Stress Can Cause Brain Damage and Memory Loss

One of the body’s responses to stress is a heightened mental state and the ability to think on your feet. While this sounds wonderful, the downside is that the chemical that causes this mental alertness, cortisol, also kills brain cells. According to Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University biologist who has extensively researched the physical effects of stress, the cells that are most vulnerable to destruction are the ones located in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory. The hippocampus is also the area that deteriorates when patients contract Alzheimer’s disease and other memory disorders. This research seems to point to the idea that prolonged stress could be directly related to memory problems and other cognitive disorders.
Now that we’ve seen the toll that stress takes on the body and the emotions, let’s look at several strategies for managing stress.

Stress Contributes to Some Cancers

While the relationship between stress and cancer has not been definitely proven, enough information has been gathered to cause researchers to continue to explore the question. For example, the National Cancer Institute reports that some studies of women with breast cancer have shown significantly higher rates of occurrence of this disease among women who have experienced traumatic life events and stress within several years of their diagnosis. These factors include death of a spouse, social isolation, and other psychological factors.

Studies are also under way to explore the effects of stress on the immune response of women already diagnosed with cancer to see if stress reduction can slow the progression of the cancer. One major study conducted by Ohio State University and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute involved high-stress and low-stress women following surgery for stage II and stage III breast cancer. The researchers found that the women who reported high levels of personal stress had significantly lower blood levels of three important immune factors. The first two were the NK cells, which play a large role in the immune system’s search for tumors and virally infected cells, and T-lymphocytes, also known as white blood cells. When the researchers exposed the NK cells within the bloodstream of the high-stress women to extra amounts of gamma interferon, a compound that naturally enhances NK cell activity and the replication of viruses, they found a third significantly lowered immune response. The more stress a woman reported, the less effect the gamma interferon had on her NK cells.

Anger: What’s Your Score?

Several studies have demonstrated that people with a low threshold for anger have a greater probability of high blood pressure and heart disease. When compared with calmer people, these individuals experience rage and fury more often, more intensely, and for longer periods of time.
Information from a long-term epidemiological study done at Duke University called Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) offers some perspective on the relative importance of this risk factor. As part of the investigation, subjects were asked to complete the Spielberger State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory, a questionnaire used by psychologists to assess how anger prone a person is. Subjects had to respond to these ten statements by answering:

Almost Never  1,
Sometimes  2,
Often  3,
and Almost Always  4.

The overall anger score is calculated by adding together the ratings for each statement.
• I am quick-tempered.
• I have a fiery temper.
• I am a hotheaded person.
• I get angry when I am slowed down by others’ mistakes.
• I feel annoyed when I am not given recognition for doing good work.
• I fly off the handle.
• When I get angry, I say nasty things.
• It makes me furious when I am criticized in front of others.
• When I get frustrated, I feel like hitting someone.
• I feel infuriated when I do a good job and get a poor evaluation.

Scoring: 22–40  high anger; 15–21  moderate anger; 10–14  low anger

In the Duke study, the higher a person’s anger score, the greater the risk of developing coronary artery disease during the seventy-two-month follow-up period. The findings don’t prove that anger causes heart problems or that measures to control anger will help anyone live longer. But they do suggest a close relationship between psychological and cardiovascular health.

Alcohol is a Depressant and Killer!

Alcohol, generally considered a stimulant, is actually a depressant. It dilates the blood vessels, in time breaking the tiny capillaries, especially of the nose, cheeks, neck and ankles (example: red, swollen nose of hard drinkers). Alcohol is also a relaxant and dulls and paralyses the brain. The drinker loses good judgement and control of the body, and is therefore the cause of thousands of car accidents, crimes, killings, rapes and unnecessary deaths. Drinking alcohol is dangerous and an unhealthy way to relax!

