High Levels of Stress Prevent You Thinking Clearly

Image from rawpixel.com Almost everyone knows that stress is bad for their health. It does odd things to our bodies — it causes headaches, chest pains, fatigue, and digestive issues. The faster pace of life today means lots more stress for a lot of people. That feeling you are overwhelmed, overloaded and struggling to cope with the demands of life has also been shown to take a toll on your thinking ability. A study of more than 2,000 people, most of them in their 40s, found that participants with the highest levels of the stress-related hormone cortisol performed worse on tests of memory, organization, visual perception and attention. Stress is the body’s natural defence against danger. It’s a ‘fight-or-flight response’ to anything that may harm us — physically or emotionally. When your body perceives danger, it releases stress hormones (cortisol) to prepare systems to evade or confront danger. When you’re stressed, cortisol levels increase which impacts your ability to think clearly. The stresses of daily our lives can take a toll on the brain for the worse. Stressful events and experiences throughout life can impact the brain decades later. But it’s never too early to be mindful of reducing stress. Studies have shown that the stress hormone cortisol might be linked with degrading memory and poor thinking skills in middle-aged adults. “Stress absolutely affects memory,” says clinical psychologist and behaviorist Dr. Jennifer Guttman. The journal Neurology says that people with higher levels of cortisol in their blood have impaired memories and lower brain volume. “Cortisol affects many different functions so it is important to fully investigate how high levels of the hormone may affect the brain,” said study author Justin B. Echouffo-Tcheugui, MD, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. The study concluded that “Higher serum cortisol was […]

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