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Episode: 390

Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, MD

If you’ve ever wondered, “Why am I always so emotional?” or “Why can’t I just handle my life?”, this episode gives you the real answer.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris explains what’s really happening in your body when you get reactive, shut down, people-please, procrastinate, or feel dread for no reason: your stress response got wired as a kid and it never fully turned off.

You’ll learn how trauma and chronic stress shape your health across a lifetime. You’ll walk away with a practical playbook to start rewiring your nervous system today, including a powerful 3-word sentence that helps your body return to balance fast.

Listen on:

Toxic stress is a silent epidemic - but  your body and your brain and your nervous system can learn to respond differently to stress; be more resilient, calm, and happier.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris

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Key takeaways

  1. You are not “too sensitive.” Your body, nervous system, and stress response learned these patterns in childhood. When you feel triggered, it’s biology replaying, not a personal failure.

  2. Trauma isn’t what has happened to you, it’s how your body responds to the incident. If that response never resets, you keep living in survival mode, reacting to normal life like it’s still a threat.

  3. When your stress response is overactive, your brain literally shuts down focus, judgment, and motivation. So you’re not lazy. You’re just biologically stuck in a loop your body thinks is keeping you safe.

  4. The reason you snap, shut down, or overreact in relationships is because they constantly test your sense of safety, activating old patterns where your body reacts first and your thinking brain comes second.

  5. Even if you don’t remember what happened, your body remembers, and early experiences shape how your brain, immune system, and emotions respond, which is why your reactions today can feel confusing but deeply familiar.

Guests Appearing in this Episode

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, MD

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, pediatrician, pioneering trauma researcher, former Surgeon General of California. Her important work is about Adverse Childhood Experiences and how they impact health across a lifetime.

  • The Deepest Well

    Dr. Burke Harris’s groundbreaking research offers a new framework for understanding childhood adversity and a clear path toward healing:

    • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): Discover the stunning connection between childhood adversity—like abuse, neglect, or parental addiction—and the lifelong risk for diseases like cancer and heart disease.
    • Toxic Stress: Understand how repeated stress in childhood changes our biological systems, from brain development to our immune response, and what can be done to reverse the damage.
    • The Science of Resilience: Learn how simple, science-based interventions focused on sleep, nutrition, mindfulness, and healthy relationships can interrupt the cycle of adversity and promote healing.
    • A New Public Health Approach: Follow Dr. Burke Harris’s journey from a community clinic in Bayview to a national movement aimed at transforming pediatrics, education, and public policy for generations to come.

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