The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity—A Transformative Guide to Understanding Childhood Trauma and Health

by Nadine Burke Harris

Twenty years of medical research has shown that childhood adversity literally gets under our skin, changing people in ways that can endure in their bodies for decades. It can tip a child’s developmental trajectory and affect physiology. It can trigger chronic inflammation and hormonal changes that can last a lifetime. It can alter the way DNA is read and how cells replicate, and it can dramatically increase the risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes—even Alzheimer’s.

The amygdala: the brain’s fear center Prefrontal cortex: the front part of the brain that regulates cognitive and executive function, including judgment and mood and emotions Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis: initiates the production of cortisol (longer-acting stress hormone) by the adrenal glands Sympatho-adrenomedullary (SAM) axis: initiates the production of adrenaline and noradrenaline (short-acting stress hormones) by the adrenal glands and brain Hippocampus: processes emotional information, critical for consolidating memories Noradrenergic nucleus in the locus coeruleus: the within-the-brain stress-response system that regulates mood, irritability, locomotion, arousal, attention, and the startle response

cortisol helps the body adapt to repeated or long-term stressors, like living in bear-infested woods or handling prolonged food shortages. Some

But what happens when you can’t experience safety in your cave because the bear is living in the cave with you?

the stress response was activated dozens and sometimes hundreds of times a day.

The main issue is that when the stress response is activated too frequently or if the stressor is too intense, the body can lose the ability to shut down the HPA and SAM axes. The term for this is disruption of feedback inhibition, which is a science-y way of saying that the body’s stress thermostat is broken. Instead of shutting off the supply of “heat” when a certain point is reached, it just keeps on blasting cortisol through your system.

They found that the more symptoms a kid had, the higher his cortisol levels were and the smaller the volume of his hippocampus. After the first measurement of the hippocampus, they measured the same kids again twelve to eighteen months later and found their hippocampi were even smaller. Despite the fact that these kids were no longer experiencing trauma, the parts of their brains responsible for learning and memory were still shrinking, showing us that the effects of earlier stress were still acting on the neurological system.

Apart from these revelations, the profound discovery was that our patients with four or more ACEs were twice as likely to be overweight or obese and 32.6 times as likely to have been diagnosed with learning and behavioral problems.

So, I scored 6 out of 8.

inattention, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity,

it me!