Effects of Stress on the Brain: Memory, Mood & Brain Function

Stress is a natural reaction which your body releases when your body has some challenges, external pressures, demands and changes. This can react to any changes that can require adjustments or responses. It can feel in many different ways like physically, emotionally, and behaviorally. It can be triggered by any life event which makes you feel frustrated, angry, or nervous. The effects of stress on the brain put a lot of pressure on the brain and the chances of losing memory are also increased. In today’s life, every person feels and experiences stress in their life. But it can be managed and helps you to deal with it. In this blog, we will get to know the effects of stress and its impact on the brain under stress. At the end, we will understand how to manage it and some tips to improve focus and clarity.

What is Stress and Why Do We Feel Stress?

Stress is a reaction which every human releases. Whenever you feel or experience the changes and challenges in your body or your life, you react to them by taking stress. When your body produces the physical and mental responses, that’s what we call stress. Apart from these stress responses, it helps your body to manage new situations, which can be positive or negative. Positive stress helps you to be motivated and alert. But it can be negative if it stays or continues without giving any relief or relaxation for a single time.

Types of Stress

Stress is not just one thing to know; there are different and unique effects on every body and mind. There are 3 types of stress, and we will get to know them one by one.

Acute Stress

Acute stress is a very short term stress and it is common among people. It can come and go very quickly and it can cause headaches, anxiety, etc. It can happen when we face a problem out of the blue or triggered by any outside event. So, you can get this stress when you are riding the rollercoaster for the first time. Especially if you are scared of it or when you had a fight with your loved one. It can also occur when you put pressure on yourself about your work, school or anything else. This can also be triggered if you had any traumatic past, like if you had a car accident or someone you love has left you. It relieves when the situation or problem is solved.

Symptoms of Stress

There are many symptoms of acute stress such as emotional distress caused by the feelings of anger and irritability. The problems in muscles like headaches or back pain, stomach issues and increasing the heartbeat or decreasing the breath.

Episodic Acute Stress

Episodic acute stress happens when you are experiencing acute stress on a regular basis or frequently experience episodes of acute stress. During this stress, you don’t get time to feel calm and relaxed, even if you need it or want it. It frequently affects the people who are working in a certain, similar, or toxic environment. This can also happen to the person who stays anxious or worried about the things that they think will happen soon. It can affect the person’s physical and mental health.

Symptoms of Stress

Symptoms of episodic acute stress can include tension and it can cause headaches or migraines. It can increase the risk of hypertension and pain in the chest pain. This can cause the feeling of staying where it is constantly in chaos.

Chronic Stress

Chronic stress is a very long term stress. It may stay for several months or even years. This can also create a negative impact on health. You can experience stress if you are facing any problem in your marriage, feeling unsafe at home, having issues in life or facing any critical financial problems. This stress leads to feelings of hopelessness and negatively affects the person, and it also affects their physical and mental health. Chronic stress can reduce your psychological resources. It is very important to manage this stress because it can make your health worsen and can damage your body and mind. Chronic stress also contributes to anxiety, cardiovascular disease, depression, a weak immune system and high blood pressure.

Symptoms of Stress

Chronic stress includes physical, emotional and mental stress, such as headaches and sleep disorders. Emotionally, the feelings of worry, depression and frustration have increased. If it is not treated in time, then it can worsen and increase the chances of heart disease and obesity. It also increases the mental disorders like depression and anxiety. Mostly they start to use alcohol, drugs or tobacco.

Symptoms of Stress in Your Body and Behaviour

In our body, the autonomic nervous system manages our heart rate, breathing rate, vision clarity, and many other things. For example, if you had a fight with anyone with whom you are in love. So you often feel stress over things like why you said that or did that. In this kind of situation, you often have stress. So because of those or other things, you can develop the symptoms of stress like physical, psychological, or behavioural. So here is a deep explanation of the symptoms of stress.

