Knowledge is power and learning about toxic stress, and its harmful effects can help us learn to improve the quality of our life and extend our lifespan. Learning about what causes poor physical, mental, and socioeconomic outcomes help us prevent them as well as the unnecessary suffering for ourselves and future generations associated with it.
The CDC-Kaiser Adverse Childhood Experience study was conducted from 1995-1998. The ACE study and the subsequent results would permanently change the way we understand how prolonged unrelenting or toxic stress damages healthy brain development during one’s most formative years.
The ACE study taught us that children that experience toxic stress have a significantly higher risk of developing poor mental and physical health. It also showed us that toxic stress disrupts a child’s healthy brain development and people with an ACE score of four or more are susceptible to seven of the ten leading causes of death.
Individual’s with an ACE score of four or more are more likely to be hospitalized for mental illness and or substance abuse, commit suicide, fall into abusive patterns of behavior and continuing cycles of poverty, incarceration, and disease.
The disruption in healthy brain development caused by toxic stress can also result in difficulty focusing attention, regulating anger, and controlling impulses. Unhealthy brain development in the frontal lobe often leads to substance abuse, risk-taking behavior, and it increases the risk of suffering from depression, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses.
If you have experienced a lot of adversity during your childhood, then learning about ACEs can be difficult and painful. Difficult because without intervention there is little hope for anyone with an ACE score of four or more to lead a functional, happy, healthy, life; and painful to learn that circumstances outside your control when you were a child can harm you for the rest of your life.
Although all of this sounds tragic and hopeless, it is not because once you figure out the root cause of your challenges, you can begin working on their solutions. Learning to build resilience will help you turn your struggles into your strengths.
ACE awareness helps people understand the importance of reaching out to receive the help needed to live our best life. This can be done by working with physical and mental health professionals to help heal those old wounds. Incorporating mindfulness meditation practices with an active lifestyle and proper nutrition are also essential to healing and the ability to optimize health and wellness.
Resources for Healing Trauma 