Dr. Nicole LePera

then it makes sense that I'm prepared in this epigenetic way in case if and when that happens again.

So that, again, simple example, which is why some of us have in our ancestral lineages, food insecurity, financial insecurity are the scarcity that is quite literally wired into us, giving us a hyperreactive stress response around certain environments or stimuli or fears or worries.

that we're beautifully adaptive, assuming that we were born into the exact same environment.

But what's happened for most of us, right, is our environments change, our resources have changed, our relationships have changed.

Some of us are living on the complete other side of the world than the body that we were wired or than the environment that our body was wired to exist in.

So epigenetics, again, how the genes are expressed, impact everything from inflammation, stress regulation, our immune response, our physical, our emotional health,

But they're coming again from a beautiful adaptation at one time where that worked, was necessary in the environment.

The good part of this is just to wrap the hope into this with the story.

They continue to study these individuals who were in utero and then born.

And they found that those who committed to lifestyle changes, to regulating their body and had nutrition available to them were equally able to.

to epigenetically shift the genes on and off in the other direction, so to speak.

And this is what my hope is for all of us, not only to have some compassion for why we are stuck and our body is reacting to environments that maybe we're not living in, but to give us the physiological tools to when we say break cycles, we're not just talking about showing up differently and creating a little impact in terms of behaviorally.

We're actually talking about changing the way not only our genes are turning on and off,

But the way our offspring's genes, if we choose to have them, are turning on and off, quite literally breaking cycles.

And I'm saying that because I'm speaking to, again, me, who very early on, and it was a running joke for a little bit of time when it became aware to me.

You know, when I started to have friends in high school and stuff, and everyone would be like, oh, every now and again, share a little story about their childhood.

And mine was blank.

It even translated to being out with those said friends.

And a couple weeks later, they're saying, hey, do you remember when we went there, said and did this?

And I'm like, no, I don't.