Physical Symptoms

The physical symptoms of stress are:

• Aches and Pains: In chronic pain, the aches and pains are common effects and they can increase the level of stress in the body.
• Trouble Sleeping: If you are facing any stress or tiredness, it can impact your sleep by making it difficult to fall or stay asleep.
• Headaches: Stress can lead to headaches and it can also cause pain in the head or neck. It can occur because of diet, lack of sleep, hormonal changes and alcohol consumption.
• Sexual Health Problems: The stressful time, hormonal changes, tiredness and any psychological issues can impact the reduction of having sex.
• Digestive Issues: Because of stress, the impact on the digestive issues has increased, and it can cause heartburn, diarrhoea and other digestive disorders. It can lead to stomach cramps and loss of appetite.

Psychological Symptoms

In psychological symptoms, stress related to the emotional and mental aspects includes:

• Anxiety: Feeling on edge or overly worried about something which is difficult for you to make right can lead you to anxiety.
• Depression: According to your family history, age, environmental factors, illnesses and taking medication can cause depression.
• Irritability: When you can’t do something or think about any situation or problem, it can lead you to get irritated about everything.

Behavioral Symptoms

Those people who are suffering from the chronic stress try to make different things easy for themselves. But if they are not able to, then they do something which can impact their health, like:

• Changes in Eating Habits: Stress can lead you to overeating, consuming alcohol, smoking and sometimes it leads you to loss of appetite
• Social Withdrawal: When someone is under stress, they remove themself from every social media platforms and stay away from everyone.

Causes of Stress

The causes of stress come from the work related situation, family problems, illnesses or any situation that can affect anyone physically and emotionally. Stress can come from external stress causes and internal stress cause factors. So here are the causes of stress:

External Stress Causes

• Work related Stress: In this, you face problems like searching for a new job or you have left your job. If you have a deadline, work pressure and if you don’t have any security in the job.
• Relationship Issues: You feel this stress when you have a fight or have problems with your family, friends, or your partner. You can also feel stress at the starting month of your marriage. And the rest of the things that affect the relationship.
• Environmental Stress: Sometimes, because of so much noise, pollution or a chaotic environment, you can face physical and emotional stress.

Internal Stress Causes

• Perfectionism: You face stress if you do something and for that your expectation is very high but in the end, it can’t come out like that.
• Negative Thinking: If you are constantly worrying or having self-doubt in anything, then it can make you feel helpless, useless and anxious.
• Finance Issue: If you are suffering from any financial issues.
• Health Concern: If you are suffering from any chronic disease or illness and you are having a baby. In these things, you are restricted from doing many things or eating your favourite food. So it can impact physical and mental stress.

What Stress Does to Your Brain and Nervous System?

When stress stays for so long, it can put your brain and thoughts in a state that makes them poor in concentration. It can also affect your brain and nervous system to stay connected like:

• Memory and Focus: When stress stays for a long time, the hippocampus, which manages memory. It starts to shrink or forget things and is unable to concentrate on anything.
• Stress Affects Decision Making: Stress can make the prefrontal cortex slow down; well, it helps with planning and thinking.
• Stress Affects Mood and Emotions: The chronic stress disturbs the brain and its ability to regulate emotions like anxiety, sadness and anger.

Common Effects of Stress on the Brain Function

Stress can come at any stage of your life and it is a part of our lives. It can come in any form, like during work pressure, school assignments, family issues, health problems, financial problems and relationships. At some point, when our mind and body go into stress, they prepare themselves in two ways. First, deal with the situation and then get the solution and second, avoid the problem and run away. Stress has a serious impact on the brain. If there are effects on the brain under stress, then your brain reacts like good and bad reactions. So, now we will understand the 5 effects of stress on the brain.

Chronic Stress Increases Mental Illness

Chronic stress plays a big role in psychiatric conditions like depression, bipolar disorder and post traumatic stress disorder. It happens when the change occurs in the brain and it happens over a long time. These changes help to explain that chronic stress increases the mood and anxiety disorders in life. Stress also develops mental disorders and emotional disorders. The effects of chronic stress on the brain are that the stress affects the myelin production and reduces the number of neurons compared to normal. The disruption of myelin in the area of the brain interferes the timing and balance of communication. Stress also has a negative effect on the brain’s hippocampus.

