Episode 46: Dr. Anu French, MD on Breaking The Cycle Of Intergenerational Trauma

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SPEAKERS: Dr. Andrew Wong, Dr. Anu French, MD

“Well, I wanted to share a quote actually from another person that I admire greatly in this field, Donna Jackson Nakazawa she’s one of the another, big great teacher in the field of ACEs and she has this quote that is so beautiful. She says, even if we have been set on high reactive mode for decades or a lifetime we can still dial it down. We can respond to life’s inevitable stresses more appropriately and shift away from an overactive inflammatory response. We can become neurobiologically resilient. We can turn bad epigenetics into good epigenetics and we can rescue ourselves. So, I think the one thing that I want everyone to know about ACEs is that you know two-thirds of Americans have ACEs. If you look at all the data, so 70 of us are walking around having had some kind of ACE you know so but a hundred percent of us are resilient you know so because resilience is not something you’re born with it’s actually the ability to bounce back. So it’s actually something that you can be taught you know and so if we recognize it and we bring this into our awareness then we can empower ourselves to actually become resilient and so I think that’s the take-home message I want because you know again like I said you know this is a pretty heavy topic and I want people to understand that you know you, you can definitely bounce back and you can definitely become resilient and you can reverse generations of epigenetic trauma you know. I would say you can be a change-maker and a chain breaker you know so tell my girls what we want to do we want to just break the cycles of epigenetic trauma and things that we’ve been told like this runs in your family this is how it’s going to be this is how it’s been for us you know, these kind of terms that don’t apply anymore because we can definitely forge a new path you know neurobiologically and your plasticity and all of that right”- Dr. Anu French, MD

How do our environment and experiences in childhood impact our health as adults? I am excited to bring you a conversation with my good friend Anu French about ACEs. Also known as adverse childhood experiences and how ACEs affect our health and how we can become resilient in the face of these challenges. Dr. Anu French is a Holistic Pediatrician, Artist, and Musician who is double board certified in Pediatrics and Integrative Medicine and double Fellowship trained in Integrative Psychiatry and Integrative Medicine through Dr. Andrew Weil’s Center for Integrative Medicine. I am Dr. Andrew Wong, the co-host of this podcast and co-founder of Capital Integrative Health. This podcast is dedicated to transforming the consciousness around what it means to be healthy and understanding the root causes of both disease and wellness. For anyone who is curious about how their childhood may impact their health, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

Dr. Wong

Well, welcome honor to the podcast. Great to have you on today and so glad to have you here with us.

Dr. French

Thank you so much for having me, Andy.

Dr. Wong

So been following you through your Facebook and Instagram and it’s been I think, I think maybe eight years since we graduated together from fellowship. Time flies you know.

Dr. French

Yeah. 2014.

Dr. Wong

Yeah, yeah. Great, great work. And I think the audience, for the audience just in terms of, you know going through the Integrative Medicine fellowship and I know you’ve done some work with Integrative Psychiatry as well, you’re a Pediatrician, you do a lot of work with you know academics teaching, you’ve done such a big you know a lot of amazing things. Your artist, your musician. I would love to hear I know the audience would love to hear your story of how you got into holistic health and Integrative Medicine.

Dr. French

Sure you know I think our journeys of personal healing I think we all have them, right? I know you have one too and I think that brought many of us to the fellowship and that’s how I came there because, because I was you know I just had all these labels put on me by Doctors. I was just feeling unwell mind-body-spirit. My children were also you know they were young at the time and just seemed to have all these little niggling chronic illnesses and all we were doing were popping pills you know and I think at that time I just think there’s got to be a different way to do this and just stumbled on really stumbled on a spam email from Andrew Weil, a center for Integrative at that time was the Arizona Center of Integrative Medicine and I said “Oh, I should do this fellowship not really thinking that I was going to practice it honestly but just that you know I need to do something to get my health back on track. Endometriosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, menstrual migraines, and I can go on and on and on about all the, you know, these things that you, these diseases that you suddenly stopped thinking you actually are you know and you know the fellowship just opened my world up to this whole another global community of seekers and healers and just started this whole path of I guess it’s empowering right to understand that there are ways to do things and learning how to integrate that into practice just sort of organically flowed into my practice because I just started to say, “Hey! you want to try some probiotics? Oh, we should look at your vitamin D levels” and you know just small things but people were like wow you know and then you bring in bags of supplements and being able to actually look at things with from through an evidence-based filter right so exciting instead of saying “oh I don’t know what to do with that you know so that’s really how that happened and just feeling that the whole concept of integration, really practicing what we preach, really understanding sort of the vulnerability of being sick and trying to heal and understanding that it’s a, on a day-to-day basis right, it’s on a moment-to-moment basis I think it’s just been a wonderful, wonderful journey.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. Thank you for that story. I was just thinking as you were speaking that you know this integration of mind-body-spirit that we call this integrative medicine in the west right but in fact probably in a lot of cultures that this is already like understood you know.

Dr. French

Right. It’s just good medicine.

Dr. Wong

It’s just good medicine right Ayurvedic medicine, Traditional Chinese medicine you know. We look at sort of a lot of healing traditions, in general, there’s you know we know that the mind and the body and the spirit are connected and I think this brings us to our topic today which is a really really important topic for all of us you know whether at any age that you know listening to this we all we’re children at one point right and you’re a Pediatrician and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea of you know of Adverse Childhood Experiences or what are called ACEs you know now and I think first let’s just talk about you know ACEs and what is your concept or definition of ACEs? you know why is it so important and you can kind of get into some of those areas as well?

