A diamond is just a piece of charcoal that handled stress exceptionally well
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Stress is part of our daily life: stressing about deadlines at work, stressing about what to wear to work or a social gathering, stressing about relationships, stressing about missing your train, stressing about everything. Stress is part of us. And like everything, it’s all about proportions.
A little stress can be good. It’s a sign that we care about the things we do or say, that we care about others and their perception of us. Some people thrive under pressure. A little stress can be motivating and push us to do more or better. Problem is when we can’t cope with our stress and we choke and freeze, either because we don’t know what caused the stress or because we don’t know how to tackle the situation. Just like chocolate: a little bit is good for you, too much is a problem.
A lot of research has been conducted on the effect of stress on people’s performance (at work for example) but a recent study showed that stress can impact our brain in a whole new way: people reporting higher level of stress (and presenting higher level of cortisol) had a smaller brain… Let’s take a closer look at this.
First, cortisol. Cortisol is known as the “stress hormone” and is secreted by glands on the kidneys by order of the hypothalamo-hypophosial system (yup, that’s a mouthful one – it is in charge of secreting various hormones which then travel through the body to deliver orders insuring the proper functioning of the body). When the body goes under a stress, cortisol is released into the blood stream; a stress for the body could be low blood sugar, an infection, or a psychological stress. Cortisol is secreted to help respond to danger (flight or fight response), it increases the metabolism of glucose (i.e., the processing of sugar-elements by the body), it helps controlling the blood pressure, and reduces inflammation. So just like chocolate, cortisol is good for you – in moderation. Too much cortisol can lead to weight gain, acne, irregular menstrual periods; too little cortisol can lead to weight loss, tiredness, nausea, and overall weakness. Neither extreme is good for the body, it is all about balance.
Now, stress leads to a smaller brain. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans conducted on healthy participants showed that the ones with the highest level of blood cortisol had a smaller brain compared to participants with a moderate to low blood cortisol level. Crazy – stress actually makes you brain shrink! No wonder it also impairs some cognitive abilities, like memory or decision taking. The brain matter is made of two main parts: the grey matter and the white matter.
The grey matter holds all the neural cell bodies, like neurones, and is the main brain operator: orders (or nerve signals) from the brain are given from the grey matter. The white matter is made of all the neuronal extensions, connecting different areas of the nervous system together and allowing for the dissemination of orders and messages.
People presenting higher level of cortisol showed a reduction in grey matter in areas involved in planning, spatial orientation, and inhibition, as well as less white matter, so less messengers.
What to do about stress then? How can we manage to go on with our day, knowing that there are multiples situations creating stress? There is no perfect answer to that, but here are some general tricks that seems to have worked before (not just for me, proper research was done on that):
Know your stress: as with every emotion, it is good to acknowledge when you’re experiencing stress. You might be able to pinpoint the situation that elicited that stress, which can help identify stressors and help either prevent exposure to those stressful situations or help deal with them (I know that stresses me and it’s ok). It’s not always easy knowing the origin of the feeling, but an elimination process can help find the source (how do I feel about this or that?)
Rationalise your stress: when feeling stressed, try rationalising with yourself. Is the situation worth stressing about? What can happen? Have I been in the situation before and what were previous outcomes?
Change your perspective: if you switch how you see the situation you can perform better. More precisely, instead of focussing on all the things that could go wrong, focus on what could go right.
Reappraise the stakes: when facing a high stake/high-incentive situation, imagine that you already have the prize in hand and you are only working towards keeping things the way they are. It’s not just about visualising your goal, it’s knowing you already reached that goal.
Those different mental “tricks” are quite similar to the ones I mentioned in a previous post (Let’s stop and feel) and it is ultimately about mindfully assessing the situation and accepting the way you feel. From there, work can be done on oneself to reappraise the situation or tackle the source of the stress. The hardest thing being knowing WHAT we are stressing about… Alphabetically or chronologically? Pick one.
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