With increase in work and family pressure, stress has become a part and parcel of life. It is experienced in different forms and generally involves issues such as relationships, money and health. Whenever anyone faces some potential threat, his/her body and minds swings into immediate action. This is either to avoid the problem or fight it out. However, stress is bad and may cause physical symptoms like chest pain and headaches. It also produces mood problems like sadness or anxiety or cause behavioral problems like overeating or anger. It also impacts the brain. There is indeed a mind body connection that needs to be understood.
5 ways by which stress may affect the human brain
- Stress changes brain’s structure: Chronic stress if experience may result in long-term brain functional and structural changes. Support cells and neurons referred to as ‘gray matter’ are present in the brain. It supports higher-order thinking like problem solving or decision making. Also is present white matter that is created the axons connecting with the brain’s other regions to communicate vital information. Chronic stress may lead to myelin overproduction. This causes short-term balance changes in gray and white matter as well as permanent change in brain structure.
- Mental illness: Since there is a mind body connection, chronic stress is prone to developing anxiety and mood disorders at a later age. Moreover, stress plays a vital role to develop emotional disorders and mental disorders like depression. It also develops more of myelin-producing cells, however, fewer neurons than what is normal. This disruption is rather an excess myelin production in the brain’s certain areas. This, in turn, interferes with the balance and timing of communication. Brain’s hippocampus also experiences negative effects.
- Shrinks brain: Stress may cause shrinkage in different parts of the brain that is related to regulation of memory, metabolism and emotions. Every day stress faced can contribute towards a variety of mental disorders. Exposure to stress including recent ones cause smaller gray matter within the brain’s prefrontal cortex to things like emotions and self-control. On experiencing traumatic stressors, people experience brain shrinkage.
- Destroys brain cells: Even a single socially stress event is likely to destroy new neurons within the brain’s hippocampus. The latter is the area that is related heavily to learning, emotion and memory. It is also one of the places where new brain cells or neurogensis is formed.
Getting to understand the mind body connection can help you to keep yourself in good health and avoid stress as much as possible.