ACEs Event this Sunday, Boston

July 7th, that the date the book Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa is on sale.

By pre-ordering the book today you help the ranking on amazon's list of bestsellers.

A groundbreaking book showing the link between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and adult illnesses such as heart disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer—Childhood Disrupted also explains how to cope with these emotional traumas and even heal from them.

Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall wellbeing. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains.

When we as children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, excessive stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering our body chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting our stress response to “high,” which in turn can have a devastating impact on our mental and physical health.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. Groundbreaking in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Disrupted explains how you can reset your biology—and help your loved ones find ways to heal.

Cissy - Got it! I like these suggestions, and those offered by Jane, too. EMDR worked for me, as well as traditional psychotherapy, walking, and yoga. But it’s still a daily battle to keep my mind positive, which I do with mini-mediations and affirmations – Louise Hay is a favorite. Oh, and acupuncture and herbal support ement particularly to my adrenal glands that have been shot through with deadly cortisol stress hormones

Joan,

Here's a link to Dr. Felitti's suggestions. I'm also going to get the book Scared Sick that he suggested (The Body Keeps the Score) was the other. Hope that helps.

http://healwritenow.com/dr-fil...or-high-ace-scorers/

Cissy

 

I'm sorry the resilience survey is troubling for you, Tina. And that's a great idea to do a handout for current ways to incorporate resilience. To the list of aspects of developing interpersonal relationships, I'd add exercise, enough sleep, a nutritious diet, mindfulness/meditation, communing with Nature, and a safe place to live. 

 

Honestly I think this particular resilience scale is too traumatic and I am not trying to be a pain.. I promise. But the first question is when you were little did your mom love you, then did your dad love you, and finally did someone love you... and there are other similar questions like did a teacher care about you.... Well how do you bring these things from your past into the present? The only takeaway I get is build adult relationships (but for me at least personally  -- I find this questionnaire so distressing -- I start to think about self harming for relief which is not very resilience building because my biggest pain is my parents did not love me when I was growing up and neither did anyone else).  I really believe (even if 500 people answered the questions for Gilespie and Patterson at The Children's Clinic) that these questions are just too toxic to use.  Couldn't we build something better like a handout that describes current ways to be resilient... Like meditation, exercise, eating well, writing gratitude letters etc.. Things that we know work IN the Here and Now????? Please somebody think about this... I think we can do so much better than that questionnaire.  I believe we must do better. It really is harmful.   I would never use it in the pediatric setting because I would come up with something truly helpful.  

Chrissy - Feel free to use anything on ACEsConnection or ACEsTooHigh.

I don't have a title for the book, yet. You could mention Donna Jackson Nakazawa's book about ACEs that's coming out in July: Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology. It's sort of a self-help book about ACEs and resilience. She interviewed all the top researchers in the ACEs research field writ large (epidemiology, neurobiology, biomedical, epigenetic and resilience research). She wrote The Last Best Cure....fabulous book about her journey from autoimmune diseases into health via learning about her childhood adversity, and then changing her whole approach to health.

My book's more about what people are doing together to change schools, juvenile justice, police departments, pediatric practices, hospitals, communities so that they no longer traumatize already traumatized people, and start preventing childhood adversity. 

Yes, definitely feel free to post slides here, too.

Cheers, J.

 

 

You can also do your ACE score -- and your resilience score -- at Got Your ACE Score? on ACEsTooHigh.com. 

Joan, the resilience survey gets at the resilience factors that are important for childhood and to incorporate as an adult, too. 

What it doesn't list are exercise, meditation or mindfulness practice, getting enough sleep, living in a safe place,   and having a nutritious diet.  

In addition, for an overview of ACEs research (epidemiology, neurobiology of toxic stress, long-term biomedical and epigenetic consequences of toxic stress, resilience research) and how people, organizations, agencies and communities are putting this into practice, go to ACEs 101 on ACEsTooHigh.com or ACEs 101 on ACEsConnection.com.

Where will the suggestions be posted for what high ACE scoring people can do to still have a long life-span?