Nadine Burke Harris
American pediatrician, ACEs researcher and former Surgeon General of California
Nadine Burke Harris (American pediatrician, ACEs researcher and former Surgeon General of California) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Stress buffering, Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, Toxic stress.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Stress buffering
Burke Harris urges people to build support systems before crises, calling infrastructure love in action.
“I believe infrastructure is love in action. What we build, the systems that we build in our personal lives for ourselves”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 1:10:26
Burke Harris says that even a single safe, supportive relationship can be enough buffering.
“And sometimes it's one person and one person is enough, right? That's the good news. One person is enough”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 49:17
Burke Harris lists seven evidence-based interventions from her Surgeon General's report for regulating the stress response.
“these include sleep, exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, mental health, and healthy relationships, and time in nature”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 49:17
Burke Harris argues that the younger a person is when adversity occurs, the more buffering is needed to restore balance.
“the younger you are when you experience a stressor or trauma or adversity, you need way more buffering on the other side to be able to balance that out”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 26:51
Burke Harris explains that hugging a frightened child releases oxytocin, which inhibits the biological stress response.
“First of all, the hug releases oxytocin. Oxytocin directly blocks the activation of the biological stress response”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 21:13
Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
Burke Harris says health-damaging behaviors account for only about half of the added risk from ACEs, with the rest attributable to the overactive stress response.
“looked at what happens when you remove the impact of health-damaging behaviors. And that was only about 50% of the risk”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 18:17
Burke Harris states that people with four or more ACEs had markedly elevated risks of depression, alcohol and opiate dependence, and heart disease.
“a person with four more ACEs was four and a half times as likely to experience depression, was seven times as likely to experience alcohol dependence”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 18:17
Burke Harris reports that the ACE Study found two-thirds of people had at least one ACE and that the CDC's updated data shows one in six Americans have four or more.
“Now, nationally, it's one in six individuals have experienced four or more of these traditional ACEs”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 17:03
Toxic stress
Burke Harris recounts that an endocrinologist advised psychotherapy rather than hormonal therapy for a boy whose growth arrested after trauma, and that his growth and asthma improved.
“the treatment, if that's the case, is not hormonal therapy. It's talk therapy, right?”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 11:46
Burke Harris argues that trauma is the body's biological response to overwhelming stress rather than the stressful event itself.
“At its core, trauma is the biological response to overwhelming stress. So a lot of us think of it as the stressor, the thing that happened to us”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 7:22
Fight-or-flight response
Burke Harris describes the fawn response, more common among women, as becoming compliant and people-pleasing for safety.
“So that means is that you become compliant. You people please for your own safety”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 1:00:04
Shame
Burke Harris argues that shame both increases stress and isolates people from the connection they need.
“Shame doesn't only increase our stress, but it also isolates us. So it makes us less likely to connect to the thing that we actually need to be successful”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 1:02:06
Procrastination
Burke Harris explains that procrastination and disorganization can stem from an overactive amygdala suppressing the prefrontal cortex.
“we see that prefrontal cortex is really just having a really hard time engaging, right? Because the amygdala is on overdrive”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 1:00:44
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing
Burke Harris says that through EMDR she had a corrective experience of her adult self comforting her childhood self, which she sums up as the 'I'm here' effect.
“adult me comes in and just sits down on the bed and says, I'm here”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 46:15
Epigenetics
Burke Harris describes rat cross-fostering studies in which pups took on the stress reactivity and epigenetic markers of their rearing mother rather than their biological mother.
“they took on the stress reactivity of their rearing mother, not of their biological mother”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 33:59
Adverse childhood experiences
Burke Harris contends that early infant experiences shape stress wiring even when they are not remembered.
“So you may not remember the actual event, but the body remembers, right?”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and Anxiety (Apr 27, 2026) · Listen from 27:19
Appearances
Nervous System Reset: Do THIS Every Day to Rewire Your Brain From Stress and AnxietyThe Mel Robbins Podcast · Apr 27, 2026 · 1 h 15 min
Mel Robbins talks with pediatrician Dr. Nadine Burke Harris about adverse childhood experiences, overactive stress responses, and buffering practices that help regulate the nervous system.
Often appears with
- Mel Robbins · 1 shared episode