Do you experience stress quite often? You may be thinking what kind of a question that is because with our schedules as suffocating as Hitler’s chambers, it would be eye-popping if we did not experience stress. Well! I get it. Stress has become a part of our lives now and it comes in many forms; it could be due to unreasonable deadlines or dearth of healthy work-life balance.
Stress has become inevitable but we can’t let stress wreak havoc on our mental health. Apparently, stress has some quiet obvious symptoms which you may be no stranger with like Headaches, Anxiety, Chest Pains, Sadness and other Behavioral Problems but what you might be unaware of is how Stress can have a serious impact on your brain.
It has been observed that stress can have a chronic impact on the body and the brain if it is recurring or serious. Research says that stress can produce a wide range of negative effects on the brain ranging from contributing to mental illness to actually shrinking the volume of the brain.
Let’s unearth a little more on the subject
- Researchers have discovered that chronic stress may result into increase of myelin-creating cells and decrease of neuron cells than normal in the brain. This leads to an excess of myelin in certain areas of the brain, which interferes with the timing and balance of communication. The researchers found that stress can also have negative effects on the brain’s hippocampus.
- Hippocampus is the region of the brain which is primarily associated with memory and is particularly important in regulating emotional responses. Due to stress, when the hippocampus is negatively affected, it leaves the person with bitter and negative responses resulting into outbursts of anger and rage. This is the reason why people with chronic stress suffer from broken relationships and nervous breakdowns.
- Stress may not seemingly affect the process of formation of new neuron cells but it may definitely determine if these neurons shall survive or not. Chronic Stress can potentially kill brain cells
- If you’ve ever tried to hark back to a certain detail in a stressful situation, you’ll notice that your brain is not able to recollect it. This is because even relatively minor stress can have an immediate impact on your brain. It can be as small as not recollecting the keyword in your exam to as massive as not remembering a person. Chronic stress can leave a huge impact on your memory depending upon the intensity of stress. This is all because the hippocampus which is heavily associated with memory, emotion and learning is negatively affected due to stress.
While stress is a part of our life, we cannot let it waver our lives. To lessen the impact of stress on our brain, Meditate! For more details, download our mobile application (NowZone) and try to lead a life where stress does not bother you.
