Stress, Bad For Your Brain

Stress is a psychological experience instability in response to environmental factors. This disease is a source of pathology and effects in the short, medium and long term. Additionally, you can damage the brain at the molecular level and from there spread its damage through the hormones to the body. Therefore, the best treatment is to prevent it and once you develop, try to overcome soon. This is considered leading experts in the field, including researchers from the Biomedical Research Centre Mental Health Network (CIBERSAM).

Among the triggers of stress include information overload, damage, isolation, peer pressure and frustration. Their presence can be manifested in several stages, from early warning symptoms of muscle tension arising at the stage of resistance to the symptom of psychological stress. If it persists over time, can degenerate into exhaustion, somatic physical symptoms. Among the physical symptoms of stress include nervousness, warning, insomnia, poor concentration and memory, irritability, sadness, lack of energy, decreased sociability and motivation

As physical manifestations include shortness of breath, muscle rigidity, dilated pupils, high blood pressure, ulcers, headaches, etc.. As for the physiological consequences range from the brain have permanently activated for action, senses alert, hormones, rapid pulse, breathing deep and tense muscles, among others. This may lead to an anxiety disorder.

Stress can vary depending on the environment that causes it, its duration, its intensity and clinical consequences. By the nature of the environment, we can distinguish the "burnout? or mobbing in the employment context, to have older parents, chronically ill or troubled children in the family, have high expectations, disability, abuse, harassment, excessive responsibility or busy schedules, and there are the classic economic problems or neighbors For example, in the social field.

If we consider the stress from the perspective of the duration of the stressor, it is called acute stress when derived from a single event, such as a death, a breakup or an accident. The stress becomes chronic if the stressful situation is prolonged in time, examples of this are the aforementioned "burnout? or bullying. As the intensity of the stressor, you can find different types of stress: mild, coinciding with the flu, a time of increased workload or sickness of a partner; moderate problem caused by a neighbor or a relative's death foretold more , or severe, produced by a disaster, terrorist attack or rape, to name some stressful situations at different levels.

Depending on the clinical, stress can cause, trigger or perpetuate acute pathologies. In these situations, symptoms of anxiety, depression, behavioral or mixed, which are mild and trimmed in time and do not last more than a few months. But also cause severe pathologies, such as posttraumatic stress disorder and affective disorders.

Finally, stress can lead to chronic diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and somatoform disorders, in which the stressor is chronic and the symptoms remain for a long time.

On the other hand, stress can trigger mental disorders (depressive episode, manic and psychotic), autoimmune diseases (lupus, ankylosing spondylitis and ulcerative colitis) and skin diseases (psoriasis and dermatitis in general) as well as degenerative diseases like dementia.

According to experts, to cope with stress are best avoided with healthy ways of living, communicating, resist believing in oneself, to limit and treat it with professional help. Once you have, try to overcome as soon as possible, because the more prolonged in time, more diseases can trigger coming to perpetuate it.

Biomedical Research Centre in Mental Health Network

Communication Unit

comunicacion@cibersam.es