The chief toxic effect of alcohol is on the brain and nervous system. Alcohol burns up by depleting the body of vitamin C and also B (the essential nerve vitamin). This, in combination with capillary dilation, can lead to brain hemorrhaging – which in turn, can lead to paralysis. Medical research has shown that the boisterous actions, loud speech, joviality, bravado and devil-may-care attitude of the alcoholic are actually the beginning paralysis of certain parts of the brain!

Stay away from alcohol! It is nothing but empty calories. It will burden your body with unhealthy, flabby fat, in addition to its other toxic, poisonous and injurious effects. The numbing effect of alcohol on the pain centers of the brain and nervous system is a special danger to anyone with a heart condition. Without Mother Nature’s warning signal – pain – a heart attack, which might have been averted, may prove fatal.

Chemical Changes That Occur during Stress

When you find yourself in a situation that your body perceives as stressful, a number of chemical reactions occur that push certain body systems into higher gear by shutting down or cutting off energy to others.

1. Stress affects the cardiovascular system. The first to be affected is the cardiovascular system. In the presence of danger, much of the blood in your outer extremities is shunted to organs that need more oxygen, such as the brain (the decision maker), the heart, and your other vital organs, such as the lungs and the liver. The constricting of the blood supply to your hands, arms, feet, and legs has another role—it decreases your blood loss should you be injured. Your body also increases its production of endorphins and other pain-reducing chemicals so that you won’t feel the injury as keenly as you normally would. When these changes happen, your blood pressure rises, your pulse races, and your heart must beat faster and harder to handle the strain. Adrenaline causes glucose and fat to be released from your tissues to give your body a much-needed energy surge in case you must fight or flee.
2. Some systems shut down. This enormous surge of energy comes at a price, however. Certain other bodily systems must be shut down somewhat in order to compensate. Your reproductive system, which is normally very energy intensive, is suspended so that its energies can be directed elsewhere. In the short term, this isn’t a bad thing, since you would never think about fighting off the cave bear and making love to your mate at the same time. But you can see how living in a constant state of stress would erode your libido over the long term.
3. How cortisol affects the body. Another chemical downside following the release of stress hormones is that cortisol accumulates in your body. As the adrenaline rush that released fat and glucose as an energy source subsides, the stress hormone cortisol becomes active, causing insulin to be released to stimulate your appetite so that you can replenish your fat stores. Since most of us don’t reach for an apple or a piece of swordfish when we are ravenous, this usually leads to craving a quick carbohydrate snack such as candy, pizza, cookies, ice cream, or high-carbohydrate fast foods. Unfortunately, living with a high level of daily stress causes the body to produce a consistently high level of cortisol, leading to overeating and weight gain, especially in the all-important abdominal area in men.
   
4. The immune system is weakened. One of the more serious effects of stress is the redirecting of energy away from the immune system. A tremendous amount of energy is necessary to operate the complex cells, hormones, and organs that make up this system. Fifteen minutes of danger and a return to normal isn’t going to compromise your immune system, but living with constant stress will surely make you more susceptible to illness.
   

Eight Steps for Controlling Stress at the Office

It would be wonderful if all corporations provided their employees with meditation rooms and built mandatory recovery breaks into everyone’s busy schedule. In fact, studies have shown that these kinds of activities actually increase productivity. Since that day is still far in the future, Anna Wise offers eight meditation exercises one can practice in the office to deactivate the stress response and become more relaxed, creative, and balanced during the workday. I have included that list here.

• Make ample use of one-minute meditations. Obviously, this will be easier if you are working in a private space than if you are sharing an office. These include the following:

• Sit in a relaxed posture and breathe deeply, in and out, for one minute.
• Focus on relaxing your tongue and jaw for one minute.
• Intentionally slow your breathing for one minute.
• Sitting comfortably with your eyes gently open, focus your awareness on a spot outside of yourself for one minute.
• Sitting comfortably with your eyes closed, focus your awareness on a particular location inside yourself, such as your heart, your third eye, or your navel.
• Imagine a friend’s face smiling at you.
• Imagine receiving a warm hug from an old friend.

