Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Trauma is the body's response to overwhelming stress, not the event itself.

  Pediatrician and former California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris reframes trauma as 'the biological response to overwhelming stress.' Mel admits she always thought trauma was the thing that happened. Because it's a biological response, it can be wired in during infancy: 'You may not remember the actual event, but the body remembers.'

• 02

  Adverse childhood experiences are common and add up.

  The 1998 CDC–Kaiser Permanente ACE Study surveyed about 17,500 people about 10 categories: physical, emotional or sexual abuse; physical or emotional neglect; and growing up with a parent who had a mental health disorder, substance dependence or incarceration, or with parental separation or divorce, or intimate partner violence. Two-thirds had at least one ACE and 1 in 8 had four or more. She says updated CDC data now puts it at 1 in 6 nationally.

• 03

  The higher the ACE count, the higher the health risks.

  She calls it a dose-response relationship. Four or more ACEs meant 4.5 times the risk of depression, 7 times alcohol dependence, 10 times opioid dependence and 2.5 times heart disease. She explains that switching on the stress response also switches on immune activity and inflammation, which helps explain links to heart and autoimmune disease. These are population risks, not destiny.

• 04

  Your stress response is a bear alarm, and it switches off your thinking brain.

  The amygdala sounds the alarm, triggering adrenaline and cortisol: your heart pounds, your pupils dilate, blood goes to your big muscles (and away from the 'itty-bitty muscle that holds your bladder closed'). It also turns down the prefrontal cortex, which handles judgment, impulse control and executive function, so you don't do something rash like fight the bear. The response can be fight, flight or freeze. If it's stuck on, you can know exactly what to do, like finish the résumé, and still not be able to start. That's biology, not a lack of willpower.

• 05

  Buffering is what keeps stress from turning into lasting harm.

  Buffering is anything that helps the stress response switch off: above all a safe, regulated caregiver, plus therapy and sometimes medication. Her example from raising four kids: when something scary happens, you pull the child in, stay calm and say, 'You're okay. That was scary, wasn't it?' You acknowledge the fear, signal safety, and maybe give a hug.

• 06

  Buffering effects can pass down generations, as the rat studies show.

  Researchers stressed baby rats by handling them, then returned them to their mothers. Pups whose mothers did lots of licking and grooming grew up more stress-tolerant, more exploratory and better on cognitive tests, and their stress response shut off normally. They then groomed their own pups more. Pups with little buffering showed the opposite, and passed that on too.

• 07

  The 'I'm here' effect sums up all the science.

  She sums up buffering, trauma-informed care and regulation as a regulated presence saying 'I'm here.' That can be adult you showing up for the child who didn't get it, and adult you showing up for yourself today. She says giving yourself what you needed then changes your biology now.

• 08

  Step one: seven evidence-based regulators.

  From her Surgeon General's report: sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health care, healthy relationships and time in nature. Start simple, for instance a 20-minute daily walk. Her own mornings include mindfulness, journaling, a walk or a workout.

• 09

  Step two: deliberately build safe, stable relationships, and add therapy if you need it.

  For some people the daily practices are enough. Others need therapy as well. She has personally used EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing), in which a trained therapist guides you through a memory with bilateral stimulation (she uses a TheraTapper) and then a corrective experience: what should have happened.

• 10

  Healing shows up as being less reactive and more responsive.

  Early signs include catching yourself ('I reacted a little heavy-handed there, that's not the mom I want to be') rather than not noticing at all. In her clinical practice, she says adding buffering to standard treatment, whether for ADHD or a child who isn't growing, improves outcomes.