00:00If I could tell myself two things from when I was struggling with unexplained weight gain,
00:05not knowing what was going on with my body, knowing something was wrong, but not being
00:08able to explain how I knew that and just feeling like overall my body was working against me,
00:13it would be one, to schedule an appointment with my primary care physician and ask for a sleep study
00:17and two, to learn about the polyvagal theory of trauma. If you don't know me, hi, I'm Lex. I lost
00:2260 pounds in the last year and the reason why I had so much unexplained weight gain is because I
00:26had sleep apnea for three years and didn't know. Before September of 2021, I didn't even know what
00:31sleep apnea was. Like I knew it was something that old men got, but I didn't understand how it impacted
00:35your body and I didn't understand the importance of sleep. I feel like sleep is something that we
00:39all talk about all the time of being so important, but we don't realize that inconsistent sleep patterns,
00:45that insomnia, that feeling exhausted are all things that can really impact every single piece
00:50of your body and your physiology. And that's where the polyvagal theory of trauma comes in because
00:55that is related to the ACE, which is adverse childhood experiences. The higher ACE score you
01:00have, the more likely you are going to have negative health outcomes such as addiction, sleep apnea,
01:06depression, anxiety, PTSD, diabetes, heart disease, like pretty much everything. And I think that the
01:13polyvagal theory of trauma can explain all of that because it shows that when you are in social
01:18engagement, when you feel safe, when you're regulated, what regulation means with your nervous system,
01:22because I know I didn't, it just means that your body and your brain are communicating that you are
01:27safe and your body is able to function as it would like to.
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