• Breathe! The most calming action you can take when faced with stress is to consciously focus on slowing your rate of breathing. For example, while you are listening to problems
  or complaints from a superior, you can at the same time be aware of your rhythmical and slow breathing and your relaxed heart rate. This not only helps to keep you calm, but gives you the detachment that helps provide proper perspective when dealing with crisis.
• When faced with stressful situations make a complete energy circuit in your body. Sit with the palms of your hands together or—just as effective—the tips of the thumb pads and middle fingers touching one another. This helps contain the flow of energy within your body and maintain centeredness and balance.
• Sit with your spine straight and relaxed, and your legs uncrossed. This also unblocks energy, which can then be called upon for use.
• Sensualize! If you are facing a very difficult encounter or situation, take a few minutes to be by yourself before it begins. Using all of your senses, imagine the situation occurring in
  the most successful and healthy way possible. Imagine your own actions and reactions to be calm, strong, creative, and appropriate.
• Use ordinary activity as a meditation practice. For example, when you are going to the watercooler for a drink, take the opportunity to be awake and aware. Be aware of each move as you make it and be very present in the actual act—not drawn back into the past or forward into the future. Be sensually aware of the smells, tastes, sights, sounds, textures, and kinesthesia of the situation. Savor every second of the experience, while remaining in the present.
• Look for allies among your coworkers. You might be surprised to find other meditators more prevalent than you thought. There is support in numbers—if meditation becomes an acceptable and even pleasantly anticipated topic of conversation, your practices will be supported and you will feel freer to practice more frequently and more openly.
• Support others in the need for and value of contemplative time.
  

Negative Effects of On-the-Job Stress

For many of us, most of our stress is encountered in the workplace because we spend so much time there. A lot depends on our ability to financially support ourselves and our families and to achieve success in the eyes of the world. Therefore it is important to develop tools for managing on-the-job stress.

According to Dean Sunseri, individuals who do not manage their work-related stress have a higher level of absenteeism, decreased work performance, and emotional instability at their jobs. In their personal lives, this inability to manage stress leads to relationship problems, emotional isolation, substance abuse, verbal/physical violence, and increased high-risk behaviors such as alcoholism.
A recent study by Drs. Nicole A. Roberts and Robert W. Levenson of U.C. Berkeley, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, shows that high levels of on-the-job stress seem to play a significant role in marital problems and could potentially lead to divorce if the stress isn’t acknowledged and managed. “These influences of job stress were found regardless of couples’ marital satisfaction, husbands’ work shift, and couples’ parenthood status,” the authors wrote. They went on to suggest that when job stress levels become highest, couples should make an extra effort to be attuned to themselves so that they could find ways to handle their stress in a constructive manner. “This may include employing stress management techniques, making an effort to infuse positive emotions into marital conversations, and finding ways to talk about job stress rather than avoiding it.”
This is often easier said than done. According to a recent article in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, job stress can sneak up on you so gradually that you don’t even realize it. Many employees entering the workforce are young and single with ample time for leisure activities, exercise, rest, and sports. As they grow older, marry, have children, and acquire a mortgage and other major responsibilities, their stress load will build and their productivity levels drop. Add to this the fact that many companies lay off employees during times of economic recession, burdening those who remain with an increased workload and even greater stress.
Recently I saw a dramatic example of this when a shipping company called me to inquire about my corporate program. Their top salesperson, a middle-aged man named Arnold, had serious physical problems. Arnold was 400 pounds, had a fifty-two-inch waist, and had a blood sugar level of 126, which made him diabetic. Arnold hadn’t been this heavy or this sick when he first went to work for them. But the stresses of his workload and the amount of constant traveling he had to do had brought him to this point. Arnold was a prime candidate to drop dead of a heart attack. And if he had, his company would have been in serious trouble. Fortunately, Arnold is thrilled with the program and has already lost twenty-five pounds.
Dee Edington, director of Michigan’s Health Management Research Center, has spent twenty-five years researching how major corporations have saved literally millions of dollars in health care costs by offering services to their employees such as wellness programs, onsite gyms and fitness programs, and health newsletters. What Edington stresses, however, is that companies should not focus on just those employees whose stress loads and health needs are the greatest. There are tremendous long-term benefits in retaining relatively healthy employees who eat right, exercise regularly, and manage their stress healthfully. “It is much easier to help a low-risk person remain low-risk than to try to change a high-risk person to low-risk,” Edington says.
Unfortunately, most corporations do not take responsibility for their employees’ health. Even if you are fairly healthy, you cannot count on your workplace to take responsibility to help you maintain your health and emotional well-being. Ultimately, that responsibility falls squarely on your shoulders.
In this fast-paced, stress-filled world, the only answer is to develop your own stress management skills. I have found the following stress management techniques to be tremendously effective. I suggest that you experiment with one or a combination of these until you find what works best for you.

