Unfortunately, the fight-or-flight response is a destructive constant companion. As Dr. Nadine Burke Harris put it, the response is great “if you’re in a forest and there’s a bear. The problem is when that bear comes home from the bar every night.” When that happens, the Harvard researchers found, the sector of the brain that deals with highly stressful situations takes over. “Significant stress in early childhood,” they write, “ . . . result[s] in a hyperresponsive or chronically activated physiologic stress response, along with increased potential for fear and anxiety.” For kids like me, the
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