Slow down people… Appreciate life

Stress stress stress STRESS!!! With all the heavy load of jobs, running a hectic lifestyle.. made people stress. Not only adults in the working society, as well as kids these days, are also experiencing overloaded stress for kids.

Stress maybe common in today’s world, however, it may lead to chronic stress. Stress itself may subside after some time when a person relaxes. However, chronic stress is continuing constantly with stress. Chronic stress will lead to sharp rising of blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress a person’s immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stress can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence. The brain is a very resilient and plastic organ. Dendrites and synapses retract and reform, and remodeling can occur throughout life.

Nuno Sousa of the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute at the University of Minho in Portugal and his colleagues used rats to test the theory that when stress, the brain keeps us in the cycle over and over again. They said chronically-stressed rats lost their elastic rat cunning and instead fell back on familiar routines and rote responses. For example, compulsively pressing a bar for food pellets. On the other hand, the brain region is associated with executive decision-making and goal-directed behaviour had shriveled, while conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed.

Those chronically-stressed animals were then compared with non-stressed peers. The stressed rats had no trouble learning a task like pressing a bar to get a food pellet or a squint of sugar water, but they had difficulty deciding when to stop pressing the bar, as normal rats easily did.

This is similar to human. A normal working adult know when to work and when to rest, but for chronically stressed working adult, they wouldn’t know when to get some rest, they will only feel comfortable when they are working, therefore, they cant stop working, or keep themselves busy.