#straightfromcait: How Childhood Trauma is Related to Burnout (Even if You Think You Have None)

Even if you do not think you have experienced childhood trauma, there are many ways that childhood experiences can impact your ability to regulate your emotions. Adverse childhood experiences or ACEs include both events that happened to you like abuse or neglect and events that you simply witnessed. Trauma impacts child brain development at an epigenetic level, causing deficiencies in the part of the brain responsible for executive functioning and emotion regulation. In today’s #straightfromcait episode, host Cait Donovan discusses the link between ACEs and burnout. 

Adverse childhood experiences impact the brain in a way that is very similar to the effects seen from long term stress. These experiences have a direct impact on the neurochemicals and hormones that are needed for regulating stress. Since your stress system cannot function the way it is supposed to, you are more prone to burnout. This further demonstrates how burnout is systemic and not the fault of the individual. 

If you have a higher ACEs score, such as one that is at a 4 or above, you are more likely to have a higher level of emotional dysregulation. Any adverse events that happened in your childhood physically changed the way your brain developed and caused you to be more susceptible to burnout. Remember to be gentle with yourself, because burnout is not your fault and it may take longer for you to recover from stress than someone with a lower ACEs score. 

Quotes 

• “You don't have to be the ‘direct victim’ of abuse or neglect for it to affect you and your physical and emotional and mental health later on in life.” (6:54-7:06 | Cait)

• “I truly believe that if we spend more time helping families to live healthier with one another that is the way we eliminate burnout long-term. That's the way we really hashtag end burnout culture.” (8:21-8:35 | Cait) 

• “There are interruptions to proper brain development when you experience adverse childhood experiences. These changes in brain development are nearly the same ones as we see with long term chronic stress.” (9:10-9:30 | Cait)

• “Adverse childhood experiences have various effects on the actual neurochemicals and hormones of your stress response and the structures that they attach to, and that interrupts your stress cycle somehow.” (15:32-15:50 | Cait)

• “If your stress response system is not working the way that it's supposed to, you are going to be more likely to burn out.” (23:24-23:33 | Cait)

• “Burnout is not your fault. You do deserve better.” (25:04-25:06 | Cait)

Links 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/03/02/387007941/take-the-ace-quiz-and-learn-what-it-does-and-doesnt-mean

https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/index.html

https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/aces/pdf/vs-1105-aces-H.pdf

Supportive Research for a Correlation between ACEs and Burnout 

Connect with Cait:

Cait Donovan is a keynote speaker, author, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast, specializing in burnout, mis/match, and sustainable performance at work. She partners with corporate leaders, teams, and professional associations through keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions that treat burnout as data, not failure, to help organizations reduce burnout without blame or shame and build healthier, high performing cultures.

To bring Cait to your organization or event, book an inquiry call here: https://bit.ly/bookcait

Learn more about Cait’s speaking work: https://www.caitdonovan.com/speaking

Short on time? Watch this 3-min video: https://bit.ly/caitdreel2025

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