WHAT STRESS DOES TO YOUR BRAIN
I
find it funny that people worry about managing and controlling artificial intelligence when we have not figured out how to control our natural intelligence.
My fascination with the human brain developed from an interest in, and my incomprehension of, human behaviour - much of it my own. Too restless and bored to follow any decent profession that would answer the scientific questions, I went on to study a B.A. Degree, majoring in History of Drama, Language and Classical Culture. I found this particular trio of Human Behavior studies over centuries, across cultures, race and religion tremendously stimulating and they clearly proved to me what the human condition was. Connecting the dots between behaviour and motive remained an enigma while I pursued a career in advertising (is there any industry more suitable for the contemplation of this phenomenon?) as a copywriter. Eighteen years later, I have written more stories than I can remember for magazines, newspapers, radio, television, film, books, billboards, you name it. And, underlying every single sentence was an expectation for connection and ultimately, for something to resonate with a reader. Primitive, I know. The more I learned about human behaviour, the more interested I became in the hard and software of the human brain that was responsible for it. Now, I am not a professional brain expert, at all. What I know I learned from books and articles, and picking the brains of my professional brain friends. I am a brain junkie storyteller and trust me, this is a good story. The more I got to know about the human brain, the more I realised that we are hardwired to do one single thing and that is, to survive. For all our sophistication and innovation, for all our evolution and revolutions, we are responding to perceived threats today in exactly the same way the earliest man responded to wild animals and hostile tribes. Fight. Flight. Faint or freeze. A double-shot of the stress hormone, cortisol, shoots every sense into high alert to assess the situation and decide on a strategy. A decent dose of adrenaline shuts down all idle functions such as rational thinking to get the heart-blood-muscles pumping and ready for superhuman performance: either kill the beast or flee fast. The problem is that our brains, today, process perceived dangers in exactly the same way as way back then. Our early ancestors did not fight lions every waking moment of every day; it was a
temporary crisis that occurred and was resolved, a short while later. The brain provided the chemicals required and, shortly after, returned to a normal state, by treating its human to a lovely dose of endorphins, those euphoric feelings after intense activity, with a side serving of dopamine, the messenger of reward, motivation and memory. I am just listing the basics here. The real professional brain nerds will be able to give you a complete CV and character reference for each neurotransmitter, hormone and every other drug that features in the epic psychological thriller that is your brain. The take-home message, however, is that the chemistry laboratory we carry around in our skulls is programmed to respond, in a very specific way, to every stimulus. It makes sense, of course, if one is faced with hostile lions on a daily basis. The problem is that, to the brain, danger is danger and stress is stress. Today, we have ‘’lions’’ coming at us in the form of emails, whatsapp messages, deadlines, bank statements, corporate hierarchies, social media, the news on television...and we respond to every one of these stressors with our entire chemical army. Impulses, information and impressions are coming at us so fast and so relentlessly that we do not have time for euphoric feelings to kick in and restore our equilibrium. In other words, there is no downtime; there is always, only, action. Brain scans have shown how stress snips neurons in the brain and disrupts its chemical balance. It is shocking. As detrimental as this is to the fully developed human brain, one can only imagine that the effects of stress are toxic to the developing brains of children. Yes, this thinking machine of ours is powerful beyond belief if programmed right, but the joke is on us when our brains process every scenario we see and experience on television, social media, the news, Xbox, wherever, as if it is physically happening to us. By the time a child has been through the local neighborhood watch’s Facebook feed, listened to the news in the car, overheard a parent’s telephone conversation about the dire state of the nation, survived a day at school being bombarded with information, tests and the normal stresses of peer interaction, shot a zillion zombies to pieces on Xbox...you get the picture. And we wonder why we are tired. And depressed. And anxious. The simple truth is that if we don’t mindfully control our brains, our brains will mindlessly control our behaviour, our emotions and our mental health. Yes, it is less romantic than the poetry and drama of love and war but, it is way more fascinating. And, who among us really wants to be our own brain’s bitch?
If we are going to survive modern living we need to level up: 1.
Stop the madness. Switch off your phone. Set boundaries and rules about when and how much you are going to let into your mind.
2.
Wean yourself from stimulation. Switch off your notification settings. Stop things waving and pinging and shouting at you.
3.
Breathe. Deeply. It is a signal to your brain to calm down. I’m serious. Take a really deep breath and you will realise how you’re not breathing.
4.
Replace devices in your house with board games, puzzles, cards, pens and paper, trees, sandpits, playdough, dress-up, tools, blocks. They feed the brain. Digital devices don’t. It’s been scientifically proven. Educate yourself. Google it.
5.
Move. You don’t have to kill the beast to get that feel good mental injection. As little as ten minutes of moderate exercise have proven beneficial to physical and mental health. High-intensity interval training is one of very few ways to generate new brain cells and since you’ve probably been nuking yours with stress, it is best that you start climbing those stairs.
6.
Eat good fats. Omega 3. Sardines. Nuts. The brain feeds on good fat.
7.
Sleep. You can’t sleep if you’ve looked at a screen before you go to bed. The light tells your brain that it is morning and time to wake up. If you’re not sleeping well, fix it. Unless you enjoy being tired, not remembering anything and struggling to solve problems, don’t sleep.
8.
Stop bugging your children to perform better at school and in sports. Don’t be the lion. There is enough for them to deal with in this crazy, modern world. Talk to them. Love them and engage with them. The same goes for your spouse or partner and your friends. Your brain secretes oxytocin, which is necessary for bonding, and originally helped us survive because there’s safety in numbers. Now, it just makes us stress less and really happy. Serotonin. See what I mean?
Brain Junkie, Christine Hugo
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