Autophagy for the Body that Keeps Score: Healing Cellular Wounds

Artwork: “The Fog” by Geir Floede

Autophagy for the Body that Keeps Score: Healing Cellular Wounds

There’s a moment when your body begins to scream. For me, it wasn’t a single, loud event but a slow, relentless unraveling. It was a roller coaster ride of constant fatigue, unpredictable energy levels and metabolism, brain fog, and mood swings that made me feel out of control, weak, and frustrated. It was waking up every day feeling drained before the day even started, and my body in a constant state of fight-or-flight. My adrenals were burned out, overwhelmed, and overworked from years of being on high alert. My hormones were a chaotic mess, and my digestion was sluggish and barely functioning. Chronic inflammation seemed to touch every part of me – like a fire, I could not put out.

For so long, I blamed myself. I thought if I could just get my mind in the right place, exercise more, and get healthy even when I wasn’t sure how to juggle it all and achieve it – my body would follow. But no matter how much work I did to understand my emotions and untangle the chaos happening in and around me, my body still faltered and rebelled. It wasn’t until I learned about autophagy that something inside me clicked. I realized that my body wasn’t failing me – it was crying for help.

As I often tell my students, the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.

_Bessel A. van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Living with Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), I discovered that trauma runs deeper than we often realize. As Bessel’s title suggests it is the body that keeps score. It is not just a psychological experience; trauma embeds itself deeply into the body. My body had been stuck in survival mode for so long that it forgot how to function in any other state. My adrenal glands were constantly pumping out cortisol, a stress hormone that keeps us in fight-or-flight mode, as though I were in a never-ending emergency, and throwing me into adrenal fatigue.

Balancing Act: Navigating the Battle Between Fight or Flight vs. Rest and Digest