Dr. French

Sure and I think you know I’ve talked a lot on this topic and I always like to sort of put a little disclaimer when we start because a lot of the terms we’re going to use and the topics we’re going to talk about are triggering for a lot of people and when you start bringing up the concept of an adverse childhood experience affecting your health and your health outcomes a lot of people start getting anxious and you know we I love to quote Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, she’s the pediatrician who really did that 2014 ted talk which I highly recommend everybody watches which changed my you know the trajectory of my professional life and she talks about how we need to move from what’s wrong with you to what happened to you and so I mean we’re gonna go through some pretty heavy talk you know topics in the next few minutes but I also want to make sure that we end up in a place of hope because knowledge is empowering and freeing and we are all neurobiologically resilient but I just always like to start with that because I even, when I talk about this it sort of brings up my own trauma you know and we don’t want to re-traumatize.

Dr. Wong

I wonder if we should, for ourselves and also for the, for our listeners, get into the body for 30 to 60 seconds. Would you mind doing some

Dr. French

I think that’s a great idea!

Dr. Wong

Meditation, maybe we’ll put our hands in heart.

Dr. French

Sure, yeah.

Dr. Wong

What do you normally do?

Dr. French

I like the body scan the body scans.

Dr. Wong

Let’s do that, you want to do that?

Dr. French

Like you know several times a day because.

Dr. Wong

Awesome!

Dr. French

You know, I’m always in my head so how do we drop into the body, so let’s just find a comfortable position. If you’re seated, if you’re lying down it doesn’t matter where you are right now listening to this just get into a comfortable position if you’re seated try to, I like to feel my feet in my shoes or on the ground just the soles flat and then just bring my awareness to my ankles and then my knees and my legs and my the seat of my body in the seat of the chair and then bring that awareness all the way back up my, to my shoulders and my neck and my jaw which is kind of where I hold all my tension, take a breath in and a breath out high and I feel your tension go down your arms to your fingers and then all the way down your body to your toes and let’s wiggle our fingers and toes so it’s really dropping to our body and then bring that all the way back up the back of the body the spine to the top of the head and then just kind of feel the release of tension in the mouth and the jaw, you know just taking another deep breath in and letting it all go and then just feeling ourselves gratitude for this body and all the functions in it that we sort of take for granted and then opening our eyes love dropping into the body hmm feels so good.

Dr. Wong

Thank you so much! Can we do that for another half an hour? need that.

Dr. French

Yeah. It’s so good to just do it through the day you know because we’re someone else’s seated a lot right and I just like to just, just even wiggling one’s hands and fingers and toes. I just feel like immediately brings me back to the body and I just you know, I lost my father recently to a very chronic debilitating neurological disease.

Dr. Wong

Sorry to hear that.

Dr. French

And one thing that he couldn’t do towards the end was he couldn’t take a deep breath, he couldn’t cough and he couldn’t clear his throat and I’ve just become like so grateful for those simple things like when I do this or just you know like I’m like, “wow! like these are things we just take for granted”.

Dr. Wong

Yeah.

Dr. French

And now, I don’t think I ever will again after watching him suffer like that and just realizing how much those matter you know to our day-to-day so I think, I think yeah, I just wanted to you know honor him for that moment you know like just the gratitude for everything he taught me and what a great person a role model he has been in my life. So, but I was just thinking like you know like the body scan is so powerful because it just reminds us of how important our bodies are you know how much they do.

Dr. Wong

Body scan is great. It really brings us back to kind of who we are in the present moment, right?

Dr. French

Absolutely! yeah.

Dr. Wong

Our fingers and hands are tingling and we’re doing this, yeah.

Dr. French

So you were asking what ACEs stand for. So, we, you know, defined it as Adverse Childhood Experience or Events but it’s really these traumatic events and situations that happen during childhood that where physical and emotional needs are not met and you know they kind of came out of that landmark study in 1995 to 1997 where Dr. Felitti and Dr. Anda, you know they did it on 17,500 people you know and they asked them these questions about 10 specific area of ACEs and they started to see how that was you know connected to health outcomes and health diseases. So that’s really what an ACE, that’s the definition of an ACE you know an Adverse Childhood Event or an Adverse Childhood Experience.

Dr. Wong

And it seems like, because the first thing that came to mind when you think about ACEs often is abuse and there’s different kinds of abuse but it sounds like there’s other areas of ACEs, not just abuse. So, I believe there’s these ten areas that we wanna cover.

Dr. French

Right. Absolutely. And you know the 10 areas that were studied in the original study were physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, emotional neglect, parental mental health or suicide mental illness or suicide parental incarceration, parental substance use or abuse, domestic violence especially violence against the mother that’s witnessed and then parental divorce or separation so those were the 10 areas that were included in the questionnaire you know the original question.

