Long-Term Anxiety is Ruining Your Memory! Here’s Some Tips to Manage Your Stress
Everyone feels stressed sometimes. Meeting someone new, giving a speech, starting a new job, going out in public and communicating with the outside world. (Oh that one’s just me?) Acute stress is normal and a sign your brain is functioning properly in fearful situations. We’ve always known long-term anxiety can potentially lead to weight gain and heart attacks. But it looks like long-term anxiety might actually destroy your memory too. Oh great, one more thing to stress about.
So how does stress cause memory erosion anyways? Well researchers at Ohio State did a bunch of tests on mice to try to figure that out. The mice who had been exposed to chronic anxiety or stress had trouble finding the escape door in a maze– even though they had previously mastered the maze. Luckily, the memory deterioration isn’t a result of brain damage– which means the issue can most likely be treated or reversed. Also good news: the anxiety seems to deteriorate your short-term memory rather than long term. So you won’t forget your phone number– but you might forget to turn off your stove. I think I would rather forget my phone number or email password.
I feel like I should make a note about the kind of “stress” they introduced to the mice. Don’t worry– they weren’t sending mice off to war with mini AR-15’s to induce a state of chronic PTSD. It was more like a heavy ego-bruising by exposing them to “repeated social defeat” via an alpha mouse. So it was similar to testing the brain of a scrawny high school kid who gets beat up by the dudes and rejected by the girls.
So they found that the root of the problem actually stems from brain inflammation. When your brain and body are exposed to stress, your immune system jumps into play. That’s why we always get sick at the worst possible times– added stress compromises your immune system. So to combat a stressful situation your immune system sends emergency signals to your brain and this causes brain inflammation. Brain inflammation over an extended period of time causes memory deterioration.
This seems like an obvious discovery. We already know it’s easier to forget things when you’re stressed– that’s why we always seem to forget important things when we’re packing for a trip. Plus brain inflammation must cause headaches. I rarely get headaches anymore, but when I feel one coming on it’s usually when I’m feeling overwhelmed. The new research from Ohio State pretty much confirms these findings. Which could possibly lead to new behavioral or pharmaceutical treatments for PTSD and chronic anxiety.
Managing your stress is important since it can drastically compromise your health in so many ways. If you feel like you might have chronic anxiety here’s some coping mechanisms that usually work for me:
1. Make a list of everything stressing you out. Your problems seem less significant when you write them down, plus it doubles as a to-do list.
2. Talk about it. I usually don’t like talking about myself or my problems with others, I know this is not good. So sometimes I’ll blurt out a joke about whatever I’m stressed about. Some might see this as a defense mechanism, but it helps remind me that nothing is too serious. Which makes it easier to analytically tackle problems.
3. Physical activity. My anxiety starts firing if I sit on the couch too long, so I try to stay busy. If it’s weight lifting– great. If it’s something productive like cutting the grass- even better.
4. No one is “above” talking to a therapist or taking medication. Having a third-party perspective is a good way to see your outside stress more objectively. (Notice I said therapist: not a drinking buddy or ex.) And I might like to bash on the pharmaceutical industry’s business practices, but that doesn’t make medication invalid. There are a ton of options out there. I’ve never had a good experience with psych drugs but lots of people do– everyone’s different. Just find what works for you.
So in the mean-time if you’re feeling stressed, please make sure you remember to look both ways before crossing the street. Unless you’re a jerk of course.
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Randi Nord lives in Pontiac, Michigan. She is a journalist for the The Fifth Column, co-founder of Geopolitics Alert, and co-hosts a podcast about geopolitics.