Low to Moderate Stress is Good for You
hubie writes:
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
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