Dr. Wong

I mean what is it over 50 percent of households are divorced right? So that just that one category alone is

Dr. French

Right. And that’s kind of what started me on my journey because my, I got divorced in 2011 and my children came home from school they were in this group called kids in the middle and they were given this thing about ACEs and I’m like, “I’m a pediatrician what this is?”. And I was reading it and said if a child has this, a score of one and we can talk about that a little bit but one there, if they have a children of divorce, their risk for stroke is twice as an adult. So I was like okay we gotta do something. And so building intergenerational resilience has sort of become everything I do really both personally, professionally but I do want to touch on modern day ACEs because I think our circumstances have also thrown out all of these other things like social isolation, peer rejection and bullying, poverty and homelessness, community violence. I mean these are starting to be included now as also ACEs and I think one thing that I, a point I want to make is that the findings, if that Dr. Felliti from the original study showed that different types of adversity that they were examined were equal in their damage.

Dr. Wong

Wow.

Dr. French

So that’s really important because I think society views something as sexual abuse as to be a lot worse than me, like you know parental incarceration. But in the original study didn’t matter, the perception of damage that was done was the same regardless of the ACE and so I think that’s very very important when we view these you know this toxic stress and this as a biomedical problem.

Dr. Wong

I know, are you saying that all of these different 10 ACEs and the other ones that you mentioned, homelessness, social isolation, bullying, this more recent phenomenon or at least more recently recognized phenomenon end up sort of triggering or maybe activating the same biological pathways?

Dr. French

Exactly right. When we talk about how ACEs actually affect the body and mind and spirit that the damage is done by them is sort of equivalent.

Dr. Wong

Okay, okay. Yeah, I’d love to, I don’t know if you want to get into the deep neural bio part of this you know that’s probably better.

Dr. French

Sure yeah. I mean, I think that you know there’s different ways that the ACEs affect the body right? So we know that they affect, impact developing brains and bodies right? Because they’re happening in childhood and so the the data shows that they affect structure and function and so they actually affect the size of parts of brains these children who have gone through ACEs their brains like the amygdala which is you know the center for fear, the hippocampus which is the center for memory and emotion and you know the prefrontal cortex, you know which is for ADHD you know for executive functioning and impulse control all of these are smaller.

Dr. Wong

Okay.

Dr. French

You know on actual MRIs, we also know that the stress response is affected. So you know, these, what happens is it sort of resets your ability to respond to stress right and so we go from that sort of adaptive life-saving stress response to a maladaptive pro-inflammatory stress response and so it affects everything in the body it affects our hormones it affects our immune system it affects how epigenetically our DNA is read and expressed you know so this it’s really kind of profound you know how much the trauma in childhood actually affects really every physiological, biological, genetic expressive function in our body. So you know when we talk about ACEs and you know how it affects you know disease states, it also affects like you know sort of people talk about how you know it’s a social problem like a public health care problem right? Because these things lead to homelessness and poverty and incarceration and things and we talk about these being choices right but actually when you start thinking about how your body is affected by trauma these aren’t necessarily you know conscious choices you know I think.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. Especially as a child, you know.

Dr. French

Yeah. Absolutely!

Dr. Wong

Experiencing before the brain is fully developed you know before the age of 25 really.

Dr. French

Absolutely, right!

Dr. Wong

Yeah so then there’s that differentiation between trauma that happens as an adult which is also damaging but then even probably more as a child that with that developing brain that’s a bit more malleable that’s a bit more you know susceptible to these kind of stressors.

Dr. French

And then we have intergenerational trauma right so you know we’ve talked about this before but we know that I mean we know that if a child, if a woman experiences such if she has an ACE score of more than three then her three-year-old child has a much higher chance of having developmental issues and being hyperactive and physically aggressive and if a mother has you know you know, an ACE score of more than three then you know that we see that they have more issues postnatally in that first year after having a baby so I mean we see how that and then we have children whose children’s ACE scores actually impact their learning so this is landmark studies that came out in pediatrics recently you know 80 chance of having trouble with learning math and having lower literacy skills if they have ACEs and so just really I think it’s important just educating you know, educators and clinical practitioners out there about how you know we can’t really have this false separation of the social history in the medical history you know because I think it’s all one history because it impacts not just physical disease in the body but affects you know how children perform also.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. I mean just that concept of intergenerational trauma that the mothers or grandmothers trauma or ACEs for them, when they were little kind of, can affect someone now you know that’s mind-boggling.

Dr. French

Absolutely, yeah.

Dr. Wong

Yeah.

Dr. French

Just building resilience along generations becomes really important.

Dr. Wong

So we talk about scoring ACEs and things like that, is it possible to overcome those you know those early childhood events?

Dr. French

Absolutely. And you know, I think it’s important again as I was sort of that disclaimer. I mean, I remember the first time I heard an ACE talk. I was like, okay I need to go get this questionnaire off the CDC and find out what my ACE score is right? Because that’s what everybody’s sort of thinking when you’re listening to this look at what’s a high score and

yeah you know and I think it’s important to know that when you have you know higher ACE scores it does increase your risk for chronic disease you know so you know if you’re kind of wanting to look at those kinds of things you know yes it triples the risk for this it doubles the risk for this it does decrease life expectancy and so on. But I always like to sort and then you know we have with all these you know experiences in childhood that can also increase your risk for you know depression and chronic fatigue syndrome and autoimmune disease and things like that but you know once you know about it, it raises your awareness and so I always advise people, “okay, if you’re going to do your ACE score then we also need to talk a lot about okay what are you going to do about it right? because how are you going to offset it?” And the good news is that there’s lots of things you can do that builds resilience which reverses the effects of ACEs.

