How chronic stress effects brains ability to differentiate between Eustress and Distress?
Stress is something we face in our everyday life. Most of the time its good. It makes us get up on time, finish tasks before the deadline, helps us taking care of our health and our family, etc. In short, it keeps us in working order and makes us more productive.
While such stressors are important and helpful for us, certain stressors if keep repeating in our lives can start causing us problems. If they are present for prolonged periods and are triggered on consistent bases, the stress can become chronic which can be very damaging to the mind and well as the body. Among the many potential effects of repetitive thought, getting mentally lost in your depressed mood could prevent you from taking actions that could cheer you and getting mentally stuck over an argument could prevent your blood pressure from recovering afterward.
What's the difference between both these types you may ask. Well, Positive stress (Eustress) has the characteristics of motivation, excitement, focused energy, is short term and most importantly, is in our coping abilities. On the other hand, Negative stress (Distress) makes us anxious, appears to be outside of our coping abilities, lowers productivity and can lead to psychological as well as physiological problems.
Usually, we can differentiate between these two quite distinctly. We can tell what's bothering us and what is making us is good for us. But sometimes when high-intensity stress makes house in one's brain and stays in from prolonged periods, it can start messing with the brain's functions. Chronic stress can slowly shrink the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the part which is mainly responsible for learning and memory. Now once that starts happening, many simple tasks begin to slip out of the person's hands. One of the best ways to cope with stress is learning how to ignore things and letting go. While that's a good practice, learning how to ignore Distress and productively handle Eustress can be a big milestone to achieve.
Once the line between good and bad stress starts getting blurred, the overall productivity and output of the brain decreases significantly and takes a lot of time to get back to its original level.
On the other hand, mentally re-living a happy time from the past could make you feel happier in the present (Bryant, 2003), and planning an effective course of action ahead of time could avert later stress (Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, & Armor, 1998).
While such stressors are important and helpful for us, certain stressors if keep repeating in our lives can start causing us problems. If they are present for prolonged periods and are triggered on consistent bases, the stress can become chronic which can be very damaging to the mind and well as the body. Among the many potential effects of repetitive thought, getting mentally lost in your depressed mood could prevent you from taking actions that could cheer you and getting mentally stuck over an argument could prevent your blood pressure from recovering afterward.
What's the difference between both these types you may ask. Well, Positive stress (Eustress) has the characteristics of motivation, excitement, focused energy, is short term and most importantly, is in our coping abilities. On the other hand, Negative stress (Distress) makes us anxious, appears to be outside of our coping abilities, lowers productivity and can lead to psychological as well as physiological problems.
Usually, we can differentiate between these two quite distinctly. We can tell what's bothering us and what is making us is good for us. But sometimes when high-intensity stress makes house in one's brain and stays in from prolonged periods, it can start messing with the brain's functions. Chronic stress can slowly shrink the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the part which is mainly responsible for learning and memory. Now once that starts happening, many simple tasks begin to slip out of the person's hands. One of the best ways to cope with stress is learning how to ignore things and letting go. While that's a good practice, learning how to ignore Distress and productively handle Eustress can be a big milestone to achieve.
Once the line between good and bad stress starts getting blurred, the overall productivity and output of the brain decreases significantly and takes a lot of time to get back to its original level.
On the other hand, mentally re-living a happy time from the past could make you feel happier in the present (Bryant, 2003), and planning an effective course of action ahead of time could avert later stress (Taylor, Pham, Rivkin, & Armor, 1998).
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