Stress on your memory

People fear getting older. Health declines, vision impairments, and memory deficits are no golden age to desire. Did you know that although you may not be nearing that AARP time your daily stress build up could be hurting your memory?


Everyone has been running late, been nervous and stressed about work or school or relationships or holidays...what makes us lapse in details during those stressful times, forget something then stress out even more? It's complicated but here's a quick break down: 


Being able to remember things and learn new info depends entirely on the ability of networks of neurons. The brain creates and retains memories in part by growing thicker, more efficient communication lines between groups of neurons. During acute stress, when the fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system unleashes stress hormones, such as epinephrine and cortisol, the connections get crisper and clearer. The result: As a safe general rule, a moderate to strong amount of acute stress—stress that happens once and then goes away—tends to be good for memory. Over the years, research has backed something called an inverted U response, meaning that as stress levels increase, so does memory performance—up to a person's own optimal level of stress. Add more than that and memory function fizzles and you fail. This is why some people are great in emergency situations while others are pushed passed their optimal level and cannot function.


Now, the next step is to consider your gender. New research suggests that gender matters when it comes to memory and stress, whether that stress is acute, chronic, or traumatic. Researchers discovered that when women had high levels of estrogen (before and during their periods), stress fuzzed up their recollection, but when they had high levels of progesterone, following their cycle, stress boosted recall—just like it did for guys. In other words, women received the memory lift that acute stress provides only when their estrogen levels were normal. Once again, our menstrual cycle screws with us making us look adept in life. And, the majority of stress studies have been performed on men and male species of rats and monkeys in the lab. These new findings suggest there are different pathways and reactions in the female body (no shit we're different...) which causes women to have different freak outs and control their stress and reactions much differently.


Time to go do some yoga =)


Info from Women's Health Mag, and various education articles.