Dr. Wong

Okay.

Dr. French

That’s fantastic because that’s I think really important for people to know is like I’m a grown adult you know, I’m already a fully formed person.

Dr. Wong

Yeah.

Dr. French

And I’m going and I’m finding I have this, a score, what do I do next? Like how do I like what do I do? So I think it’s important to know that there are two pieces to this one is like not to avoid re-traumatization and then to build resilience and so creating trauma-informed communities in creating trauma-informed offices like our office we really really work a lot on that it’s creating safe spaces for communication you know, how the cues of safety start with how we, you know approach anybody for that example not just a patient but anybody that we’re talking to you know permission to stop and feel uncomfortable and speak up you know a therapeutic listening look, active listening right motivational interviewing and you know just understanding that you know, how you interview somebody and how you get their ACE score is also important so questionnaires that are built in a way that are not just again bringing up all the over.

Dr. Wong

Right not triggering.

Dr. French

Yeah. Exactly. And then also moving immediately into intergenerational resilience so building resilience for the caregiver and for the child, because you know one of the most important things that’s come out of ACE research is that, if a child has one consistent loving adult figure it really offsets all the trauma you know and so it doesn’t have to be a parent.

Dr. Wong

Right.

Dr. French

A grandparent, it can be a coach, it can be a teacher, it can be a mentor, but having that one person who’s consistently there in a safe space can reverse everything. So that’s just to me that’s hugely powerful, but how do we build resilience right? you know, so I mean some of these things seem like they’re sort of you know of course I know how to I mean this is sort of straightforward but you know the research about you know mindfulness practices you know whether they be you know moving meditation or seated meditation or moving practices like walking or yoga you know these things just huge, huge data showing that you know you have an increase in the gray matter in those areas we just talked about that shrink they actually increase your gray matter actually expands when you do these processes.

Dr. Wong

So it’s reversible. The damage from the traumas with practices of resilience essentially.

Dr. French

Yes. Absolutely! And that’s to me, that’s mind-blowing. Because I remember learning in medical school that our brains and spinal cords are static right now with the new concept of neuroplasticity where we know that we can actually rewire and re-fire and you know like build these new pathways. It’s so so empowering to know that and then you know they’ve actually done PET scans that show when you do yoga you know it decreases blood flow to the amygdala which is the kind of the alarm center and increases blood flow to the frontal lobe in the free frontal cortex which is you know where we need for executive function and also increases GABA you know.

Dr. Wong

Yeah, yeah. That’s amazing!

Dr. French

Which is, makes you feel better, right? you know so I think we know that doing mindfulness practices can actually increase again optimize the structure and function of your brain and your immune system and your, you know your hormone system and all of them, yeah.

Dr. Wong

So I think Anu, what you’re saying is that our brains are kind of like chia pets right? We can use meditation for the miracle grow, you know on there.

Dr. French

Absolutely yeah! That’s good. And then I mean the other thing that’s also really exciting is that when you do trauma-informed cognitive behavioral therapy or EMDR you know and or neurofeedback things that are you know trauma-informed or trauma-sensitive, what happens is you know we talked about how you know trauma impacts how our DNA expresses itself right so you know we talk about telomeres which are the little shoelaces right at the end of our DNA and this little sort of straggly and the length of the telomere sort of determines the length of your life right and so we have these studies showing that children who are born of adversity kind of come out with shortened telomeres so anything that we can do to decrease DNA strand breakage and improve and again that’s, the we’ve these studies showing that if you do trauma and form CBT and EMDR and these things like that you know you find that you can reverse the DNA strategy.

Dr. Wong

Wow! That’s amazing!

Dr. French

And then what’s really exciting that a year after the therapy stopped you, we still see sustained you know sustained improvement so again I think I always kind of want to to talk about how building resilience through you know mindfulness and mindful movement and through music, through art you know through building things you know so robotics, cooking, you know I always say Jenga blocks you know simple things, yeah you know just where you’re actually doing something in a three-dimensional spate three you know spatial orientation where you’re actually building things and then community connection of course you know like where you’re doing things in community, all of these things can really be powerful ways to build resilience.

Dr. Wong

So, yeah and a community like you said just touched on there. I mean that, that’s so huge do you think, do you feel like there’s a difference between say meditating alone versus meditating in a group setting or a community setting?

Dr. French

Yeah. I guess it depends on the person and the situation like, I think of some of the children I see in my office who are bullied and who are traumatized by peer groups I think they would not be somebody I would recommend to go to a group therapy session like I would be teaching them how to find a sense of you know, sense of mindfulness and a sense of center within themselves first and so safe spaces whereas you know there are definitely lots of studies for you know circles of sound healing and circles of group therapy you know especially for teenagers who might be facing diseases that are rare or chronic or kind of isolate them then finding groups that have similar children with similar diseases or similar challenges can be really really powerful because then they know they’re not alone you know and then that they have people that they can relate to so I guess it really depends on the situation.

Dr. Wong

So the medicine the community, the medicine resilience can be personalized to that individual and their experience.

Dr. French

Absolutely, yeah.

Dr. Wong

What about sleep? How important is sleep with regards to you know ACEs recovering from trauma?

