Stress makes your brain think you’re in danger. It responds by maintaining a high state of alertness and producing chemicals called glucocorticoids. If nothing tells your brain, “The danger has passed,” those chemicals keep streaming through your blood. In effect, they become toxic to your brain. A brain on high alert is focused on survival, and thus has no time for rest and regeneration. Stress has these key symptoms:
- Inability to relax
- Emotional instability/mood swings
- Headaches
- Sleeplessness
Stress messes with your brain by:
- Creating free radicals that kill your brain cells
- Making you forget things
- Intensifying your anxiety and irritability
- Interfering with the creation of new brain cells
- Increasing your risk for mental illness, such as depression
- Shrinking your brain, causing memory and decisionmaking problems
- Allowing toxins into your brain
- Escalating your likelihood of getting Alzheimer’s or dementia
- Killing off brain cells prematurely
Banish stress for a healthier brain. Acknowledge when you’re stressed, then re- solve to take care of those problems you can (and promise yourself not to dwell on those you can’t).