Stress Changes the Brain’s Structure

The grey matter is an important part of the brain which is responsible for thinking so much in stuff like decision making and problem solving. Brain also contain the white matter which is made of the long thread like part of a nerve cell with the impulses that are conducted from the cell to cells which is called axons. It is connected to the different parts of the brain to communicate and transfer the information. Myelin surrounds the axons and it speeds up to the electrical signals which communicate the information throughout the brain. When stress leads to the overproduction of myelin, it results in changes in the balance of white and grey matter. And it can change in the brain structure.

Stress Kills Brain Cells

Changing the structure of the brain and the hormones that the body releases during stress can reduce the neurogenesis in the brain over time. Especially those who have newly formed. The hippocampus which is one of the two areas of the brain that keep everything like memory, emotion and learning things. There is also the neurogenesis or the new formation of brain cells which occurs throughout life.

Stress Shrinks the Brain

Stress just doesn’t make it difficult for someone to move or go forward to develop the brain cells. It can also cause the loss of neurons and the connections between them. Which lead to the reduction in brain tissue size. Otherwise, when healthy people stress then it can lead to a shrinkage in the brain area with the emotions, metabolism and memory. If we constantly release high levels of cortisol then there is a risk of shrinkage of brain volume which usually happens in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. It can lead to memory and thinking problems.

Stress Hurts Your Memory

Sometimes, you may experience that because of stress, you must have forgotten some of your memories. So it happens when your brain is not able to remember something because of a lot of stress. Sometimes, minor stress can also have an impact on your brain. Like you ever had a struggle with remembering that where you put the car keys, where your briefcase is, etc. Stress can impact memory and learning. Such as, it’s hurt to show the connecting memory of something or the information about the location of objects or anything. The stress hormone cortisol is connected to the short term memory at high levels.

Physiological Effects of Stress on the Brain

If someone experiences stress or a stressful event, then the amygdala sends the distress signal to the hypothalamus. The amygdala is an area of the brain that helps in the emotional process. So, that area of the brain is used as a command centre and it communicates with the body with the help of the nervous system. It helps the person to have the energy to fight or flee.

Impact of Stress on Brain Function: From PTSD to Migraine

The effects of stress on the brain are a protective mechanism. At some point, we all need stress so that we can think that we are in an uncomfortable situation and need to overcome it. But if you stay under the stress for a very long time, then it can impact your health. The stress which helps to protect you becomes harmful. When you experience any stressful situation then your body reacts to it by physically or mentally. It can increase the blood flow to the muscles or heart rate and decrease the pain or immune response.

If it stays for a long time, then it can lead to the metabolic syndrome, hypertension and both cortisol and norepinephrine. They are hormones and neurotransmitters that play a critical role in the stress response and have negative effects on it. The brain under stress can affect daily life. When you have stress for so long, then it can start our brain to work in a way that it can’t be treated, healthy or helpful to anyone. This state can impact on the abilities to make it hard to focus on work and make decisions to do something.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that arises after you experience any traumatic event. The events like seeing war, having a fight, a car accident, or being suddenly attacked. You have the risk of developing PTSD if you had any stress in your earlier life or had any childhood trauma. It is linked to changing the systems of the brain’s stress response. The people who have PTSD have shown a normal cortisol level in everyday life, but during stressful situations, it becomes low. PTSD increased the level of norepinephrine, which is a stress hormone. Treatment can manage things like taking medication and doing exercise. It helps to reduce the trauma-related nightmares and sleep disturbance.

Migraines

Stress also plays a critical role in migraines. Stress and migraines have complex situations. It’s hard to link the stress to the beginning of a migraine. It has a strong connection when the level of stress suddenly drops. The sudden drop in stress can lead to a migraine attack. If people have any stressful events or are stressed over something or someone, then it can lead them to frequent migraines. Before the attack, people become more sensitive to everyday stress and their brains process it differently. The stress leads to disturbances in their sleep and immune system which makes them to face headaches.