Dr. French

Oh, it’s so important and you know I think the other thing that it sort of brings us back to is that one thing that the ACEs does is that it pushes us into this fright-flight-freeze-appease sort of situation because our hypothalamus-pituitary axis and the sort of our neural endocrine immune accesses are just all put on alert and you know we talk about you know the lion and the bear like that you know we were supposed to be in the forest somewhere and then we were supposed to be ready for that but then what they all, I remember Dr. Nadine Burke Harries saying what if that bear comes home every night what if the lion feels so powerful right you put in that situation all the time and so how do we move from that sympathetic overload to parasympathetic right you know going from the you know fright-flight to the rest-digest you know and so I think that that’s where restful sleep being able to actually fall asleep and not having to force yourself to go to sleep and also understand that we do so much of our detoxing and our resting at night you know when we’re sleeping so yes building you know going into a place where our vagal nerve gets to rest you know I think it’s really really important piece of moving from those situations and those places of being so on alert all the time to calming down and resting yeah very important to decrease inflammation and to decrease the risk of chronic disease for sure.

Dr. Wong

And we know that food is medicine, you know. We talk a lot about this in integrative medicine and obviously, there’s what we eat but there’s also probably you know how we eat and I’m wondering your thoughts about and your feelings about how food activates that, that I guess that vagus nerves you know system and the emotions and everything, right? What do you recommend for nutrition or how to eat?

Dr. French

Absolutely. And I mean I love those studies on mindful eating right you know. I’ll have to find the reference but I just remember reading about where you know we had children who were you know put into two groups and one group was given whatever they wanted to eat but they were taught to eat mindfully then we had another group who were given healthy food but there were all these distractions you know and the group that was eating mindfully even though they weren’t necessarily always eating healthy food was still you know more healthier you know outcomes were healthier. So I think mindful eating is so difficult these days right? I mean all of us seem to you know we eat on the go we eat in front of screens right? So, I just, trying to again this is talking about building intergenerational resilience within family so I think sitting at the table together and eating a meal without any distractions and paying attention to what we’re eating, giving gratitude for what we’re eating and teaching children where your food comes from like this food chain you know right from nature the elements to the farmers to the people you know bringing the food to the grocery store to whoever bought the food whoever prepared the food just bringing their awareness to that I think is huge and then being able to smell and look at the colors of the food and doing mindfulness practices around mindful eating and then also just asking. I mean, I think teaching children how to connect their feelings and emotions to how they feel with different foods and smells taking you back to different memories so I think mindfulness is important and then intermittent fasting. I think is so important in building resilience and it seems weird like, how does that connect? But intermittent fasting allows you to rest your digestive system and so again it helps your vagal nerves health and when you help your vagal nerve, your vagal nerve controls your breath it controls you know your blood pressure it controls your stress response, it controls everything. And so allowing it to rest and recover at night so that it’s ready the next morning for whatever stress you’re going to face I think it really is helpful. So resting and not eating, we weren’t designed to eat 24 hours of the day but now we have food 24 hours of the day and we’re awake 24 hours of the day and so we’re munching all the time we’re eating all the time and we’re eating mindlessly in front of screen so I think bringing that sort of discipline into one’s life of trying to eat within a specific number of hours and not eat within a specific number of hours you know that you know I think that can be very helpful in building resilience.

Dr. Wong

What do you tend to recommend for people that are looking at intermittent fasting in terms of number of hours?

Dr. French

Yeah. I think the first thing I think is just to sort of maybe start with 12 hours because you know I think 12 hours is doable you know eating from you know eight to eight or seven to seven you know or nine to nine you know something like that which is easier for people and then slowly moving to the 8:16 you know. And I always, you know it’s always the thing to check with your doctor first right because you know there’s some situations where fasting may not be healthy.

Dr. Wong

Right! Absolutely.

Dr. French

On certain constitutions, you know.

Dr. Wong

Certainly people with eating disorders we would say.

Dr. French

Yes and yeah we want to be careful. But I think just bringing that sort of that education to families that you know resting the belly resting your digestive system is so important in building resilience absolutely.

Dr. Wong

So we have different practices that rest or balance the mind and the spirit and then and then certainly many practices like fasting at times that would rest the body.

Dr. French

Absolutely.

Dr. Wong

And sleep, and you know so we’re kind of giving ourselves a break and we wait letting that vagus nerve regenerate.

Dr. French

Yeah absolutely! And then you know getting out into nature you know that’s of course right. So I mean it’s so nice to have the summertime right now to be able to get out and yes in the, in around the trees and you know clear bodies of water and you know just again being able to unplug right from wi-fi and from electronics.

Dr. Wong

I actually know one person that went to the park for a whole year and hugged trees for a whole year and got rid of her chronic fatigue. I mean she was in her early 20s.

Dr. French

That’s fantastic! What a great

Dr. Wong

Connecting with nature you know.

Dr. French

Yeah, I love that story. I mean yeah tree hugging you know yeah such a beautiful thing to teach our children.

Dr. Wong

Right more than just a cliche like the trees are actually giving us the earth is giving us energy.

Dr. French

Absolutely! And I mean I live in a neighborhood with these 200-year-old oak trees and these giant oak trees.

Dr. Wong

That’s beautiful.

