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 families

Whether 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.

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Host & Production Team

Host: 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 ho