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

Katie Albright, a tireless child advocate

Center for Youth Wellness.

I believe in the power of conversation, connection, and empathy when it comes to dealing with community problems,

that Geoff Canada, founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone

Dr. Robert Guthrie

Idris Elba.

multidisciplinary rounds;

Guthrie had shown that the only way to radically move the needle on patient outcomes is to screen universally, because otherwise you are relying on chance:

critical period is a time in development when the presence or absence of an experience

results in irreversible changes.

sensitive period is a time when the brain is particularly responsive to a stimulus in the environment, but unlike critical periods, the window doesn’t totally close at the end of the sensitive period; it just gets a lot smaller.

Critical and sensitive periods are times of maximal neuroplasticity

This growing and changing of neurons and synapses can happen in response to injury, exercise, hormones, emotion, learning, and even thinking.

Our

brains are always changing in response to our experiences, and overall...

Synaptic plasticity is a change in the strength of the connection across the junction from one brain cell to the next (the synapse).

Cellular plasticity, however, is a change in the number of brain cells that are talking to each other, the difference between one person shouting and a whole stadium shouting.

About 90 percent occurs by the time a child turns six, but the rest of it stretches out until about age twenty-five.

Our experiences, both positive and harmful, determine which brain pathways are activated and continue to strengthen over time. In that sense, early experiences literally shape the brain.

it’s never too late to use biology to our advantage for healing.

include other factors that we believe may also increase the risk for toxic stress. Community violence Homelessness Discrimination Foster care Bullying Repeated medical procedures or life-threatening illness Death of caregiver Loss of caregiver due to deportation or migration In our teen screener, we also include the following: Verbal or physical violence from a romantic partner Youth incarceration

toxic stress is about basic human biology and that adversity happens everywhere, among all races and geographic areas.

for toxic stress, the six things that I recommend for my patients—sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health, and healthy relationships—were just as important for

adults.

Ideally, you want to maximize all six of those things, especially for adults, because our brains aren’t as plastic as they were when we were kids.

the research defines toxic stress in children as long-term changes to brains and bodies in the absence of a buffering caregiver.

Toxic stress is a result of a disruption to the stress response.

This is a fundamental biological mechanism, not a money problem or a neighborhood problem or a character problem.

National Crittenton Foundation,

They understand that their bodies have experienced a normal

reaction to abnormal circumstances across the span of their lives.

The Alberta Family Wellness Initiative,

Dr. Pamela Cantor. Her organization Turnaround for Children

larger. Turnaround

the neurobiology of adversity.

The developmental neuroscience suggested that before kids could learn grit and resilience, or math and science, for that matter, they needed a basic foundation in healthy attachment, stress management, and self-regulation.

Turnaround came up with a framework it called Building Blocks for Learning

develop in children the foundational skills of attachment, stress management, and self-regulation, and then layered the other skills for learning on top.

in an order that makes sense for lear...

You also have to release the “brake” (the inhibitory effect of the amygdala on cognitive function)

Toxic stress affects how we learn, how we parent, how we react at home and at work, and what we create in our communities.

It affects our children, our earning potential, and the very ideas we have about what we’re capable

Precision Public Health Summit

Jenee Johnson, the director of the Black Infant Health Program (BIH)

the axiology of black people is relationship.

as the father of black children, Arno has an additional risk factor for stress.

When you are black or brown and living in America, there are more threats and stressors inherent in your

exper...

We all live in a forest with different kinds of bears.

we all share a common enemy, and that common enemy is childhood adversity.