Born Anxious ─ The Lifelong Impact of Early Life Adversity -- And How to Break the Cycle

Why are we the way we are? Why do some of us find it impossible to calm a hair-trigger temper or to shake chronic anxiety? The debate has always been divided between nature and nurture - now, as psychology professor Daniel Keating demonstrates inEmbedded, new science points to a third factor that allows us to inherit both the natureand the nurture of previous generations - with significant consequences.

Embedded introduces a new word into our lexicon: "methylated." It's short for "epigenetic methylation," and it offers insight into behaviors we have all observed but never understood - from the boss who goes ballistic at the slightest error to the sibling who is sure that everything you say is a hidden insult; from the infant who can't be calmed to the husband who can't fall asleep at night or wake up in the morning. In each case, because of in utero exposure to environmental adversity, a key stress system has been welded into the "on" position by the methylation process. The effect: lifelong unrelenting stress and its side effects - from an inability to learn to an early death.

An extreme stress response enabled our ancestors to survive in harsh climes, but in today's Western world, harsh environments tend to be low-income, high-crime areas. In an age of rising inequality, the fate of ever larger segments of the population may be debilitating stress - unless we take action and break the cycle.

DANIEL P. KEATING is a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, and received his M.A. and Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins. With a cumulative four decades of professorial experience under his belt, he has conducted research at Berlin's Max Planck Institute and through the Canadian Network on Human Development, where he was a fellow for two decades. His work focuses on developmental differences - cognitive and intellectual to social and emotional to general health. He resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.