Your Genetic Inheritance does Affect your Mental Health (and here's what to do about it)

Your mother's stress-induced diabetes shows up in your propensity for anxiety, PCOS and weight gain.

Your grandfather's post-combat shame narratives show up in the way you feel a deep heaviness and guilt that you can't shake... but you can't figure out what it's about. It's almost like... it isn't yours.

Your father's experience of childhood neglect, your mother's anxiety or depression while pregnant, your grandmother's teenage sexual assault, your uncle's addiction...

They all shaped the genetic landscape of your body, switching on genes that are affecting the way you think, store memories, process the world, methylate, detox, digest and even eliminate. But they don't have to shape the emotional landscape of your soul! Just like trauma can be released, genes can be turned off. Sometimes, both happen at once!

Diabetes can be reversed for healthy balance.

Shame can be alchemized into drive to heal the world.

Depression can give way to deeper purpose.

How Trauma, Stress, and Environment Turn Genes On and Off: The Epigenetics of Mental Health

When most people hear the word genetics, they imagine a fixed script written in DNA — an unchangeable blueprint that determines health, illness, and personality. But the last two decades of research in molecular biology tell a much different story. Genes - like your depression and anxiety - aren't destiny, just potential. Whether those potentials are expressed depends on how the body responds to the world around it — our stress levels, trauma history, nutrition, sleep, and even social support. This dynamic relationship between genes and environment is called epigenetics. The term literally means “above the genome.” Epigenetic mechanisms control which genes are switched on or off, how strongly they are expressed, and for how long. In other words: your DNA provides the notes, but epigenetics decides which notes get played, how loudly, and in what rhythm.

How Trauma “Marks” the Genome

One of the best-studied epigenetic processes is DNA methylation. This involves attaching a tiny chemical tag — a methyl group — to specific DNA sites. Methylation doesn’t alter the DNA code, but it makes it harder for the cellular machinery to “read” certain genes. When a child or adult experiences chronic stress, abuse, neglect, or overwhelming trauma, stress hormones like cortisol surge through the body. These hormonal signals interact with enzymes that control methylation, leading to lasting changes in which genes are accessible. Here are a few examples:

Research on the NR3C1 gene (which codes for a cortisol receptor) shows that children exposed to abuse often develop heavy methylation at this gene. That makes it harder for cells to sense cortisol properly. The result? A more sensitive, less stable stress response throughout life.

The COMT gene makes an enzyme that breaks down dopamine, norepinephrine and other catecholamines in the prefrontal cortex. If you have slow COMT (Met158Met), you break these neurotransmitters down too slowly (leaving you feeling anxious and stress-sensitive), and if you have fast COMT (Val158Val), you burn through them very quickly - oftentimes making you feel like you need to continuously search for dopamine or a "rush" to feel normal. What causes these alterations in the COMT gene? More than any other gene, adverse childhood experiences appear to affect COMT expression the most.

Trauma exposure has been linked to altered methylation in FKBP5, a gene that regulates the HPA axis (the body’s stress control center). This can lock a person into a state of hypervigilance or burnout. These chemical “marks” are part of how the body adapts to danger. In an unsafe world, being hyper-alert, anxious, or easily startled may be protective. But when the environment changes, those same gene settings can create chronic anxiety, depression, immune imbalance, or physical illness.

Stress as a Genetic Switch

Even everyday stress — not just major trauma — influences gene expression. When the nervous system senses threat, the body releases stress mediators like cortisol, adrenaline, and inflammatory cytokines. These act as molecular messengers, telling certain genes to activate. Genes that regulate inflammation may switch on in chronic stress, keeping the immune system on high alert. Over time, this contributes to autoimmune conditions, fatigue, or brain fog. Genes that regulate growth, repair, and digestion may switch off, because the body prioritizes survival over restoration when it feels unsafe. This explains why people under prolonged stress often experience digestive problems, hormonal imbalances, slow healing, or increased vulnerability to infections — the epigenetic “volume knob” has been turned toward survival at the expense of long-term health.

Environment: More Than Just Trauma

It isn’t only emotional stress that affects epigenetics. Environmental inputs from food and toxins to social relationships all leave their imprint on the genome.

Nutrition: Nutrients like folate, B12, choline, and betaine provide the raw materials for methylation. Diets deficient in these nutrients can impair epigenetic flexibility, while diets rich in them support healthy gene regulation.

Toxins: Heavy metals, pesticides, and air pollution have been shown to alter DNA methylation patterns, sometimes silencing protective genes and activating inflammatory ones.

Social connection: Remarkably, supportive relationships and safe environments can reverse or buffer some of the harmful marks left by trauma. Oxytocin, the bonding hormone, has been linked to epigenetic changes that promote calm, trust, and resilience.

The Inheritance of Stress

One of the most striking discoveries is that epigenetic changes can sometimes be passed down to the next generation. Animal studies show that offspring of stressed parents can inherit methylation patterns that predispose them to anxiety or metabolic problems — even if the offspring grow up in safe environments. In humans, this has been observed in studies of children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, and in populations exposed to famine or war. The trauma of one generation can leave epigenetic “echoes” in the next. This doesn’t mean families are doomed to repeat suffering. It means healing in one generation can ripple forward too. Epigenetic marks are reversible.

