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The #1 Thing KILLING Your Brain?

 

By Kevin DiDonato MS, CSCS, CES


Are you a little forgetful?

Perhaps you misplaced your keys and can’t seem to find them…

Maybe what you want to say is right on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t seem to find the words…

Or you simply can’t remember the name of someone you just recently met at a social event.

Whatever it is, there is one thing that’s pretty common: As you get older, your memory – and brain function – start to decline.

Although aging does play a role in memory loss, it may not be the only thing that causes it…

Stress and Your Brain

From time to time, everyone gets a little stressed out.

It could be the kids arguing…

Your job…

Or anything in between!

But here’s the thing: When you’re stressed out, your body releases a pretty potent hormone – called corticosterone – which could put everything in your body at risk – especially your brain.

Now, you may be asking, “why is stress so bad for your brain?”

Well, researcher may have the answer!

You see, when you’re stressed - like chronically stressed or simply due to the aging process – your levels of corticosterone may be through the roof.

Not only does this add to fat gain, and stress to your heart, it may also mess with certain aspects – or bridges – in your brain that control your memories.

And elevated levels could lead to the destruction of the bridges in your prefrontal cortex.

In case you didn’t know, your prefrontal cortex is that main area of the brain that processes and stores your memories.

In a study conducted on animals, those animals that had higher corticosterone in their body, also exhibited older brains –
meaning there were changes in their brain function.

However, those animals with low corticosterone levels, showed less changes in their brain chemistry and better results on brain functioning tests.

They authors concluded: “These data implicate the cumulative exposure to glucocorticoids as a central underlying process in age-related prefrontal impairment and define synaptic features accounting for different trajectories in age-related cognitive function.”

Simply put: The excessive exposure to stressors and corticosterone as you get older, impairs certain aspects of brain chemistry, therefore lowering cognitive function as you get older.

But, there is something you can do about this…

In order to reduce the impact of stress on your brain, you need to lower your stress levels, therefore lowering your corticosterone levels.

You may be able to accomplish this by exercising, practicing meditation, or even participating in a yoga class.

This could do a long way to reducing your stress, which could improve your memory and other parameters to better overall health (lower blood pressure, less fat gain, etc.).

Conclusion

As you age, your stress hormone may start to creep up to dangerous levels.

And this could impact the health and function of your brain.

A recent study showed that stress increases the hormone, corticosterone, which could impair the structures that connect your prefrontal cortex to the rest of your brain.

And this could impair your memory and drastically change your cognitive function.

However, if you exercise, do yoga, or practice mediation, you may reduce your stress levels, which may reduce your corticosterone levels.

This could lead to better memory and brain function – or a happy and healthy brain – especially as you get older!



NEXT: The Secret To Better Memory? >>

References:

Anderson RM, Birnie AK, Koblesky NK, Romic-Martin SA, Radley JJ.  Adrenocortical status predicts the degree of age-related deficits in prefrontal structural plasticity and working memory.  J Neurosci.  2014 Jun;18(25):8387-97.

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