Dr. French

That are just fantastic and I remember when one of them died in our front yard and my girls were little and we looked out the window and we cried when we saw it being cut it was being cut down by the local thing and then you know we asked them to leave the little stump so we painted it and made it like a little my kid would have kids would have tea parties on it but you know saying goodbye to these trees you know just understand that they, they’re truly living creatures in there

Dr. Wong

Creatures, yeah.

Dr. French

So much yeah that we’re connected.

Dr. Wong

Were they able to climb on them? Do they have like low branches enough to climb on the oak trees in the neighborhood?

Dr. French

No, not the ones we have here. These are like, really

Dr. Wong

Huge, yeah.

Dr. French

But when they have to cut it down I think it really affected us all because we realized how much we’ve gotten attached to this.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. I think we all need, we definitely all need trees. I know you’re into I believe you’re into yoga as well.

Dr. French

Yeah and I always joke about this because I’ve been doing yoga for a long time but I’m terrible at it and you know when I walk into a classroom there’s that innate bias “oh she’s from India she must be really good at yoga right and I yeah I am so my, you know, I go because I know that yoga brings a flexibility to my thoughts and my process my body is still struggling to find that flexibility but it’s okay I still keep going back but I was very lucky to be invited to do like we did a, you know a review, a review on yoga in children and it was included like the AAP actually came out with a clinical mind-bod-statement in amazing 2016 which is radical, right?

Dr. Wong

Yeah.

Dr. French

And they did a review and I was, Dr. Larry Rosen was one of my mentors that asked me to co you know co-author this review and it really talks about how important you know yoga is as far as you know just a therapeutic tool in building resilience and treating so many chronic diseases in children.

Dr. Wong

So we can look at yoga as another possible way to you know to deal with or build resilience for ACEs.

Dr. French

Yeah and there’s so many classes that do both parent and child you know like

Dr. Wong

Nice, yeah.

Dr. French

New classes you know yeah, lots of places give you know they’re just sort of family-friendly yoga just so people sometimes people are intimidated by yoga and I always tell people I’m so bad at it and I still go back to it and you can always just go and enjoy the experience of it you know because it’s just doing it as a family again doing it together.

Dr. Wong

Wanna, would definitely have to take a yoga class, so one time, I guarantee you I’m not as flexible as you are so

Dr. French

I guarantee I’m not as flexible.

Dr. Wong

I’m not sure that my poses would even be called yoga poses but anyway they are an approximation but you know it’s all about you know just doing our best and you know just being in the moment, being with what is, and I feel like yeah yoga is super helpful for me personally. I’ve just seen that to be super helpful for a lot of people so

Dr. French

Absolutely, yeah.

Dr. Wong

Back in the body kind of like, we did in the beginning with body scan. What are the other good kind of movement, mindful movements that you would recommend for this because it does sound like it’s about getting into the body?

Dr. French

Yeah. I mean, I love walking meditations you know again. I think that I’m not a great seated meditator. I, my mind, is just always very busy and so I find it so easy to be present at the moment if I’m moving and one thing we used to do with my children when they were younger is just you know we’d all walk around the house together and we’d all hold a word in our minds and then we’d sit down and talk about the word and just takes a few minutes to do that and it was really fun you know they start off with little things like you know words like ice cream and lollipop anytime then it got a little bit more you know a little deeper after that but I think walking as a family, walking meditations, walking outside is great because you have to sort of be present in the moment right you don’t kind of know where you are, you need to know where your body is in space and time. So I love walking meditations and I think medical Qigong, Qigong, great another one and then chair yoga, yoga that is in chairs for people who you know for who have accessibility mobility issues so just trying to you know make these mindful movement options accessible you know.

Dr. Wong

Right.

Dr. French

And now we have so much. I mean here with so many people doing outdoor yoga in the park you know which is fantastic you know because you’re getting kind of benefit of being outdoors and also doing yoga and Qigong outdoors.

Dr. Wong

What about for, I guess for kids and adults some kinetic therapies, massage, acupuncture, bodywork?

Dr. French

Yeah and I think again you know I will talk a little bit more at the end about the integrate network that I’m part of but you know looking for you know trauma informed I think is really important I think when you’re talking about somebody touching

Dr. Wong

Yeah.

Dr. French

Your body, you know and especially touching children’s bodies. It’s really important with chiropractic, massage, manual medicine of any kind acupuncture definitely I think it’s important that we have someone who understands that some of these kids might have already been traumatized through touch and so we’re using touch we need to do it in a respectful way in a way that’s you know definitely cognizant of that but definitely a lot of good you know therapeutic modalities you know craniosacral therapy, reiki right, energy, therapeutic touch really, really gentle ways of you know getting the energy flowing through children again and then also massage definitely very another thing I always like to mention is like sort of you know using animals, so pet therapy, therapeutic horsemanship has become a big you know horses have become a huge you know sort of way of children to connect with animals and then connect with themselves. So I think those are also important modalities that one can use absolutely yeah and recommend.

Dr. Wong

Any herbs that you have found to be helpful? Herbal therapy, plant medicine you know anything of their that nature?

Dr. French

Yeah. I think that you know I do like Magnesium in an Epsom salt soap you know.

Dr. Wong

That’s the best.

Dr. French

But yeah, anybody can do that, and children love being in a tub you know they just love you know playing in water and so it’s such an easy way to sort of get kids to sort of detox and calm down. So I love Magnesium as well.

Dr. Wong

Kids and adults.