How Healing Rewrites the Script

Excitingly, we are not chained to our genes! Just as trauma can mark the genome, so can healing experiences. Safe environments, nourishing food, supportive relationships, and therapeutic interventions all have measurable epigenetic effects.

• Exercise boosts brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), turning on genes that support neuroplasticity and resilience.

• Mindfulness and meditation have been linked to changes in methylation of genes related to inflammation and stress.

• Psychotherapy methods like CBT, RODBT, or EMDR or somatics (body-based trauma release) don't just change thoughts — they change your biology. Studies show trauma-focused therapy can normalize methylation of stress-related genes.

• Sleep & circadian optimization resets the epigenetic machinery daily, restoring balance to genes controlling everything from metabolism to digestion to hormones to mental health.

• Nutrition and supplementation can provide the methyl donors and cofactors needed to restore flexible gene regulation.

Every person will have very personalized needs based off of their specific genetic expression and it can get worse if you take something without the adequate cofactors (so move forward slowly and carefully), but here are some key nutrients/supplements for balancing common genes.

MTHFR (your queen methylation/depression risk SNP)

• Food and supplements: Natural folate sources (leafy greens, legumes), adequate B6 and B12, methylfolate, choline, betaine, liver and gut supportive supplements (phosphatedylcholine, milk thistle, turmeric, dandelion, burdock, glutamine, marshmallow, licorice, probiotics).

• Lifestyle: stabilizing blood sugar, getting good sleep and reducing stress are essential.

  
  

COMT (your anxiety/cognition/estrogen-regulation SNP)

• Food and supplements: slow (Met/Met) do better avoiding caffeine and other stimulants, need B vitamins, magnesium, SAMe, cruciferous veggies, may need to support estrogen detox with herbs like rosemary, schisandra and artichoke or homeopathy like the folliculinum remedy; fast (Val/Val) need adequate protein and tyrosine-rich foods.

• Lifestyle: slow (Met/Met) do best prioritizing stress reduction methods like meditation, mindfulness, tapping, breath work, vagus nerve work, and structured routine and fast (Val/Val) need regular dopamine boosts so exercise, structured novelty, caffeine and good sleep are helpful.

MAOA (your impulsivity/mood disorders SNP)

• Food and supplements: B vitamins and quality protein.

• Lifestyle: consistent sleep, blood sugar balance, avoid excessive caffeine, therapy for OCD/aggression/impaired impulse control tendencies.

FKBP5 (your HPA axis & stress related psychiatric risk SNP)

• Food and supplements: anti-inflammatory diet

• Lifestyle: regular sleep, breath work/vagal techniques, structured social support, trauma-informed therapy, HPA regulation pillars such as sleep, exercise and adequate nourishment are especially important.

HMNT (your intracellular histamine-breakdown and anxiety SNP)

• Food and supplements: magnesium, B2, low histamine diet.

• Lifestyle: optimal circadian rhythm, sleep hygiene, and stress reduction techniques.

DAO (your extracellular histamine-breakdown SNP)

• Food and supplements: low histamine diet (especially alcohol and aged foods), Vitamin C, copper, B6, and gut-healing herbs and nutrients (glutamine, marshmallow, licorice, aloe, etc).

• Lifestyle:

  
  

GPX (your glutathione/antioxidant and inflammation-regulation SNP)

• Food and supplements: Glutathione precursor rich foods (cruciferous veggies), antioxidants like Vitamin C and E, selenium, liposomal glutathione or NAC (if better tolerated).

• Lifestyle: Detox support like sauna use, sweating, Epsom salt baths and exercise; stress reduction methods.

The body is capable of rewriting its own story when given safety, nourishment, and care!

Conclusion

So what does this mean for someone struggling with depression or anxiety? A few key takeaways:

• Your genes are not your fate. Carrying a “risk gene” doesn’t guarantee illness. Whether that gene is expressed depends largely on environment, stress, and lifestyle.

• Trauma imprints biology. Adverse childhood experiences, chronic stress, and toxic environments can leave lasting marks on the genome, shaping how the nervous system responds to life.

• Healing changes biology too. The same epigenetic pathways that are shaped by trauma can also be reshaped by therapy, community, rest, nutrition, and supportive environments.

• Resilience is biological. Epigenetics shows us that resilience isn’t just a psychological trait — it’s a cellular capacity that can be cultivated.

Final Thoughts

Epigenetics bridges the gap between nature and nurture. It shows us that the past is written in our bodies, but also that the future is open. Trauma and stress can mark our genes in ways that change how we think, feel, and heal. But these marks are not the end of the story. With the right support, the body can literally rewrite its code. Every deep breath, every safe relationship, every nourishing meal, every experience of the divine, and every night of restful sleep is not just “self-care” — it’s you rewriting your genetic expression. It’s sending signals to your DNA about the world you live in now, inviting your genes to express safety instead of survival.