Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal - Hardcover

Nakazawa, Donna Jackson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1476748357 ISBN 13: 9781476748351

Publisher: Atria Books, 2015

Synopsis

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."

About this title

Review:

"A truly important gift of understanding--illuminates the heartbreaking costs of childhood trauma and like good medicine offers the promising science of healing and prevention."--Jack Kornfield, PhD, author of A Path With Heart

"Long overdue....Childhood Disrupted is a courageous, compassionate and rigorous every-persons guide through the common roots andenduring impact of childhood trauma in each of our lives. Linkingbreakthrough science with our everyday lived experience, Childhood Disruptedinescapably and artfully leads the reader to take practical steps and grasp theurgency of coming to terms with and taking a stand to heal the legacy of traumain our personal and collective lives. This book reframes the commonexperience of childhood trauma through a lens of possibility for a life andsociety with an inexhaustible commitment to the safe, stable and nurturingrelationships our health and healing require."--Christina Bethell, PhD, MBH, MPH Professor of Child Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

"DonnaJackson Nakasawa's Childhood Disrupted masterfully captures thecomplexity of how early life adversity imprints on our biology and stalks ourhealth into adulthood. Heart rending stories of hardship and triumph laced withmedical facts and findings creates a framework of practical advice forremaining unbroken in a challenging world."--Margaret M McCarthy, PhD, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Pharmacology, University of Maryland School of Medicine

"Donna hasonce again taken a difficult medical topic and made it not only easy tounderstand, but a great read. Eye-opening and inspiring, Childhood Disruptedprovides a paradigm-shifting roadmap for understanding how early stress islinked to later illness, and offers a must-read vision for how to begin healingat any age. This book will help readers and especially women better understandthe biology of stress, and jumpstart important new conversations about ourhealth and well-being!"--DeLisa Fairweather, PhD, Director of Cardiovascular Translational Research, Mayo Clinic

"Childhood Disrupted helps shift the paradigm in our understandingof health and well-being by unveiling the role that early adversity plays inour physical and emotional adult health. Donna offers a missing piece of thepuzzle as to why women suffer in disproportionate numbers from chronic physicaland mental health conditions, and opens a new and much-needed door forhealing."--Amy Myers MD author, New York Times Best Seller - The Autoimmune Solution

"ChildhoodDisrupted is a timely book that summarizes the effects of childhood adversity, incorporating the current science in a very personalized and approachableway. The more we understand about childhood adversity and itsimprint on our body and brain, the more we can help each other recover from itsharmful effects. This is an important read for anyone looking to helpthose afflicted by childhood adversity, whether personally or in a caring rolesuch as parents, teachers, and health care workers."--Ryan Herringa, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health

"Every few years a book comes along that changesthe way we view ourselves, our society, and our place in the world. Thisis such a book. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, "ChildhoodDisrupted" contains surprising insights into the power of childhood experienceon every page."--Shannon Brownlee, MS, author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer and senior vice president of the Lown Institute

"In this stimulating book that eloquentlydescribes the effects of one's biography on mind, brain, and body, Nakazawaguides us through a step by step path to recovery. This work represents aninvaluable source of hope and inspiration for anyone who is suffering from theaftermath of early adverse experience."--Ruth A Lanius, MD, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Harris-Woodman Chair, director, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) research unit, University of Western Ontario

"Ifyou want to know why you've been married three times. Or why you just can'tstop smoking. Or why the ability to control your drinking is slipping away fromyou. Or why you have so many physical problems that doctors just can't seem tohelp you with. Or why you feel as if there's no joy in your life even thoughyou're "successful.."...Read "Childhood Disrupted," and you'll learnthat the problems you've been grappling with in your adult life have theirroots in childhood events that you probably didn't even consider had anybearing on what you're dealing with now. Donna Jackson Nakazawa does a thoroughand outstanding investigation of exactly how your childhood made you ill and/orjoyless, and how you can heal."--Jane Stevens, editor, ACEsConnection.com

""ChildhoodDisrupted" isa book of major significance that describes clearly and understandably what hasbeen learned in recent years about the important subject of human developmentand how what happens in childhood affects our well-being, biomedical health, and life expectancy as adults. It will be appreciated by many."--Vincent J. Felitti, MD, CEO, The California Institute of Preventive Medicine

About the Author:

Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science journalist, public speaker, and author of "The Last Best Cure", in which she chronicled her yearlong journey to health, and "The Autoimmune Epidemic", an investigation into the reasons behind today s rising rates of autoimmune diseases. She is also a contributor to the Andrew Weil Integrative Medicine Library book "Integrative Gastroenterology". Ms. Nakazawa lectures nationwide. Learn more at DonnaJacksonNakazawa.com.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1476748357
• ISBN 13: 9781476748351
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 278