I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. But her science is a form of power for flourishing beyond the traumas, large and small, that mark each of our lives and those of our families and communities. She’s studied the children of Holocaust survivors and the children of pregnant women who survived the 9/11 attacks. And Rachel Yehuda is a pioneer in understanding how the effects of stress and trauma can transmit biologically, beyond cataclysmic events, to the next generation. Krista Tippett, host: Genetics describes DNA sequencing, but the new field of epigenetics sees that genes can be turned on and off and expressed differently, through changes in environment and behavior. I am not the same person that I was.” And epigenetics gives us the language and the science to be able to start unpacking that. People say, when something cataclysmic happens to them, “I’m not the same person. The idea is a very simple idea, and you hear it from people all the time. Rachel Yehuda: We’re just starting to understand that just because you’re born with a certain set of genes, you’re not in a biologic prison as a result of those genes - that changes can be made to how those genes function, that can help.

Npr intergenerational trauma