Generational Trauma: How Ancestral Stress Lives in the Body (and What Science Is Finally Revealing)
What if the anxiety, burnout, inflammation, or exhaustion you carry didn’t begin with you?In this solo episode, Dr. Taz explores the emerging science behind generational trauma and how stress, fear, and survival patterns can be passed down biologically through mitochondrial DNA, the nervous system, and hormonal pathways. She explains why some people struggle with symptoms that don’t resolve despite doing everything right, and how ancestral trauma may be quietly shaping inflammation, cortisol levels, emotional regulation, and energy production across generations.You will learn how trauma can alter mitochondrial function, disrupt the HPA axis, and create inherited patterns of hypervigilance, anxiety, burnout, and chronic disease. Dr. Taz introduces her five body map framework, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and community, to help you understand where inherited trauma may be showing up and how healing becomes possible when all layers are addressed.Dr. Taz shares: • How trauma can be transmitted biologically through mitochondrial DNA passed down the maternal line • Why chronic inflammation, insulin resistance, and cortisol dysregulation often appear in families with histories of displacement, silence, or survival stress • The signs of inherited nervous system patterns, including hypervigilance, fear based thinking, emotional suppression, and burnout that starts early • How ancestral trauma affects hormones, energy production, mental health, and emotional regulation • Why family secrets, shame, and silence can destabilize the entire family ecosystem and show up as disease • The five body map approach to screening generational trauma across physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and community layers • Practical ways to begin healing, including nervous system regulation, storytelling, somatic release, mitochondrial support, and restoring safe connection within familiesWhether you are dealing with unexplained symptoms, chronic stress, emotional patterns that seem bigger than your life experience, or simply want to understand your family’s health history more deeply, this episode offers a new lens on healing. You may inherit biology, but you can change how it is expressed and what gets passed forward.Stay Connected:Connect further to Hol+ at https://holplus.co/- Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated on future episodes of hol+.Follow Dr. Taz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtazmd/https://www.instagram.com/liveholplus/Subscribe to the audio podcast: https://holplus.transistor.fm/subscribeSubscribe to the video podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@DrTazMD/podcastsGet your copy of The Hormone Shift: Balance Your Body and Thrive Through Midlife and MenopauseHost & Production TeamHost: Dr. Taz; Produced by ClipGrowth.com (Producer: Pat Gostek)
(00:00) - Hi everyone, it's Dr. Taz. Before we get into today's episode, I just wanna pause and say thank you. Your messages, your shares, your stories are, the reason we make Whole Plus every conversation here is about connecting the science, the intuition, and everyday life together so you can feel more like yourself.
(00:00) - if you haven't already hit that subscribe or follow button, it helps us reach more people who need this. All right, let's begin. What if the pain you [00:00:30] carry didn't start with you? Science now shows that trauma can be passed through generations, not just through stories or behaviors, but through biological changes in the body itself.
(00:00) - this episode, we're exploring the connection between ancestral trauma and mitochondrial DNA and how your body might still be echoing the stress, the fear, or the survival patterns of your lineage. The gift of being in practice for over 16 years and seeing, I don't know how [00:01:00] many patients, I think collectively as, uh, a series of whole plus clinics were at 60, 70,000.
(00:00) - the gift of seeing a patient day in and day out and following them through their journey. Allows us as providers a lot of time to think, observe, learn, and listen. And one of the things that has always confused me until recently is why some people have symptoms or have issues without any explanation.[00:01:30]
(00:00) - done all the right things. They're following the diet, they're exercising, they are doing all the things they're supposed to do. They've got those wellness routines down, red, light, blue, light, you name it, they're doing it, but they're still not well. And while I could have a conversation with all of you about chemistry and biology and physiology, here's what maturity and time has taught me.
(00:00) - healing and being well doesn't exist on [00:02:00] one plane. It's not just about the numbers and the data. It's actually a whole lot more, so much more that it may even be linked to your generational trauma. Now, bear with me for a second. Please don't roll your eyes and change the channel or flip the screen.
(00:00) - is important information and we are just beginning to understand what all of this means and how it's all connected. I've had many opportunities to observe [00:02:30] this. Some of them begin right in our home. I have watched as the women in our family have a very similar look in their eye demeanor way of talking tone.
(00:00) - name it. Some of it we could explain away. My mom was an immigrant, came here at a very young age, 17, 18, 19 years old, had an arranged marriage. She had, I thought, the insecurity of being an immigrant, of being somebody in a new [00:03:00] country without a community. And I always explained away her inability or fear.
(00:00) - of in terms of taking action or taking next steps as a part of that story, the immigrant story, right? I, I can't imagine what so many immigrants go through to get here and then to build a life in a family of their own, leaving behind mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, huge families. So I explained her story away that way.
(00:00) - then there [00:03:30] was me and I grew up, as I've shared sometimes in a slightly chaotic, dysfunctional childhood home, and I don't wanna get into all of those details, but I had that same glimmer of fear and insecurity that I saw in my mom. But let's fast forward to my daughter all these years later, growing up in a pampered home with a father that dotes on her.
(00:00) - we doted on her even a bit too much, but regardless, had all the comforts and the [00:04:00] security that anybody externally could provide. But guess what? The same glimmer, that same sparkle, that same sort of tone. Something, I can't describe it, where there's fear...
