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Mild levels of stress force your body to optimize brain cognition, body function:
The holidays are a stressful time for many, but that may not be a bad thing when it comes to your brain functioning, according to new research from the Youth Development Institute at the University of Georgia.
The study found that low to moderate levels of stress improve working memory, the short-term information people use to complete everyday tasks like remembering someone's phone number or recalling directions on how to get to a specific location.
There is, however, a caveat, the researchers said. The findings are specific to low to moderate stress. Once your stress levels go above moderate levels and becomes constant, that stress becomes toxic.
[...] Constant high levels of stress can actually change the structure of the brain. It leads to increases in white matter at the expense of gray matter, which is involved in muscle control, decision-making, self-control, emotional regulation and more. Chronic stress can also make people more susceptible to a variety of illnesses ranging from nausea and migraine headaches to high blood pressure and heart disease.
"But there's less information about the effects of more limited stress," Oshri said. "Our findings show that low to moderate levels of perceived stress were associated with elevated working memory neural activation, resulting in better mental performance."
Journal Reference:
Assaf Oshri, Zehua Cui, Max M. Owens, et al., Low-to-moderate level of perceived stress strengthens working memory: Testing the hormesis hypothesis through neural activation [open], Neuropsychologia, 176, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108354
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday January 06 2023, @05:43PM (3 children)
You might have an emotional distaste for stress and suffering, but surely you understand their necessary place in life?
people who've lead carefree, relatively stress-free lives do not fair well at all when things don't work out. they throw baby tantrums or just give up. they lash out at those around them. they do really stupid things. they also have no frame of reference for how most lives are lived.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday January 06 2023, @09:04PM
Nope, I don't. All it takes is some careful planning and avoiding the more risky endeavors and you can actually live a fairly stress-free life.
You can actually get a pretty good idea what other people do by simply taking an interest in them. Yes, that's permitted. You can actually go out there and examine other people's lives so you have a frame of reference for your own. That doesn't stress me. It's information, information isn't stressful.
The key is that you need to plan ahead so you can gather information and deal with events at your own pace. That does require work. Yes. If you just lean back and pretend that problems don't exist, guess what, they'll come to you at inopportune moments and then you get stressed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2023, @09:50PM (1 child)
I would point out "give up" is a perfectly valid reaction to situations where winning is not a prize worth the effort. Know when to fold so you don't waste your life on shitty problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 06 2023, @11:22PM
Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.