Perform Well to Your Last Breath

There is no overtime in life. Therefore it benefits us to perform with as much gusto as we can until our very last breath.

In a very real sense, the adversary all of us will eventually face is death. For this reason a question you must ask yourself is, How do I want to die? Do you want to end up living in a nursing home for the last decade of your life because you can no longer take care of yourself? Do you want to spend your final years partially paralyzed by a stroke? Would you look forward to the pain and limited mobility of arthritis or the hassle of having to replace a knee or hip because the joint was just worn out by overuse or abuse? Would you enjoy being extremely overweight and suffering from obesity-related illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease?

Or do you want to enjoy life, playing and working for as many years as possible?

I often ask my clients, “If how you live is determined by how you want to die, what performance strategies must you develop to work and live with gusto?” While the average life span for men is seventyeight and for women is eighty-two, that figure has been steadily increasing. In fact researchers are projecting that by the year 2025, sixty-two million people will be over the age of sixty-five, and by 2040 as many as one million people will celebrate their hundredth birthday. Many of us will live much longer than our parents did.

The choice we face is this: Do we want to spend our later years as a drain on society, suffering from health problems that are largely avoidable? Or do we want to remain a good prospect for as long as possible, performing with energy and a zest for life?

Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the physician who did the first heart transplant, said, “I want to die ‘young’ as late as possible.” I love to share this with my clients. When I repeated this to one woman, she told me, “That reminds me of my Great Aunt Ruth. She always walked everywhere—miles and miles per week, ate right, and kept her joy for living alive by traveling the world with her children and cultivating friends of all ages. She ran her own business, retired, then managed to keep active and live independently all the way up to the age of ninety-one. At that point she had a stroke that partially paralyzed her and put her into a nursing home. The last eight months of her life were hard for all of us, but at least we knew that she had lived the first ninety-one years with good health and gusto.”

There is no overtime in life, no going back onto the field for one last play. The lifestyle choices we make every day truly determine the level of our performance, whether we remain a good prospect or become suspect. It’s up to us to make sure we’re choosing wisely.

