Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress

These days, we all live under con­sid­er­able stress — eco­nomic chal­lenges, job demands, fam­ily ten­sions, always-on tech­nol­ogy and the 24-hour news cycle all con­tribute to cease­less worry. While many have learned to sim­ply “live with it,” this ongo­ing stress can, unless prop­erly man­aged, have a seri­ous neg­a­tive impact on our abil­ity to think clearly and make good deci­sions, in the short-term, and even harm our brains in the long-term.

Recent stud­ies show that chronic stress can also lead to depres­sion, and even to a higher risk of cog­ni­tive decline and Alzheimer’s dis­ease symp­toms. Why? Under stress, the brain’s lim­bic sys­tem — respon­si­ble for emo­tions, mem­ory and learn­ing — trig­gers an alarm that acti­vates the fight-or-flight response, increas­ing the pro­duc­tion of adren­a­line (epi­neph­rine) and cor­ti­sol, which work together to speed heart rate, increase metab­o­lism and blood pres­sure, enhance atten­tion, the immune sys­tem and anti-inflammatory response, and lower pain sen­si­tiv­ity — all good things when your very sur­vival is on the line. When the stress­ful sit­u­a­tion is over, the body resets back to normal.

How­ever, under con­stant stress, the body is unable to reset. High adren­a­line and cor­ti­sol lev­els per­sist, poten­tially caus­ing blood sugar imbal­ances and blood pres­sure prob­lems, and whit­tling away at mus­cle tis­sue, bone den­sity, immu­nity and inflam­ma­tory responses. These events block the for­ma­tion of new neural con­nec­tions in the hip­pocam­pus, the part of the brain respon­si­ble for encod­ing new mem­o­ries. When these new con­nec­tions are blocked, the hip­pocam­pus can actu­ally shrink in size, hin­der­ing memory. Continue reading.

Originally posted on Sharp Brains.