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

A person with four or more ACEs is two and a half times as likely to smoke, five and a half times as likely to be dependent on alcohol, and ten times as likely to use intravenous drugs as a person with zero ACEs.

The hormonal system is very sensitive to the stress response.

The chart review that we did at the

clinic showed us that if a kid had an ACE score of four or more, he or she was twice as likely to be overweight or obese as a child with zero ACEs.

When you realize what toxic stress does to the hormonal systems of kids who have experienced multiple ACEs, you understand that it’s not just because they subsist primarily on a diet of fast food that they are overweight. It’s not just that they are living in a food desert (a term that refers specifically to a neighborhood with a dearth of nutritious food) and are being brought up by parents who think Taco Bell is a healthy alternative to McDonald’s.

What I hadn’t learned was how to break the intergenerational cycle of toxic stress.

These pups are not damaged goods; they are not defective. If they can get a safe, stable, and nurturing environment at an early age, the biology says that this sets them up to develop a healthy stress-response system in adulthood. As we’ve

mentioned, the key to keeping a tolerable stress response from tipping over into the toxic stress zone is the presence of a buffering adult to adequately mitigate the impact of the stressor.

meditation and exercise.

No doctor has ever told them that there might be a problem with their stress-response system, much less suggested what to do about it.

child-parent psychotherapy

Eventually, Dr. Lieberman would go on to codify the CPP protocol and demonstrate its efficacy in five separate randomized trials.

It was no surprise that Charlene and Nia were struggling with sleep. Researchers have found that infants of depressed moms have a harder time regulating their sleep; they sleep an average of ninety-seven fewer minutes a night than infants of nondepressed moms and have more nighttime awakenings.

Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you groggy and cranky; it also makes you sick. Lack of sleep is associated with increased inflammation and reduced effectiveness of the immune system.

I sat down to check in with the moms and grandmas each week, and they reported that when they changed their children’s diet and their levels of exercise went up, the kids slept better and felt healthier, and in many cases, their behavioral issues and sometimes their grades improved.

When it comes to combating toxic stress, addressing the dysregulated immune system is as important as supporting brain function. Regular exercise has also been shown to help regulate the stress response and reduce the presence of inflammatory cytokines.

We saw that exercising made a huge difference for our kids, but so did eating right. Making a few specific changes to what grade of fuel went in the tank (e.g., substituting lean proteins and complex carbohydrates for greasy fast food) improved the body’s ability to regulate itself. We explained that exercising and eating healthfully not only contributed to weight loss but also helped boost the immune system and improve brain function.

At that point, my staff and I had some strong strategies for specifically targeting and healing the dysregulated stress response: sleep, mental health, healthy relationships, exercise, and nutrition.

Over and over again the research pointed to one treatment in particular—meditation.

We weren’t aware of this at the time, but our approach would later become a best practice known as team-based care.

I felt a sense of pride and confidence seeing two social workers, a psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist, a nurse practitioner, and two wellness coordinators whose job was to manage the interlocking web of patient treatment plans across disciplines.

“New research has shown that children’s exposure to stressful or traumatic events can lead to increased risk of health and developmental problems, like asthma and learning difficulties.