Page A-10
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, November 21, 2018
Healthy U News:
Adverse
Childhood
Experiences
It is logical, when
a person shows signs of
dysfunction, for people to
assume that something bad
happened in their childhood. It
wasn’t until recently, however,
that enough people were studied
to see if that’s really the case.
A total of 17,337 adults
whose health was insured
by Kaiser Permanente were
surveyed for signs of a
connection between traumatic
childhood experiences and later
health problems. The Center
of Disease Control (CDC), the
federal government’s health
agency, participated in the
project with Kaiser. They asked
people to report on physical,
sexual or emotional abuse
before age 18. For example,
was there substance abuse,
violence, mental illness, poverty
or had a parent been in prison.
And they asked if the subject
had lost a parent through death,
abandonment or divorce.
Participants in the study
were scored on how many of
the above adverse experiences
they had experienced. These
were the findings:
by Nicole Rensenbrink
- Almost 40 percent
reported more than one of
these adverse experiences. 12.5
percent reported four or more.
- The number of
negative childhood experiences
had a strong relationship to the
number of social problems in
adulthood, including smoking,
alcohol and drug abuse and
promiscuity.
- Negative health
problems included depression,
heart disease, cancer, chronic
lung disease, severe obesity and
shortened life span.
- Compared to an
adult who had none of the
adverse childhood situations
listed, an adult who had listed
at least four of them had a
700 percent increase risk of
alcoholism, twice the risk of
cancer, and four times the risk
of emphysema. Adults with
six of the adverse situations in
childhood were 3,000 percent
more likely to risk suicide.
Childhood is when we
set the stage for how we view
life, the types of people we
are comfortable around, and
the kinds of choices we make.
But that’s not all. Adverse
childhood experiences change
brain chemistry by setting off
fear, anxiety and anger, which
trigger our stress hormones.
These hormones cause
us to run or fight, crucial
reactions of the primitive world.
Stress hormones can cause our
blood vessels to constrict, shut
down our digestive systems
or the muscles of our necks,
shoulders and backs, dilate our
bronchial tubes and increase
our heart rates. And, when we
spend a lot of time in states
of flight or fight, we aren’t
spending it using reason.
Rather, we have anxiety,
depression, hopelessness, lack
of concentration, or desperate
needs to be in control.
But, not all is grim.
There are measures to take to
counteract negative childhood
experiences and today our
society provides many of
them. Calming practices
like mindfulness, meditation,
aerobic exercise and yoga are a
few that help the brain to heal.
Healthy eating keeps our bodies
in balance. Secure relationships
also help stabilize us. And,
finally, we can stimulate our
brains with productive and
interesting experiences that
make feel competent and
optimistic.
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(Photo courtesy of Tabatha Siemer for the Illinois Valley News)
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