In small doses stress can be beneficial. A Stanford professor has found that finite stressful experiences like a roller coaster ride or a scary movie have been proven to enhance blood circulation, heighten senses, sharpen memory, and increase the brain's pleasure-producing chemicals.

That's the good news. The bad news looks like this: if stress is prolonged or extended in any way, it makes a beeline for the hippocampus, the section of the brain that is command central for learning and memory.

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has found that sustained stress continues its path of destruction by shriveling neurons in the prefrontal cortex, which controls emotion and executive function, while neurons continue to grow in the amygdala — the processing center for fear and anxiety. Eventually stress will cause the body to cease repairing damage, which will lead to a compromise of the immune system. This consistent pressure on the cardiovascular system then leads to high blood pressure and heart disease.

Sapolsky is a member of North America's stress researching royalty. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant for studying stress in baboons and author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers.

Sapolsky also coined the term “adventitious suffering” wherein the body develops a chronic reaction to stress even when there is no real threat fueling it. Imagination, memory, and language team up to create “the pain of what was, what will be, what could be or what someone else is experiencing,” Sapolsky explains.

Sapolsky presented his latest research at November's Mind and Life Institute conference where he recommended meditation as a possible neutralizer to chronic stress.

[via Washington Post]

(Photo: Sedona.com)