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

stimulates fat accumulation and also triggers the body to crave high-sugar, high-fat foods.

High levels of cortisol can inhibit reproductive function

incredibly important function of the stress response is activating the immune system.

stress thermostat called feedback inhibition

triggers the stress response to turn itself off once it has done its job.

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

Jacqueline Bruce, Phil Fisher, and colleagues.

cortisol has a predictable daily pattern: it’s high in the morning to help wake you up and get you ready for the day and then gradually decreases, reaching its lowest point in the evening, just when you need to go to sleep.

children who had experienced maltreatment had higher overall cortisol levels as well as a disruption of the normal daily pattern of cortisol secretion.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child

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.

disruption of feedback inhibition,

the body’s...

thermostat is...

Toxic stress response can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity—such as physical or emotional abuse, neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness, exposure to violence, and/or the accumulated burdens of

family economic hardship—without adequate adult support. This kind of prolonged activation of the stress-response systems can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems, and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment, well into the adult years.

Healthy development of the stress-response system requires that a child experience both positive and tolerable stress.

for every ACE a child has, the risk of tolerable stress tipping over into toxic stress increases, as the system responds more frequently and intensely to multiple stressors.

High doses of adversity affect not only the brain structure and function but also the developing immune system

and hormonal systems, and even the way DNA is read and transcribed.

equally important ingredient for toxic stress—the caregiver’s ability to act as a buffer.

Dr. Victor Carrion, a child psychiatrist and the director of the Early Life Stress and Pediatric Anxiety Program at Stanford University Medical Center,

PTSD symptoms and hyperarousal symptoms like difficulty sleeping, irritability, and trouble concentrating,

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.

the life expectancy of individuals

or more is twenty years shorter than it is for people with no ACEs.

Guanfacine

A disrupted stress response doesn’t affect only the neurological system, it affects the immune system, the hormonal system, and the cardiovascular system as well.

a child’s brain forms more than one million neural connections every second

Because these parts of the brain are on front lines of the stress response, it makes sense that a severe and prolonged disruption of the norm would hit them hardest, changing how they fundamentally do their jobs.

ventral tegmental area (VTA). This is the pleasure and reward center of the brain and it plays a huge role in behavior and addiction.

amygdala is the brain’s fear center.

limbic system, which governs emotions, memory, motivation, and behavior.

it helps you identify and react to threats in your environment.

The dysregulated locus coeruleus releases too much noradrenaline (the brain’s version of adrenaline) and can result in increased anxiety, arousal, and aggression.

seriously mess with your sleep-wake

cycles by overloading your system with hormones that tell it to re...

“executive functioning,” which is the ability to differentiate among conflicting thoughts and inputs, consider future consequences of current activities, work toward a defined goal, and exhibit “social control”

For kids with toxic stress, the activity of the prefrontal cortex is inhibited in two ways.

the overactive amygdala sends messages to the PFC telling it to decrease its functioning because something scary is happening;

The second is that the locus coeruleus is flooding the brain with noradrenaline, compromising the ability to ...

This down-regulation of the PFC can have different consequences for different people. For some, it results in an inability to concentrate and solve problems, but in others it manifests as impulsive behavior and aggression.

The hormonal system is very sensitive to the stress response.

every one of the body’s hormonal systems is affected by stress.

chronic stress increases your cravings for high-sugar, high-fat foods, and elevated cortisol makes it harder for your body to metabolize sugars and easier for your body to store fat.

hormones leptin and ghrelin are also increased with activation of the stress response.

cytokines

what’s important in the immune system is balance.

Dysregulation of the stress response has a profound impact on immune and inflammatory responses because virtually all the components of the immune system are influenced by stress hormones.