How Can We Manage and Treat the Effects of Stress on the Brain?

There are many ways by which you can manage and treat the effects of stress on the brain. So, the things that come to our mind are, how can we relieve from the stress? How can we prevent, recover and reduce the stress? Well, there are many things to do, like:

• Physical Activity: The best thing is to do any physical activity and regular exercise such as walking, yoga, jogging, cycling or swimming. They help to reduce stress hormones, cortisol levels and release good endorphins. It improves the mood and helps to calm the nervous system.
• Mindfulness and Meditation: You should do meditation and muscle relaxation. Doing this for at least 5 minutes daily can help to calm and reduce the amygdala, improve the brain’s emotional health and reduce the production of cortisol.
• Prioritise Sleep: Sleep for 7 to 9 hours is important for the brain to process emotional and harmful things. It allows the brain to recover and reset from the daily things which they load.
• Nutritious Diet: Eating a balanced diet that is rich in antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids. This helps to reduce brain inflammation. Avoid taking alcohol, caffeine and smoking which can worsen the stress levels.
• Social Connection: Spend some time with friends, family or those people who love you and help you in every possible way and provide emotional support.
• Values based action and Acceptance: Identifying what matters, values and taking committed action, even when it feels stressful. Stay positive and just think about the good part of your day and ignore the bad part. Just think about the things that you have completed. Keep this thing in your mind that you can’t change something which already happened, so let it go and move on in your life.
• Organising Tasks: You can set the goals for a day, week or month and to motivate yourself, you plan something for yourself. Like you will go for a vacation, eat your favourite food and many other things.

Tips to Improve Focus and Mental Clarity

Your brain can work better during the stress if you think or do the right things. So, follow these tips it will help you to improve your focus and mental clarity.

• Keep a to do list and set a reminder then write down each and every task that you want to do.
• You should keep one thing in your mind that you are a human and you are imperfect. So you will make mistakes and sometimes forget to do things too.
• Take time to do work tasks, household chores, school assignments or many more things. You should divide a bigger task into small so that it becomes easier for you to do.
• During the stress, mistakes often happen, so you should check everything. Like verify numbers, email and read again every important thing that you write and then send it.
• You should first do one task and then move to another. Doing so many tasks at a time can make your brain stressed.
• Sometimes noises can make it hard to concentrate. So you should silence your phone and work in a quiet area which helps you to avoid distractions.
• You should set the time to see the emails, messages and social media. Cause continuous unnecessary notifications can make your brain not focus on things.
• If at some point you feel unfocused or overwhelmed so just stop the work for a few minutes and take a rest. You can do a stretch or take a deep breath, and you should avoid checking the news or any social media.
• Set the time to process every worry you have for 30 minutes. If the stress arises later, then you should write those things in a paper and go with that later.
• The thing which is good for you is good for your brain too. Like if you stay active, eat a good balanced diet, do meditation and exercise. Also, take proper sleep and avoid using the phone before going to bed. They all help to reduce the stress.

When to Ask for Help?

You should ask for help if you are suffering from the neurological effects of stress:

• When you feel that you are not emotionally and physically well.
• If you have any problems handling stress.
• Having the symptoms of shortness of breath, chest pain, sweating, dizziness, and nausea are the warning signs of a heart attack.

Even after taking control of the stress, if you are facing the symptoms, then you should see your health care provider, a counsellor or therapist.

Conclusion

We hope that you understand each and every thing which is mentioned above like types of stress. Also, there are some effects of stress on the brain which sometimes impact memory loss. It is natural and normal for every person to feel stress. You can manage the neurological effects of stress by doing regular exercise, thinking positively and ignoring the bad things. At last, you should improve your focus and mental clarity by concentrating on one thing at a time.

NOTE: This blog is for informational purposes only. So before doing anything, you should consult with a medical expert for better treatment and care.