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Toxic or Traumatic Stress
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE's) | ||
Four ACE's may be good in a poker game, but not in the game of life. ACE's represent Adverse Childhood Experiences, and they are a leading indicator of potential health problems a person may experience years later.
In early childhood, repeated exposure to major stress such as extreme poverty, abuse, neglect, or incarceration of a parent can permanently alter a child's developing brain structures and set the body's stress response system on high alert. A growing body of research shows the direct correlation between serious family dysfunction and toxic stress suffered in childhood and the potential for an adult exposed to ACEs to develop life-long problems in physical and mental health. Heart disease, obesity, depression, diabetes, stroke, osteoarthritis and other major diseases have been clearly linked to ACE's. New research is showing where employees with unresolved ACEs may cost businesses millions of dollars in lost time, injuries and productivity.
All is not lost, however. Other research is showing that there are ways to reduce the negative affects of past trauma, and help people become healthy and resilient, able to handle life's problems in a positive manner.
The ACE study is a collaborative research project of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. Over 17,000 people participated in the study.
In early childhood, repeated exposure to major stress such as extreme poverty, abuse, neglect, or incarceration of a parent can permanently alter a child's developing brain structures and set the body's stress response system on high alert. A growing body of research shows the direct correlation between serious family dysfunction and toxic stress suffered in childhood and the potential for an adult exposed to ACEs to develop life-long problems in physical and mental health. Heart disease, obesity, depression, diabetes, stroke, osteoarthritis and other major diseases have been clearly linked to ACE's. New research is showing where employees with unresolved ACEs may cost businesses millions of dollars in lost time, injuries and productivity.
All is not lost, however. Other research is showing that there are ways to reduce the negative affects of past trauma, and help people become healthy and resilient, able to handle life's problems in a positive manner.
The ACE study is a collaborative research project of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego. Over 17,000 people participated in the study.
