaker 1: The levels of this are going to fluctuate depending on
Speaker 1: what kind of stresses and traumas we've been through. And
Speaker 1: once again, if that one's depleted, UM, then you're gonna
Speaker 1: be less prone to overcome obstacles. Mentally. Yeah, they're actually
Speaker 1: they're trying to figure out how to synthesize it. So
Speaker 1: if it's as simple as like injecting some narrow peptide
Speaker 1: wine into somebody's brain following a trauma, just to get
Speaker 1: that a little extra boost, so you can, you know,
Speaker 1: take this on and process it and shake it off.
Speaker 1: I guess ecstasy. That's another one. M d N A,
Speaker 1: m d M A. Uh. Not surprisingly when they have
Speaker 1: treated people with PTSD, they felt better. Yeah, but it
Speaker 1: was long lasting though, right? Was that the mushrooms? I
Speaker 1: know we studied h that hallucogen mushrooms. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: remember which one went back more more easily. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't remember either. But there was a guy in that study,
Speaker 1: the m d M A study who was like suicidal
Speaker 1: for three years or two years. Oh no, that was
Speaker 1: something different. The stelic Ganglian block. It's like in an
Speaker 1: inoculation of just a local anesthetic, right, but just above
Speaker 1: the clavical so it interrupts the the nerve transmissions of
Speaker 1: your sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight response. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it physically blocks it. Yeah, and it works apparently,
Speaker 1: and it can last. There was one guy in that
Speaker 1: study who was suicidal for um two years, and he
Speaker 1: felt immediate relief. Yeah, the ecstasy. I think you said
Speaker 1: that some people that experienced relief had never experienced relief
Speaker 1: with therapy or any other drugs. So it's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: And then our old friend, the thinking cap, the transcranial
Speaker 1: magnetic stimulator. UM. I don't know if that's what they
Speaker 1: call it, is it? Yeah? Okay, Um, it's better than
Speaker 1: a thinking cap. Yeah, that's true. They did a study
Speaker 1: in two thousand four or twenty four male and female
Speaker 1: patients suffering from PTSD and UM, they hooked up, you know,
Speaker 1: the magnets to the head, stimulated blood flow to the brain,
Speaker 1: and they found out that it had a nice effect
Speaker 1: for the for the people. Yeah. Yeah, they think it
Speaker 1: increased metabolism or something like that. Man, I think it's
Speaker 1: a complicated thing, so it takes a complicated cure, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's not just like, well it's this one thing.
Speaker 1: It's like all over the brain and its emotions and
Speaker 1: it's like fear and memory. It's just it's crazy, well yeah,
Speaker 1: crazy and undo a memory the way that somebody formed it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty interesting stuff. So thank you very much to
Speaker 1: Will Sovey for his help on that. And remember it's
Speaker 1: PTSD awareness month, so we hope we've made you a
Speaker 1: little more aware. Um and uh yeah, I'm very interested
Speaker 1: to see how the research pans out. Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: It's SEMs like they made a lot of headway in
Speaker 1: recent years. Um. If you want to learn more about PTSD,
Speaker 1: you can go type those letters into the search bart
Speaker 1: house to first dot com. It'll bring up the old
Speaker 1: version of the article, but I'll work to get it updated. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: And since I said updated, it means it's time for
Speaker 1: is it time for message break? Oh yeah, now listening man, Yes, okay, uh,
Speaker 1: this is I'm gonna do a couple of DND emails
Speaker 1: over the next a couple of weeks because we did
Speaker 1: a podcast and Dungeon and Dragons. Boy, people loved it.
Speaker 1: They did. That was a good one. Good feedback even
Speaker 1: uh like the uber nerds were like, you guys did
Speaker 1: a great job. Yeah, there are a couple who are
Speaker 1: just like us, but for the most part, people liked it. Well.
Speaker 1: This is from Christina and she was very nice. She
Speaker 1: is from Cleveland. And that is Christina with a K
Speaker 1: and Y and she says, guys, I love your show.
Speaker 1: I'm Christina from Cleveland. I'm writing about the recent D
Speaker 1: and D podcast because it reminded me of something that
Speaker 1: happened recently. Both of my parents are huge nerds and
Speaker 1: as a result had awesome nerd gaming daughters that as
Speaker 1: me and my sister. Of course, Anyway, when they were dating,
Speaker 1: my mom and my dad and my dad's four best friends,
Speaker 1: my uncle's Bill, Larry, Calvin, and Carlton would get together
Speaker 1: on weekends lay D and D all weekend long. Recently,
Speaker 1: when Uncle Carlton was in town, he brought his old
Speaker 1: reel to real taper quarter player and a bunch of
Speaker 1: recordings of their D and D weekend sessions from the
Speaker 1: mid eighties. That's awesome. It's like Brian posing now. Uh.
Speaker 1: It was a hilarious trip in the time machine and
Speaker 1: every session had its own unique quavor. Anytime they were
Speaker 1: at Carlton's house, you'd hear jazz playing in the background,
Speaker 1: for example, and they always say Larry was a god
Speaker 1: among men as dungeon master. It was a ton of
Speaker 1: fun listening to my young dad and his buddies and
Speaker 1: their girlfriends and wives, joking, drinking, even a little toking
Speaker 1: ha ha, oh my god and talking crap to each
Speaker 1: other while they played the one story that they always
Speaker 1: tell us when Carlton brought a friend who was new
Speaker 1: to the group and loaned him a super awesome leveled
Speaker 1: up acts since he knew he didn't have anything good
Speaker 1: starting out. When the friend wouldn't return it, Uncle Carlton
Speaker 1: killed his buddy's character, got his ax back, and they
Speaker 1: continued on. Thanks for everything, Christina, that's pretty awesome. That's
Speaker 1: a great dnd SOT. I would love to hear those takes.
Speaker 1: Thanks Christina. Yeah. Really, Um, you know Brian Poston is
Speaker 1: doing this this podcast, uh where he plays Dungeons and
Speaker 1: Dragons with some friends and they just recorded same things.
Speaker 1: He releases it as a podcast. I'll have to hear that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that, guys. Um. Well, if you want to
Speaker 1: tell us a great story about your parents, we love
Speaker 1: to hear those. Um. You can tweet to us at
Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you should know. UH. You
Speaker 1: can send us some email to Stuff podcast at the
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. UH. And by the way, thanks for
Speaker 1: the letter, Steama. I forgot to say that uh, And
Speaker 1: as always, you can join us at our home on
Speaker 1: the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
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