The cause wasn’t hard to figure out.

I was stressed nearly every waking moment and during the night, as well.

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I was losing my mind from stress

I thought I had good reason to be stressed! A series of tumbler events had succeeded in pretty much tumbling my life upside down.

I couldn’t think at all!

Naturally, it felt awful, and I just wanted to ‘get over it’ as soon as possible, to free myself, to think positively about my life again.  I wanted to move on, right now!

But then, it’s a bit difficult to move on right now while seated in a  criminal courtroom.   It might be unreasonable to suggest scuttling stress at the bedside of a child recovering from brain surgery, or to ‘calm oneself’ with a daughter in the middle of an asthma attack….or to ‘free oneself from stress’ while attending a  husband’s funeral.

In fact, at the same time that these traumatic events were swirling around my head, and IN my head, I pretty much couldn’t think at all!

Forgetfulness and stress

I was forgetting important events, having difficulty learning anything new, was distracted much of the time and feeling incredibly anxious. In other words, the phrase ‘thinking positively’ presupposes a person who CAN think. Sometimes, stress pretty much cancels that one out.

There is a very real component about stress that literally causes a person to quit thinking. The culprit is the stress hormone, cortisol. Constant floods of cortisol can shrink, stop and even kill the growth of new neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus.

Stress can shrink your brain

As if that’s not enough, constant stress can even shrink the medial prefrontal cortex. For those of you who don’t know where that is located, and didn’t really CARE until you began reading this …I COULD paste a boring brain diagram in here……

Instead, let’s just say that when it begins to diminish in size, decision making, working memory and control of impulsive behavior is negatively affected. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907136/

How about that incident where you found yourself screaming at a red light to change? Huh? Wasn’t that just a teeny bit lacking in control of impulsive behavior? Could be.

Anxiety and stress

In fact, proneness to anxiety and depression accelerates when the medial prefrontal cortex decelerates.

Strangely, while some parts of the brain shrink in size under chronic stress, other parts enlarge. For instance, the amygdala.  The amygdala is critical in the formation and storage of memories associated with extremely emotional events. It pairs an event with a feeling, and this connection is stashed away in our long-term memory so we can either avoid the event or retrieve it in the future. The changes cortisol creates increase intense emotions such as fear, anxiety, and aggression. PTSD is a well-known condition associated with the machinations of the amygdala.

Stress and children’s behavior

Children are often affected by the enlargement of the amygdala. We all know children who are unusually troublesome, unable to concentrate, unable to learn, aggressive and anxious. Studies show that mothers under constant stress during pregnancy, whether it be due to abuse, economic vulnerability or lack of love and esteem, often produce children with these characteristics. Research confirms that these children have an enlarged hind-brain, or amygdala. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5052760/

Okay, you’re scaring me! Isn’t the stress of the situation enough, without worrying about my brain shrinking, too? Come on!

How can I handle stress

At this point I risk being one of those content generators one Medium writer calls ‘beige and boring’. Always churning out stuff about self-improvement, or, worse yet, telling people how to self-improve.

Guilty as charged. Generally, I ask someone for advice, not to ‘share’ my feelings, but to obtain an answer to a problem. That’s why I cruise around the web sometimes, too.

Your gut calls the shots

I suffered from insomnia and nightly panic attacks, all generated by my severe anxiety. Okay! I had a right to be anxious, considering my circumstances, but anxiety was creating cortisol chaos, and I couldn’t shut it off.

I also developed Restless Legs Syndrome. This is a movement disorder characterized by a crawly leg-feeling that will NOT put you to sleep. Trust me on that one. It is also anxiety generated, to a certain extent.

https://www.anxietycentre.com/anxiety-disorders/symptoms/anxiety-and-restless-leg-syndrome/

I was advised to add more iron to my diet, as, although your iron levels seem normal, iron levels in your brain are not. I was also advised to add a dopamine precursor supplement.

NO GO! At that point I was ready to try the Xanax route. Just put me to sleep to forget the day!

At this desperate point, I pursued some boring online advice (yes I did!) and serendipitously discovered a little secret about brain function, or in my case, mal-function.

Your gut calls the shots. Anxiety can cause poor eating habits or illness, (I had just recovered from a round of West Nile Virus with awful diarrhea) hence a lack of beneficial gut bacteria. This lack can cause another round of anxiety and depression. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5641835/

What did I have to lose? I decided to this advice a try, as no one was about to prescribe Xanax to me, and, It has a nasty addictive component as well.

I bought the most expensive probiotics I could afford, and combined them with the dopamine precursor, iron and magnesium at night.

IT WORKED the very first night!! No more insomnia and no more restless legs. Proper gut bacteria assisted the pricy supplements I had purchased to actually reach my brain! I’m sold!

The benefits of exercise

Another very effective response to the effects of stress and anxiety is exercise.

Right. Certainly. I’ll go out and dance up a storm this very minute!

Wait that minute! It has been shown that exercise builds a brain that increases in size and cognitive function as well as resisting stress shrinkage.

Quote:

“Exercise helps spur the release of a substance called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which helps in the development of healthy brain tissue and reverses the negative effects of stress. (4) Think of it as fertilizer for the brain. It keeps existing neurons vital and healthy and also encourages the growth of new ones. The more we exercise, the more BDNF we create, and the more neurons are generated, particularly in the hippocampus.

Exercise also releases human growth hormone (HGH), which is vital to the growth and development of all brain and body cells. HGH counteracts the natural cellular atrophy of aging and pumps up brain volume. (5) A single bout of sprinting for 30 seconds can generate a six-fold increase in HGH, with levels peaking two hours later.”

Barton, J., Pretty, J. (2010) “What is the Best Dose of Nature and Green Exercise for Improving Mental Health? A Multi-Study Analysis.” Environmental Science & Technology. 44: 3947-55.

Brisk movement oxygenates the entire body, particularly the brain. We all know that growth and maintenance of any organ feeds upon proper oxygenation and circulation. Exercise that pushes endurance levels literally forces concentration and gives that ‘fight or flight’ syndrome something to do!

Pretty decent fix, don’t you think?

So try a little Cowboy Hip Hop.

What in tarnation?

Do ya good!

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