Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety
Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, former California Surgeon General and trauma researcher, explains how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) create a lasting biological stress response that shapes adult behavior, health, and relationships. She argues that trauma is not the event itself but the body's ongoing biological response to it, and that evidence-based 'buffering' practices can help rewire the nervous system. The conversation covers the ACE study, the science of stress hormones, and practical interventions for healing.
Summary
In this episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast, Mel interviews Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris, a Stanford- and Harvard-trained pediatrician, founder of the Center for Youth Wellness, and the first Surgeon General of California. The conversation centers on the long-term biological and neurological impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and what adults can do to break free from patterns rooted in early stress and trauma.
Dr. Burke-Harris begins by redefining trauma: rather than being the event itself, trauma is the body's biological response to overwhelming stress — a response that can persist and shape behavior long after the original experience. She traces her clinical awakening to a seven-year-old patient who had experienced a sexual assault at age four and had literally stopped growing. This case led her to understand that stress hormones could arrest physical development, and that psychotherapy — not hormonal treatment — was the appropriate intervention because it addressed the root cause: an overactive stress response.
The episode then covers the landmark ACE study, a CDC and Kaiser Permanente study of 17,500 people that identified 10 categories of adverse childhood experiences: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; and growing up in a household with parental mental illness, substance dependence, incarceration, divorce or separation, or intimate partner violence. Two-thirds of respondents had experienced at least one ACE, and one in six had experienced four or more. The study found a dose-response relationship between ACE scores and serious adult health conditions, including depression, alcohol and opiate dependence, heart disease, and chronic lung disease. Notably, even after controlling for health-damaging behaviors like smoking and drinking, roughly 50% of the elevated health risk remained — attributable directly to the biological effects of chronic stress activation.
Dr. Burke-Harris introduces the concept of 'buffering' — interventions that help the body re-regulate after stress — using a teeter-totter analogy. Adversity is a downward force on one side; buffering practices (safe relationships, mindfulness, exercise, sleep, nutrition, mental health care, and time in nature) counterbalance it. Crucially, the younger a child is when trauma occurs, the further the fulcrum shifts toward the adversity side, meaning far more buffering is needed in adulthood to restore balance. She also discusses rat studies showing that buffering care (licking and grooming by mother rats) actually altered epigenetic markers in offspring, changing how their DNA was expressed and how stress-tolerant they became — and that cross-fostering experiments confirmed these effects were driven by rearing environment, not genetics.
The fight-flight-freeze-fawn response is explained in detail. When the amygdala detects threat, it releases adrenaline and cortisol and simultaneously suppresses the prefrontal cortex — the seat of judgment, impulse control, and executive function. This is adaptive in genuine danger but becomes problematic when triggered repeatedly in everyday adult life, leading to reactivity, procrastination, shame cycles, and an inability to access motivation or willpower. Dr. Burke-Harris emphasizes that trying to 'power through' this biology without understanding it leads to shame and isolation, which only deepen the problem.
Both Mel and Dr. Burke-Harris share personal examples: Mel describes a repressed childhood sexual assault that caused three decades of morning dread, and Dr. Burke-Harris discusses growing up with a mother who had untreated paranoid schizophrenia. Both describe how self-regulation practices — meditation, journaling, exercise, EMDR therapy — have helped them rewire their stress responses as adults. EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is described in detail as a bilateral stimulation therapy that allows the brain to reprocess traumatic memories and generate corrective experiences.
The episode concludes with a practical framework: start with the seven evidence-based buffering interventions (sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health care, healthy relationships, and time in nature); build safe and stable relationships; consider therapy (trauma-focused CBT, IFS, or EMDR); and when needed, consult a doctor about medication. Dr. Burke-Harris's key message is that the same biological plasticity that made us vulnerable to early stress also makes healing possible — and that showing up for yourself, the 'I'm here' effect, is the foundation of all recovery.
Key Insights
- Dr. Burke-Harris argues that trauma is not the event itself but the body's ongoing biological response to overwhelming stress — a distinction she says most people misunderstand.
- The ACE study found that two-thirds of 17,500 participants had experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, and one in six had experienced four or more, making ACEs far more common than most people assume.
- Dr. Burke-Harris found that even after controlling for health-damaging behaviors like smoking and drinking, approximately 50% of the elevated disease risk from ACEs remained, meaning the stress response itself — independent of lifestyle — drives chronic illness.
- She describes a patient whose physical growth literally stopped at age four following a sexual assault, with the endocrinologist confirming that psychotherapy — not hormones — was the correct treatment because it addressed the underlying stress response.
- Using a teeter-totter analogy, Dr. Burke-Harris explains that the younger a child is when trauma occurs, the more the fulcrum shifts toward adversity, requiring proportionally more buffering in adulthood to restore equilibrium.
- Rat studies she cites showed that buffering care altered epigenetic markers in offspring — not the genetic code itself, but which parts of it get expressed — and cross-fostering experiments confirmed these changes were driven by rearing environment rather than genetics.
- Dr. Burke-Harris explains that the amygdala suppresses the prefrontal cortex during a stress response, which is why people experiencing chronic stress struggle with impulse control, executive functioning, and motivation — not because of character flaws but because of biology.
- She identifies four stress responses — fight, flight, freeze, and fawn (people-pleasing for safety) — and notes that fawning is disproportionately common in women and is driven entirely by the survival imperative, not weakness.
- Dr. Burke-Harris argues that attempting to 'power through' an overactive stress response without understanding it leads to shame, which then isolates people from the very connections and support they need to heal.
- She describes seven evidence-based interventions shown to buffer the biological stress response: sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health care, healthy relationships, and time in nature — all of which she included in California's Surgeon General report.
- Dr. Burke-Harris explains that EMDR therapy works by using bilateral stimulation to help the brain reprocess traumatic memories differently, and that the therapeutic goal is a 'corrective experience' — experiencing a different outcome than the original trauma — which can physically rewire the stress response.
- She argues that understanding the biology of trauma removes shame from the equation, because recognizing 'this is my overactive stress response' reframes reactive behavior as a biological pattern to be addressed rather than a moral failing to be judged.
Topics
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