Heal Your Stressed Brain

Rochelle Walsh, therapist, explains the problem and how to fix it:

Not all brain damage is from the outside

Long-term stress and burnout cause brain damage; it’s not just a mindset issue—it impacts the brain physiologically. To compound matters, it also increases the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. While the brain can indeed grow new neurons and regenerate itself, chronic stress damages specific regions, and inhibits that.

There are some effects of chronic stress that can seem positive—the amygdalae and hypothalamus are seen to grow larger and stronger, for instance—but this is, unfortunately, “all the better to stress you with”. In compensation for this, chronic stress deprioritizes the pre-frontal cortex and hippocampi, so there goes your reasoning and memory.

This often results in people not managing chronic stress well. Just like a weak heart and lungs might impede the exercise that could make them stronger, the stressed brain is not good at permitting you to do the things that would heal it—preferring to keep you on edge all day, worrying and twitchy, mind racing and body tense. It also tends to lead to autoimmune diseases, due to the increased inflammation (because the body’s threat-detection system as at “jumping at own shadow” levels so it’s deploying every defense it has, including completely inappropriate ones).

Notwithstanding the “Heal Your Stressed Brain” thumbnail, she doesn’t actually go into this in detail and bids us sign up for her masterclass. We at 10almonds however like to deliver, so you can find useful advice and free resources in our links-drop at the bottom of this article.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to hear more about the neurological woes described above, enjoy:

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Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

• Meditation That You’ll Actually Enjoy
• How To Manage/Reduce Chronic Stress
• Lower Your Cortisol! (Here’s Why & How)
• How Healthy People Regulate Their Emotions
• Sleep: Yes, You Really Do Still Need It!
• Give Your Adrenal Glands A Chance
• The Stress Prescription (Against Aging!)

Take care!