Reduce Your Fatigue Threshold

Managing fatigue and reducing your fatigue threshold are essential to maintaining maximum performance. No one can work at peak efficiency when he or she is exhausted all the time. According to Dr. Hans Seyle, a leading stress researcher, we all have an energetic savings account and a checking account. If you consistently overdraw your energetic checking account—your daily energy reserves— through overwork, unmanaged stress, and ignored health warnings, eventually your checking account will empty and you will have to draw on your savings account—the body’s emergency energy reserves.
Many years ago Lomas Brown, an NFL player on the offensive line for the Detroit Lions, came to me because he was having problems with his knee joints. Since the NFL is always looking for bigger, stronger, and faster linemen, Lomas’s weight was 310 pounds. When I ran him through our health checks, I discovered that his Body Mass Index and his body fat composition were much too high.
At this point, Lomas had already played eight years on the defensive line. He knew that he didn’t have the energy of a rookie anymore. He wanted to improve his performance so he could stay in the game for a few more years, but he couldn’t do this unless something changed for him. He also knew that overweight offensive and defensive linemen had a 50 percent greater chance of dropping dead of a heart attack than the average man on the street. He wanted to be around to enjoy his children and his grandchildren when his career was over.
Since Lomas was a seasoned veteran with some of the best technique I’d ever seen, there was only one suggestion I could make. I told him, “Since the quickest way to compromise technique is to become tired out, let’s work on improving your fatigue threshold by dropping your weight and getting you better conditioned.”
Soon we had his weight down to 280 pounds, with more lean muscle and less body fat. But then Lomas said, “Mackie, that’s all fine and good, but my offensive lineman coach wants me to weigh in at 295.”
I said, “But you’ve also had knee surgery. Increasing your weight will be harder on your knees in the long run, so I think we’ll have to keep your weight down lower if you want to achieve your goal. Talk to your agent. Tell him ‘When I go into the preseason training camp, weigh me in at 295 automatically. Let my statistics speak for me. If I do what I need to do, then my coach can just assume I’m 295 pounds.’”
Lomas followed this advice and became all-pro that year. He’s been all-pro for a total of nine seasons. At a final weight of 276 pounds, he became the lightest player in the NFL at left tackle.
When he first came to me, he only wanted to squeeze another three years out of his career. But he got an additional nine, as one of the highest paid left tackles in the game—and he’s still playing as of this writing. He learned how to improve his performance by managing his fatigue.
Since you are born with only a limited amount of energy, the key to maintaining a high level of performance and productivity is learning how to manage that energy. There are several ways to do this:

• Your heart has only a finite number of beats in it before it stops forever, but you do not have to squander those beats because your aerobic conditioning is poor. Through exercise,
  you can always develop a lower resting heart rate.
• Get regular health checkups.
• Make sure you get enough sleep.
• Keep your weight within acceptable limits.
• Manage your stress.
  

EFFECTS OF WORK STRESS ON BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES :Caffeine Ingestion

Caffeine is the most widely consumed pharmacologically active substance in the world. The evidence on its possible implications for human health, that is, whether it has chronic physiological effects on habitual consumers, is as yet inconclusive (Benowitz, 1990). It has long been suspected that repeated exposure to caffeine may produce tolerance to its physiological effects (James, 1994). The consumption of caffeine is known to improve physical performance and endurance during prolonged activity at sub-maximal intensity (Nehling & Debry, 1994). Caffeine’s physiological effects are linked to the antagonism of adenosine receptors and to the increased production of plasma catecholamines (Nehling & Debry, 1994).
The study of the relationship between work-related stress and caffeine ingestion is confounded
by the high correlation between coffee consumption and smoking (Conway et al., 1981). A meta-analysis of six epidemiological studies (Swanson et al., 1994) has shown that about 86% of smokers consumed coffee while only 77% of the non-smokers did so.Three major mechanisms have been suggested to account for this close association between caffeine intake and smoking: (a) conditioning effect, (b) reciprocal interaction; that is, caffeine intake increases arousal while nicotine intake decreases it, and (c) the possibility of a third variable affecting both. Stress, and particularly work-related stress, is a possible third variable influencing both caffeine and nicotine intake (Swanson et al., 1994).
Caffeine consumption is often regarded as reinforcing and augmenting the psychological and physiological effects of stress (France&Ditto, 1992; Lane et al., 1990). This synergetic relationship has been explained as due to the effects of both on the elevation of blood catecholamines (Lane et al., 1990). Experimental laboratory studies have found that as opposed to a placebo drink, consumption of high levels of caffeine interacts with stress in worsening the effects of stress on psychological and physiological strain (France & Ditto, 1992; Lane & Williams, 1987).

