The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Mental Health and Wellbeing
Childhood experiences can have a significant impact on your brain. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are any stressful, traumatic, or adverse events that occur to you or your family members as a child. These experiences can affect your mental and physical health in the long term, and the risks increase the greater your ACE score. This article explains ACEs, their effects on mental health and the brain, and how you can protect yourself from these harmful experiences. In addition, it provides several ways to reduce the impact of ACEs on your brain by taking action today.
What Are Adverse Childhood Experiences?
Adverse childhood experiences are any stressful, traumatic, or negative events that occur to you or your family members as a child. These experiences can affect your mental and physical health in the long term. These experiences can include being physically or sexually abused, witnessing domestic violence or abuse, having a family member incarcerated or abused by the legal system, having a family member who was a victim of violence, growing up in poverty, or other stressful situations. Studies have found a link between childhood trauma and the risk of developing several health problems, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and suicide.
ACEs and Wellbeing
According to Nadine Burke Harris, former California Surgeon General, "Twenty years of medical research has shown that childhood adversity literally gets under our skin, changing people in ways that can endure in their bodies for decades." Adversity in childhood triggers changes in hormonal production and can even alter how cells replicate. Prolonged adversity damages the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, leading to increased anxiety and depression, difficulty with memory and learning, and emotional control.
CDC-Kaiser ACE Study "found that the long-term impact of ACEs determined future health risks, chronic disease, and premature death. Individuals who had experienced multiple ACEs also faced higher risks of depression, addiction, obesity, attempted suicide, mental health disorders, and other health concerns." (Source)
Healing The Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences
While you may not be able to turn back time, there are ways to heal from the toxic stress that has left an enduring mark on your mind, body, and spirit. Here are a few suggestions to get you started.
Keep a Journal
This can help you process your emotions and experiences and allow you to express yourself without a filter. Writing is a powerful alchemé that transmutes energy and creates space for greater levels of peace. I offer a complimentary journal filled with writing prompts to get you started.
Meditation
Studies have shown that consistent meditation helps regulate the nervous system and can assist the body in releasing stored trauma from within the body and the unconscious. If you've found meditation a challenge in the past, check out my tips to make meditation a part of your daily life.
Exercise
Regular exercise helps to release stress-reducing and mood-boosting endorphins essential for increased wellbeing. Additionally, it helps to transmute the stored traumatic energy assisting the body to relax deeper. Yoga is a powerful way to move your body while helping to regulate breathing, lulling you into a meditative state.
Mindfulness
Those who've experienced ACEs have a nervous system built around a feeling of constant threat. Mindfulness helps to increase neuroception, the ability to distinguish if situations and people are safe or a threat to our safety. Mindfulness practices bring you back to the here and now for those who often are stuck in rumination of the past or worrying about the future.
Nature
Getting out in nature also helps to regulate the nervous system, create a more significant presence, and grounds the body and spirit. A walk through your neighborhood or local park is an immersive experience where you can lose yourself in the sounds of nature.
Self-Care
While many dismiss bubble baths, putting on makeup, or getting a massage as superficial, they're anything but. While hardly the only forms of self-care, they are great ways to nurture your body, mind, and spirit. Showing care and love through acts that feel nurturing is a powerful way to build a profoundly safe relationship with yourself.
Support
Ask for help when you feel it's needed. Healing the effects of ACEs can be challenging, but it's not impossible. Sometimes the right guide can be precisely what you need to recover fully.
Healing is possible
Adverse childhood experiences can impact your mental, emotional and physical health in a way that endures for years. It's essential to understand the impact of ACEs and have tools for healing that are accessible. If you want to learn more about ACEs and get your score, grab my Adverse Childhood Experiences Guide in free resources.
