When Stress Is Good For Brain Functioning

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Stress gets a bad rap – understandably it is a negative experience and has been shown over long periods of time, and with high intensity, to cause multiple negative outcomes, from mental health issues to physical sickness.

The question though is not is stress bad for you, but how much stress is bad for you. Indeed, we also talk about eustress, stress that pushes to higher performance. This is something researchers around Assaf Oshri at the University of Georgia wanted to investigate further and discovered that stress can be good for your brain.

To do this they analysed data from the US national connectome project which matches detailed brain scanning with various life factor questionnaires. In this they analysed the data of 1’200 young adults who had completed a stress questionnaire asking questions about stress factors and how controllable these were. They were then also assessed using multiple cognitive tests such as cognitive flexibility, task switching, and memory.

What did they find?

They found that stressful situations could improve cognitive abilities. But also this effectively worked as an inoculation against further mental disorders. So, stress can strengthen the cognitive and mental system and shows that stress can have multiple positive effects. However, chronic stress and very intense stress can become harmful and quickly become negative impairing cognitive ability and susceptibility to mental illness.

So, there is a fine line to walk between stress being positive and becoming negative. The researchers also note that age, genetic predisposition, and community support are also key contributing factors.

What this shows is that we shouldn’t demonise stress but embrace it but be cautious of having too much too often and be helpful to those with less natural disposition or supportive communities to deal with it.

The researchers can’t give a definitive answer to how much stress is good because it is so personalised. You will have to find that out yourself – but I would encourage embracing some stress and having a positive attitude towards it. Which will also help in working through it!

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

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Reference

Assaf Oshri, Zehua Cui, Cory Carvalho, Sihong Liu. 
Is perceived stress linked to enhanced cognitive functioning and reduced risk for psychopathology? Testing the hormesis hypothesis. 
Psychiatry Research, 2022; 314: 114644
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114644

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