EFFECTS OF WORK STRESS ON BEHAVIORAL OUTCOMES :Smoking Behavior

Cigarette smoking and the use of other tobacco products constitutes the single most devastating
preventable cause of death in many market economies (Quick et al., 1997). A large body of epidemiological, clinical and pathological studies relates cigarette smoking to the development of cardiovascular heart disease and other chronic diseases, including emphysema, chronic bronchitis and non-fatal strokes. Moreover, a considerable body of research has demonstrated the adverse health consequences of passive smoking, the involuntary exposure of non-smokers to tobacco smoke from smokers in confined environments. This research has led many countries to regulate smoking in public places (Quick et al., 1997). As is the case with the other behavioral outcomes considered here, smoking behavior is multifactorial in its etiology, and there is zvidence pointing to its genetic origins. Twin studies have demonstrated that genetic factors contribute to the initiation of smoking and influence the intensity of smoking cigarettes (number of cigarettes smoked per day; see Pomerleau & Kordia, 1999). A meta-analysis of the data from five studies, each involving more that 1000 twin pairs, found an estimated 60% of the propensity to smoke may be explained by genetic factors (Heath&Madden, 1995). Cigarette smokers are over-represented in many disadvantaged groups, including those with psychiatric and behavioral disorders (Parrott, 2000). Still, there is evidence that environmental and job-related stress may account for a significant proportion of the variance of smoking behavior. Consequently, interest in the pathway leading from stress, and stress at work, to smoking behavior is growing.
Stress and associated emotional responses, including anxiety and irritability, are attenuated by smoking. These effects have been shown to be short-lived (Parrott, 1995). Mood and affective state impairments tend to occur between cigarettes in a repetitive cycle. This cycle provides a clear rationale for the addictive use of cigarettes (Parrott, 1995). Smokers, therefore, obtain only short relief from adverse states of anxiety and irritability that follow the experience of stress. There is evidence from smoking abstaining studies that nicotinewithdrawal symptoms are worse under high environmental stress than under low environmental stress, while post-cigarette relief was also correspondingly greater (Parrott, 2000).
In empirical research, stress is often found to predict smoking behavior while interacting with other predictors, like lack of social support. In a review of the research on smoking behavior among nurses, Adriaanse et al. (1991) found that excessive smoking among both female and male nurses was explained by work stress, lack of social support, and unmet expectations that characterize nurses’ professional socialization. Nurses’ smoking is considered a public health problem since they often act as role models to patients and their families. In several studies, smokers who express high motivation to smoke have reported above-average stress that they had experienced before the smoking, rather than belowaverage stress after smoking (Parrott, 1995). Consequently, stress management and anxiety reduction programs at the workplace have the potential to influence motivation to smoke. Workplace-based smoking cessation programs do bring to the fore, however, the conflict between health and performance. Among aviators, as an example, smoking is a health hazard in the cockpit. Pilots who are required to abstain from smoking during and before flights may suffer cockpit performance decrements (Sommese & Patterson, 1995).
Yet another facet of the complex relationship between stress and cigarette smoking was described by Parrott (1999), who proposed that the evidence on this relationship might be reinterpreted to suggest that smoking actually causes stress. Parrott (1999) pointed out that regular smokers are more stressed than their non-smoking counterparts and that smokers experience an overall reduction in stress when they quit smoking. Another theory holds that
smoking may redistribute stress by modulating moods (Piasecki & Baker, 2000).
Work organizations contribute to and may inhibit (or induce) smoking behavior by three basic processes documented in the research literature. First, work organizations may develop organizational norms with respect to smoking on the job, including the local official definition of permissible smoking and the mechanisms of its control established by management. Second, stressful working conditions, like sustained overload or machine-paced jobs characterized by lack of control, may induce heavy smoking as a coping strategy to alleviate the stressful job conditions. Third, work organizations may explicitly or implicitly encourage the development of occupationally based smoking subcultures. In a survey of 12 000 professional people in 14 occupational categories, Russek (1965) found significant differences in the prevalence of smoking in high-stress occupations as compared with low-stress occupations.