Dr. French

And adults, right yeah. And you know and bath time is another great opportunity to build intergenerational resilience because you know everybody’s sort of having fun together yeah it’s present in the moment and water is such a great you know great way to do that and there’s all kinds of fun stuff you can do in the tub now with all those you know those coloring things.

Dr. Wong

Nice, yeah.

Dr. French

And you know things like yeah but you know I think that’s one thing I like and then I, as far as herbal and plant medicine I do like theanine you know L-theanine is an amino acid from green tea it’s very safe and it’s available in chewable and powder forms for kids and that’s one thing that I use quite a bit in my practice for the anxious, agitated, unfocused child. So I don’t know yeah great quite a bit.

Dr. Wong

What is, what is one thing you wish everyone knew about ACEs?

Dr. French

Well, I wanted to share a quote actually from another person that I admire greatly in this field, Donna Jackson Nakazawa she’s one of the another, big great teacher in the field of ACEs and she has this quote that is so beautiful. She says, “even if we have been set on high reactive mode for decades or a lifetime we can still dial it down. We can respond to life’s inevitable stresses more appropriately and shift away from an overactive inflammatory response. We can become neurobiologically resilient. We can turn bad epigenetics into good epigenetics and we can rescue ourselves”. So, I think the one thing that I want everyone to know about ACEs is that you know two-thirds of Americans have ACEs. If you look at all the data, so 70 of us are walking around having had some kind of ACE you know so but a hundred percent of us are resilient you know so because resilience is not something you’re born with it’s actually the ability to bounce back. So it’s actually something that you can be taught you know and so if we recognize it and we bring this into our awareness then we can empower ourselves to actually become resilient and so I think that’s the take-home message I want because you know again like I said you know this is a pretty heavy topic and I want people to understand that you know you, you can definitely bounce back and you can definitely become resilient and you can reverse generations of epigenetic trauma you know. I would say you can be a change-maker and a chain breaker you know so tell my girls what we want to do we want to just break the cycles of epigenetic trauma and things that we’ve been told like this runs in your family this is how it’s going to be this is how it’s been for us you know, these kind of terms that don’t apply anymore because we can definitely forge a new path you know neurobiologically and your plasticity and all of that, right?

Dr. Wong

That’s so, that’s so awesome. That’s so amazing, that’s such a hopeful message and just to paraphrase Gandhi for another famous person is you know, “to see the change we have to be the change”, right? that’s

Dr. French

Absolutely! absolutely.

Dr. Wong

And just to throw a little functional medicine in there you know, we know that in functional medicine they always talk about how you know your genes are not your destiny but as you were speaking here I was just kind of feeling in my heart I was like, oh well you know traumatic experiences are not your destiny either you know, there’s three ways we can really cultivate that resilience that’s acquired throughout life that we’re not born with but we acquire through the life wisdom experience things like that.

Dr. French

Absolutely, yeah and reaching out for help and connecting with people and you know creating teams around us that can help us be trauma-informed and both at work and also within the family.

Dr. Wong

Anu, when should people see a therapist? A mental health professional?

Dr. French

Well, I mean, I think that it’s you know if you if you’re going to do your ACE score and you’re going to you know find that you have a high score and you’re starting to get anxious and worried about this, I think you seeking out a trauma-informed therapist is important and obviously, I mean in our office I mean the first thing is we want to keep the kids safe and so, right now, they’re in active situations of ACEs you know. You definitely want to for sure, absolutely.

Dr. Wong

That’s always a big consideration and then, of course, your beautiful background we have to, we have to, look at your the walls of your this is really your artwork.

Dr. French

Yeah. This is my home office.

Dr. Wong

How do you, how do you feel about art and music, and sound healing which I know you do that yourself in writing? you’re an author. How is that related to you know cultivating resilience?

Dr. French

Oh. So important and I think, I mean, I always say that all of these things saved my life you know. Because I, you know 10 years ago I was just sick you know I was sick in mind-body-spirit and you know start these things that I was doing for a long time with sound healing and art and so on so you know chanting and singing and drawing and coloring you start looking at the research and hundreds of studies that show how art decreases your cortisol, how sound you know actually induces a positive immune response you know you actually see cytokine it’s changed from anti-inflammatory to pro and pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory you know over time and so I think that I always say we’re all we can all be sound healers for ourselves we can all be sound therapists for ourselves like it doesn’t take that much to hum or tone in the shower it doesn’t take that much to listen even passively if you don’t want to actively but within any culture any religion any belief system there are ways to chant repetitively and go from a place of dissonance to resonance you know and you know and really come into alignment and vibrational alignment. So I mean, I think for me, sound healing you know that’s I taught was teaching my children about this and that’s how the music sort of came the ones the music that I’ve put out there is all based on you know you know personal experience.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. Music and chanting and singing or listening to music even listening to sound healing it really, it really helps the cells from a deep cellular level get into resonance you know like you said.

Dr. French

Absolutely.

Dr. Wong

There was a, there’s a sound healer that we were taught in our fellowship at Tryshe Dhevney and Tucson so I was talking with her on our one of our you know webinars that that did you know I think you were on our webinar as well and she was talking about how she overcame viral hepatitis in France through sound healing because at that time you know at that in that era they didn’t have like the interferons or whatever.

Dr. French

Right, right.

