{"id":150034,"date":"2022-07-16T10:59:50","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T14:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/?p=150034"},"modified":"2022-08-24T20:40:23","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T00:40:23","slug":"what-coronavirus-stress-is-doing-to-your-brain-and-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/150034","title":{"rendered":"What Coronavirus Stress Is Doing To Your Brain And Body"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What Coronavirus Stress Is Doing To Your Brain And Body\" width=\"660\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/q8rrewfLDuU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nAbby Tang: How are you feeling? Graham Flanagan: I\r\nplayed that song, \u266a You had a bad day \u266a Alex Appolonia: I wrote down some points because my brain is like mush lately. Fran Lam: Sad, worried, stressed. Victoria Barranco: Physically, like all of the negative emotions. Abby: This probably sounds super familiar, and that’s because a lot of us are feeling stressed right now. But this isn’t normal stress. This is pandemic stress, and it is messing with our\r\nbrains in a particular way. When you get stressed, it\r\ntriggers a chain reaction that starts in the amygdala, your emotional-processing headquarters. Your eyes and ears send\r\ninfo to the amygdala, and it determines if what you’re seeing and hearing is stressful. If it is, it sends a signal to your command center, the hypothalamus. It’s in charge of getting the word out to the rest of your body by way of the autonomic nervous system. The adrenal glands get the message first and pump adrenaline into your bloodstream. Your heart beats faster; you breathe more rapidly because your muscles need extra blood and your brain needs extra oxygen.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThey’re preparing to\r\nreact to whatever threat is causing your stress response. All of this happens in\r\nthe blink of an eye. It’s like how people can\r\njump out of the way of a car without really thinking about it. The emotional amygdala overrides\r\nyour prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain\r\nwhere all the logic happens. So you don’t get a chance\r\nto think things through; you just react. Once the threat dies down, though, the parasympathetic\r\nnervous system takes over and returns all those\r\nheightened reactions to normal. But if the brain still detects danger after the initial adrenaline rush, the hypothalamus sends out another message to the rest of the HPA axis.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis triggers another series of hormones that lead to the release of cortisol, which signals to the body that it needs to stay on high alert and keep\r\npumping out stress hormones. Right now for a lot of us, that threat is still very much alive. The amygdala is still overriding\r\nthe prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of\r\ndecision-making and planning. So those feelings of\r\nforgetfulness and tiredness, they’re likely a product\r\nof this stress response that won’t turn off. Stress hormones and the\r\naccompanying bodily responses are super helpful in the short term, but our bodies aren’t\r\nmeant to function in this heightened state for\r\nweeks or months at a time. And over time, your brain will burn out. When it does, it can lead to allostatic load, the cumulative wear, and tear\r\nthat happens to your body when you’re dealing with chronic stress.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.pexels.com\/photos\/6646906\/pexels-photo-6646906.jpeg?auto=compress&amp;cs=tinysrgb&amp;h=650&amp;w=940\" \/>\r\n\r\nA high, prolonged cortisol level can mess with a lot of stuff. It’s even been seen to decrease the volume of your hippocampus, the area responsible\r\nfor learning and memory, and a reduced hippocampus\r\nis more often seen in people with depression than those without. So all this is to say that the extra stress is probably not doing your brain or your body any favors. And humans are historically\r\nbad at making decisions when they don’t know\r\nwhat’s going to happen?\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nSo, what can you do to\r\nreduce the allostatic load? Reduce stress. Eating well, exercising, and maintaining a regular sleep schedule cannot be overlooked. Exercising alone can\r\nreduce stress hormones, even with just a 20-minute walk. And a different way of\r\nthinking could also help us: an idea called model-free learning. It’s trial and error. Instead of basing your risk assessment on similar examples from the past or envisioning future scenarios, you just take it one step at a time. This way, you reassess and\r\nupdate your estimate of what’s happening and how to prepare. We’re dealing with a new virus, constantly changing policies, and likely a completely different schedule and maybe even environment. Our brain is on high alert at all times to identify potential threats.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nThis means that even if you’re spending most of your time laying around, your brain isn’t, so try not to beat yourself up for feeling tired or fuzzy, or unmotivated. You just don’t need anything\r\nelse to stress about. Now that you know all of this, how are you feeling? Alex: To be honest, I\r\ndo still feel the same. Fran: I think I’m feeling a\r\nbit better after watching it. Victoria: It’s\r\nmy body is exhausted from feeling things and being under stress all day, all the time. Graham: Whenever I feel\r\nthat allostatic load starting to weigh down on me, you know, I can put a\r\nname on it, a face on it, and it makes it a lot\r\neasier to deal with it.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q8rrewfLDuU\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">As found on YouTube<\/a>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"https:\/\/jvz4.com\/c\/335985\/306988\">AnimationStudio \ua19b☣\ua415 Be The “Middle Man” And Profit With AnimationStudio Agency License. Here’s How You Can Earn $100, $200, or even $300 For Every Video You Create With AnimationStudio… Activate Your Profit Machine With The Agency License … $197\/month For Just $67 One Time Payment<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Abby Tang: How are you feeling? Graham Flanagan: I played that song, \u266a You had a bad day \u266a Alex Appolonia: I wrote down some points because my brain is like mush lately. Fran Lam: Sad, worried, stressed. Victoria Barranco: Physically, like all of the negative emotions. Abby: This probably sounds super familiar, and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/archives\/150034\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What Coronavirus Stress Is Doing To Your Brain And Body<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3672,532,138,3328,3355,3665,446,6,4792],"tags":[696,518,35794,59744,42547,42277,42551,42366,42367,471,59756,59746,5696,59754,2764],"class_list":["post-150034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christmas","category-climate-change","category-community","category-golf","category-ice-hockey","category-natural-phenomena","category-parents","category-reducing-triggers","category-sports-recreation","tag-anxiety","tag-brain","tag-brain-science","tag-business-insider","tag-corona","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid","tag-covid-19","tag-covid19","tag-health","tag-health-science","tag-science-insider","tag-stress","tag-tiredness","tag-virus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150034"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150063,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150034\/revisions\/150063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/effectsofanxiety.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}