Gaining Control Over Your Stressed Brain By Veena Verma-Dzik, ND, FIAMA
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ompletely frantic and beside herself, a young mother of two came to see me for fatigue. Once she sat down with me, the floodgates opened and she admitted to being completely burnt out, exhausted from juggling her daily routines along with her obligations to her family, and unable to get a hold of her emotions. She was having trouble keeping calm with her kids, sleeping, and remembering little details about her day. After spending a great deal of time listening to her, not only did I prescribe her some supplements to help her manage the stress and fatigue she was overwhelmed by, but we agreed she needed to come up with a plan where she could carve in some self-healing time. After two weeks, she came back with a huge smile on her face and a great sense of calm. She was so relieved by the turn around in her memory and fatigue and how much her mood had improved. She got herself back to where she always remembered herself being the happiest. Experiencing stress at times is not necessarily a bad thing. We all need a bit of adrenalin to get us going, to motivate us in completing a task. For some of us, this small burst drives us to success. It is a different story when life stressors become overwhelming. Issues at home, financial strains, dealing
with loss, or a state of affairs that’s beyond our control can all lead to the accumulation of cortisol to take over our nervous system and impact our overall health. The worst type of life stress is one that we feel we either have no ability to influence or control, or when we believe we cannot influence our sense of well-being and safety. Even as a healthcare expert, I have been in this situation many times. I have experienced many of the most common stressful life events, including moments of such extreme stress where I could not remember where I was going or what I was doing. I would misplace my keys and find cereal I placed in the refrigerator instead of the pantry. I would find myself driving to places I had been to countless times before, and all of a sudden not realize where I was going. The stress became so intense that it affected my ability to think clearly. I recall where my memory declined so much that I truly became full of fear. At this point the stress was toxic, and was giving me what I call Cortisol Brain. Studies have shown that women struggle with stress more than men. Millennials and Generation Xers are reporting a great deal of stress, and those who struggle with their identity and face discrimination and social biases are afflicted by an enormous amount of stress.
Our Brains Under Stress When stress occurs the emotional center of the brain, the amygdala, sends a signal to the hypothalamus, the command center of our brain. A signal is then sent to the adrenal glands to activate the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Once activated, a series of hormones is released to create the stress response. As we all know, cortisol is our greatest stress managing hormone. Cortisol serves its purpose in a healthy, natural way by helping metabolize glucose, controlling blood pressure and, of course, aiding in our “fight, flight or freeze” response. Over periods of chronic stress, the fight, flight or freeze response cannot turn off. This causes a downward spiral in your health, leading to anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, heart disease, digestive issues, and memory impairment. In terms of the health of our brains, studies show that under chronic stress and elevated cortisol the volume of our brain decreases in size. In other words, our brains actually shrink! We may not even realize the progression of this physical toll on our bodies and brain health. However, there are solutions.
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