For episode 33 on The School of Unlearning, I sit down with award winning researcher and author of 6 books, Donna Jackson Nakazawa. Donna's work in science journalism was influenced by early life experiences and losses. Donna's most recent work is all about raising awareness about the growing mental health crisis that our young girls are experiencing. Donna uses science, empathy and a felt sense for human suffering to translate stories into movements that spark change. This episode is for every parent, even aunt, every teacher and every coach who is raising a young women and wants to help support their mental health journey.

In this episode, we discuss: 

• Donna's early childhood influences and how they shaped a sense of trust and safety about the world around her 
• How to tell is the nervous system is regulated or dis-regulated 
• How stress switches on genes that dis-regulates the nervous system 
• What motivates and drives Donna to be a writer and a speaker.
• How we can rewrite internal narratives to work through trauma 
• How confidence is a backbone for healing trauma, to be able to sit with emotions and narratives and learn to rewrite them. 
• The power of narrative writing, which combines the past, present and future in a way that can heal. 
• Science is showing that in the fact of unpredictable chronic stress, things happen immunologically and hormonally in the female body that set the stage for depression that don't happen for males. 
• Doubling and tripling rates of female mental health disorders which are unprecedented. 
• The rate of female teen suicide went up 50% over the last decade. 
• 36% of girls report having a major depressive episode before the age of 17.

"Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media" is available for pre-order on Amazon, on Barnes & Noble. This book will be released on September 13th. 

About Donna:

Donna Jackson Nakazawa is an award-winning science journalist, author of seven books, and an internationally-recognized speaker whose work explores the intersection of neuroscience, immunology, and human emotion. Her mission is to explore the science of the mind-body connection and harness it for healing. Her upcoming book, Girls on the Brink: Helping Our Daughters Thrive in an Era of Increased Anxiety, Depression, and Social Media (Random House/Harmony 2022) is available for pre-order now and will be available wherever books are sold this summer). In this book, Donna explores today’s growing adolescent female mental health crisis. Anyone on the front lines of caring for girls today—parents, educators, counselors—knows that girls are more prone to depression and anxiety than ever before. Now we have the science to understand why. During the critical neurodevelopmental window of adolescence a confluence of modern toxic stressors are altering the female stress-immune response in ways that can derail female thriving. Drawing on insights from both the latest science and interviews with girls, Donna guides readers through 15 “antidote” strategies to help teenage girls flourish even in the face of stress, creating a new playbook for how we—parents, families, and the human tribe—can ensure a healthy emotional inner life for all of our girls.

About Elisa Haggarty: 

I am a Conscious Leadership Coach and host of The School of Unlearning Podcast. I coach leaders/executives and teams all over the world to shift their mindset so they can build high performing teams, visit www.elisamaryhaggarty.com

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