Do not stress! Your brain becomes smaller.
If you live a very stressful life, you may have memory loss and a large reduction in brain size before you turn 50.
The more stress your brain will be smaller, in addition to not having more memory. If you lead a particularly disconcerting life, cognitive functions are in the middle.
This is the verdict that comes from a new study by some researchers at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, which in an analysis of approximately 2 thousand individuals, found a loss of memory and a cerebral contraction in relatively young people long before that everyone could see the symptoms.
"It's never too late to be aware of reducing stress," scholars say, but how is it possible that stress affects brain size and memory?
The fault would be cortisol; Middle-aged people with high levels of this hormone in the blood have memory problems compared to those who report average levels of the same hormone even before they begin to show symptoms of memory loss.
In particular, the same people with high levels of cortisol also had a smaller brain volume than other people. Cortisol, produced by the adrenal glands, helps the body respond to stress. It can also help reduce inflammation, control blood sugar and blood pressure, regulate metabolism and help with the immune response. High cortisol levels can be caused by stress, illness or medication.
Cortisol is one of the main stress hormones in our body, best known for its role in our escape or combat instinct. When we are stressed and alert, the adrenal glands produce more cortisol. Then, the hormone acts by closing several bodily functions that could hinder survival, in short, it helps the body respond to stress.
Once the crisis is over, cortisol levels should decrease and the body system should return to normal. But if the alarm button remains pressed, the body can continue to malfunction, causing anxiety, depression, heart disease, headaches, weight gain, sleep problems and, of course, memory and concentration problems. The brain is particularly vulnerable, experts say, because of all the nutrients it needs to function optimally.
"The brain is a very hungry organ, explains Keith Fargo, who directs scientific programs and helps the Alzheimer's Association, it requires a large amount of nutrients and oxygen to keep it healthy and functioning properly, so when the body needs those resources to deal with stress, there is less to make the brain work better. "
To reach these conclusions, the researchers identified 2,231 people with an average age of 49 years without dementia. At the beginning of the study, each participant was evaluated from a psychological point of view, in memory and in thinking skills, skills that were then tested again eight years later. When measuring cortisol levels in the blood, it was found that people with high values had lower scores on memory tests and thinking skills than others. Those with a high cortisol level had an average total brain volume of 88.5% compared to 88.7% of the others.
Previous studies had already found a relationship between cortisol and the risk of dementia, but now attention has focused mainly on the elderly and the area of brain memory, called the hippocampus. What is surprising, they explain, was the discovery of the effects of cortisol on the structure of the brain.
All this shows us that it is better to take a stress free ... Remember that stress affects our entire body and as we see here, can reduce your brain and therefore your memory. Take care!
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