Toxic Stress
Toxic stress, unlike manageable stress, refers to the long-term changes in brain architecture and organ systems that develop after extreme, prolonged, and repeated stress goes untreated.
Toxic stress response can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity-such as physical or emotional abuse, chronic neglect, caregiver substance abuse or mental illness, exposure to violence, and/or accumulated burdens of family economic hardship-without adequate adult support.
Imagine that you see a bear while walking through the forest. In response to this threat, your body switches into "fight or flight" mode. To survive, your body releases emergency stress hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, that cause your heartbeat to quicken, make your eyes dilate and focus your mind on the threat at hand--everything you need to get your body ready to run or to fight back. When activated occasionally, this system bypasses our thinking brain--the prefrontal cortex--and activates the primitive reactions that can get us out of the way of a threat. In situations like this, stress is helpful--it keeps you alive.
But if you experience stressful situations when you are young that mimic the "bear in the woods" scenario, your body learns to have a different stress response, and stress can have long-term effects on our health if we do not learn how to manage it.
Your stress response becomes disrupted and that affects different systems in your body: immune, hormonal, and cardiovascular systems. It will be different in each person.
The problem comes when our system is overtaxed by repeated, intense or chronic stress. That cascade of chemicals and reactions goes from saving one's life to damaging one's health. Children are especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of chronic stress and trauma. For many kids who are repeatedly exposed to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), their "fight or flight" system is activated so often that it stays on. These high levels of emergency hormones can lead to changes in the structure and function of children's developing brains and bodies. The result is TOXIC stress.
If left unaddressed, toxic stress can negatively affect a developing body and brain by disrupting learning, behavior, immunity, growth, and even the way DNA is read and transcribed.