Dr. Wong

So I mean she was like I’m going to become a sound healer and then a year later the doctors checked her titers and stuff and they were like there’s no hepatitis and it was just amazing like just the what you had said about resonating you know with the cells and like increasing or decreasing different cytokines you know throughout.

Dr. French

Right. I mean there are like over 60 studies showing you know that the positive psychoneuroimmunological effect of music I mean there’s tons of studies showing how you know it really can, can really help you know that the immunological you know pathways you know become part more positive you know the stress response decrease the stress response and drumming circles.

Dr. Wong

Oh, those are great, yes.

Dr. French

Are the other thing that can you know mental health, physical health, everything absolutely I wanted to give a shout out to a wonderful grassroots organization that I’m part of called integrate and this was started several years ago by Julian Johnson. It was basically to connect people in the trauma and form world and now she’s Julian Johnson and Victoria Manuela, they’ve taken it to a national level and it’s doing wonderfully and it’s basically creating resources that are trauma-informed on a virtual platform so the one that’s coming up we have a wonderful conference coming up which is where you sign up and it’s a sliding scale so it’s very affordable and you know over three months you’ll get the in your every week you’ll get an email with practitioners sharing their way of regulating their nervous systems sort of sharing their secrets so to speak and I’ve talked a lot about the neuroscience of mantra on that and sound healing and chanting how it really helped me but it’s a wonderful organization to get involved and also if you’d like to join there you know there’s a, they have a Facebook page and then they have a website with drama and phone resources on it. So I really wanted to give a shout-out for that because that has been a real, wonderful resource for me locally. It used to be just the trauma-informed network of St. Louis and now they’ve, it’s become integrated and it’s on a national level and they’re doing wonderful and they’re doing a reiki workshop that’s coming for grief processing and then they do like accessible yoga for access accessible yoga for all kinds of bodies and then they, they, we’ve just done one on like you know how to parent your inner child to become a better parent and things like that. So I just wanted to make sure that, that’s you know I just brought attention to the great work that they’re doing and I’m very grateful to be part of it.

Dr. Wong

Thank you, Anu! What a wonderful organization. So it’s integrate. Is there a is there a website or?

Dr. French

Yeah, it’s like it’s called let’s integrate that, yeah. That’s so if you search it on Facebook or Google it pops right up and trauma-informed network yeah and if you go to anufrench.com you know under advocacy all the wonderful organizations that I’ve been you know really honored to be to partner with are on there under advocacy on my website too and gives you direct links to all of them.

Dr. Wong

Well, Anu, thank you so much for coming on today. We really appreciate this amazing discussion about a really important topic ACEs and then, how to become or you know cultivate resilience so that we can overcome. What is one thing that you’ve done personally if you don’t mind that’s our closing question for you, that has changed your health for the better?

Dr. French

Yeah. I think personally for me, Art you know. So you know making sure that I do a little bit of affirmative art every day you know to remind myself you know that I am you know, I am strong I am and you know and I think you know for me it’s like you know building healthier communities through healthier kids right that’s kind of sort of the motto of everything that I put out there and you know I do encourage people to join me, my website is anufrench.com and it’s a new wellness and I have a newsletter that you can sign up for and then there’s a whole integrative medicine cabinet on there that has lots of resources from all our mentors and people that we admire you know I just kind of gathered everything and put it in one place and I think that if you look, go on the website you’ll see how art has really been a huge part of my life you know. I call it craftivism, so you take the art to the next level where you know I’ve partnered with many companies where you know creating all these beautiful things but all the proceeds go back to global literacy or human rights or women’s rights and so that way you know I’m creating art for my own health and then I’m putting it out there so that it uplifts other people and that’s all, so.

Dr. Wong

That’s amazing.

Dr. French

Yeah. So I think art for me is the most important thing. Yeah. That’s really kept me going, changed my life, and then it’s kept me going on a date and then again creating messy art with your children, another great way to build intergenerational resiliency.

Dr. Wong

Nice yeah. Well, thank you so much. So go to anufrench.com and you have your, a new wellness newsletter on there, you have art I know you have these beautiful t-shirts.

Dr. French

Yeah. There’s all kinds of you know accessories and apparel and stationery and it’s just really fun to be creative and keep designing these things and then there’s also I mean, I also have presence on Facebook, on Instagram also people want to follow I just like

Dr. Wong

What is your handle on Instagram?

Dr. French

It’s anewwellness.anufrench and now for Facebook, it’s A new Wellness by Dr. Anu French.

Dr. Wong

Got it and I think it’s right, if you’re watching on youtube here, after the fact this is definitely on the background here. I see your poster right behind you.

Dr. French

Yeah.

Dr. Wong

Yeah. Check that out too on the video. Thank you so much, Anu for coming on. Great too, great to see you here and connect here and, oh definitely

Dr. French

Thank you so much for having me, fantastic time talking to you and on the topic that’s really close to my heart and I hope we’ve left everybody with you know in a place of empowerment and hope.

Dr. Wong

Yes.

Dr. French

Positivity, yeah. That we can reverse ACEs and build resilience.

Dr. Wong

Yes. Thank you so much.

Dr. French

Thank you.

Dr. Wong

Thank you for taking the time to listen to us today. If you enjoyed this conversation please take a moment to leave us a review it helps our podcast to reach more listeners. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our next episodes and conversations and thank you so much again for being with us.