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FOCUS: Breaking Down Different Kinds Of Stress & How Stress Impacts The Brain On A Structural Level & How To Reverse It. · Do You F*cking Mind?

• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It's a first thing. Let's break down what is stress
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and different forms of stress, because anxiety, for example, is
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a kind of stress. Anxiety is stress. Obviously, if anyone,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we've all been anxious, Anxiety is a necessary part of
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: our lives. I've done a whole podcast on anxiety, and
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: it is a necessary part of our lives. Stress, stress, response, fear,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: all of that is necessary for our survival and for
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: our evolution. Okay, so it's not something that you want
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to completely eliminate from your life, but you obviously want
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to have the good kinds and the acute kinds, and
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: you don't want to have the chronic kinds. That the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: chronic ones are the ones that are going to cause
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the issues in your life. So let's look at the difference.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Acute stress is necessary. So it's obviously when you're responding
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: to a stimulus that triggers fear. So back back in
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: the day, if you're looking at like when you're out
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in the wild, yes, okay, a line chasing you, but
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: also something now like you could be a deadline, you
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: could be a sporting if you're an athlete and you're
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: about to compete, that kind of stress is good because
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: you get a surge of all like you get adrenaline, cortisol,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you get all a surge of all these chemicals that
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: are going to help you perform at your most intense
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: at that moment. Okay. So it is really even talking
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: on a stage to a set, unless it's paralyzing, it's
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes quite helpful to have, you know, acute but not
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: intense stress before you get up because that's what's going
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: to give you that boost of energy to be in
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the zone to get up there and just get it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: done right. So there's a lot of areas in our
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: life where it's going to be helpful, Okay, And I'm
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: sure that you can think of many examples for yourself
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: where stress in acute amounts, you know, just like spike
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: when you need it, is actually going to be helpful.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: It's going to be a motivator for you to do something.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And that's normal. We don't need to get rid of that.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: If you got rid of that, then you would be
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: disadvantaged in many areas of your life. It's a neat Okay.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Now the problem is a chronic stress. Now this is
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: where if you are wondering if you're feeling chronic stress,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: this is kind of where you might be moody, easily
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: set off, you're sleeping poorly, you're forgetting simple things and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: simple you know, not just appointments and not just something
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: that someone told you, but you're forgetting maybe even words
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of things, and you know locations of things, and you
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: know where you are when you last placed your item.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Feeling restless all the time. So all these things are
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: clues that you might be suffering from chronic stress. Chronic
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: stress happens. I mean, there's a million different ways that
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: you can get chronic stress, but here are some examples.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: If you're always arguing with someone all the time. Okay, abuse,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: if you're being abuse, so that's chronic chronic levels of stress.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: If you are overworked under the pump, you're never giving
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: yourself enough rest time, and that could be physically or mentally.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Often it's very much mentally as well. Where you're going
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to get a lot of this, Like emotional stress is
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: if you are overworking yourself mentally, emotionally and you're never
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: giving yourself a rest, if you're constantly under pressure, all
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: these things are going to be causes of chronic stress,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and it is not good for you at all. It
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: is literally changing the shape of your brain. It's changing
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the circuitry of your brain, which you're going to go
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: into in a second, and it's actually changing the size
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: of your brain. It actually will shrink your brain. So
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: if you're in a situation where you are chronically stressed,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: you need to do something about it. Okay, nothing is
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: more important than your brain health as far as your
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: life is concerned, nothing is more important. Because if you're
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: not going to start to put into place some protective mechanism,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: some parameters to protect your brain and the longevity of
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: your brain, then you are going to be susceptible to
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: not only a really stressed and sad life, but susceptible
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to things like depression, newer degenerative diseases like dementia, Alzheimer's,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: all of that. It sounds really extreme, but it's just
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the it's fact. It is a fact. Okay. So people
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that are thinking, oh, you need to sleep, bless. If
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you want to hustle and if you wanted this, you
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: got to do that, You got to do that. Yeah. Cool,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: If you want to make a lot of money and
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: then have a neurodegenerative disease and lack and sleep and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: be super stressed and depressed. Go for God. Listen to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: that advice. But in my opinion, no money, no amount
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of money, no career that pays this much money, is
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: worth being chronically stressed. End of story. It is not
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: worth it. All you need to do is speak to
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: somebody who has had a partner or a relative who
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: has passed away from a neurodegenerative disease. And understand the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: ramifications that that had on that person's life nearing the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: end of their life. It's not worth it. It's never
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: going to be worth it for you or the people
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: around you. So I hope that this podcast will inspire
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you to put some time and effort into your brain
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: health and into your protective parameters around what you will
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: and won't allow for yourself and for your lifestyle. Even
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: if that means making some sacrifices in your life. It
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: is worth it. Okay. So this is what I'm gonna do.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna kind of break down the topics a bit.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna firstly talk about what actually physically happens in
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: the brain, the actual physical changes and how your brain
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: responds to that. I'm gonna talk about that. Then I'm
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: going to be talking about how stress can be passed
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: down genetically and the epigenetics of stress. That's really really interesting.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Then I'm going to be talking about how your upbringing
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: could have made you more susceptible to all of that.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: And then lastly, I'm going to be talking about what
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you can do now to reverse that. We'll not even
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: reverse it, but rebuild those areas of the brain, so
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: that way you can then start to rebuild your healthy brain,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: because the brain is quite multiple, that is quite plastic.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It's not all gloom and doom from here. If you're
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a really stressed person, there is shit you can do,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and there's a lot of shit that you can do,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: and it's going to have really, really, really positive effects
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: on your brain if you consistently do it. Okay, So
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: it's not all bad. It's exciting for those of you
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: that actually want to implement some change. Right, So let's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: talk about what actually happens in the brain when you
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: are stressed. So there's a part of the brain which
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: controls your body's reaction to stress. It's called the hyperthalamous
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: pituitary adrenal axis. It's this part of the brain that
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: releases cortisol for instant response. Okay, So this is for
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: acute stress and also for prolonged stress as well. Now, interestingly,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: people that have really high levels of cortisol chronically so
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: all the time, when it comes time to respond to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: an acute stress as in the good stress, they actually
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: don't the ability to have a spike in cortisol. So
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: not only are they just stressed all the time because
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: they've got all this quartersol present, way too much cordisol
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: present that isn't getting absorbed properly through the brain and
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: being metabolized. Not only is that happening, but when they
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: actually need the stress, they're not getting that big spike
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of adrenaline to push them through, so they have less
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: of it when they actually need it and more of
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it all the other times. Okay, So that in itself
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: can show you why it's so bad. Now, this high
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: level of cortisol for long periods of time really kind
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: of reaks havoc on the brain for all these different reasons.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: What cortisol will do is it increases activity activity levels,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: and also the neurons and the synapses between the neurons,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: which is the connections between the neurons in a part
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of the brain called the amygdala. The amigdala is part
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of a brain. It's and it would a structure. It's
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: part of this network structure of brain regions in the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: center for the brain called the limbic system, and that
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: whole limbic system area is responsible for emotion processing all
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: kinds of emotion, but in particular they've found a lot
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: of studies where the amygdala is very heavily linked to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: fear processing and forging fear based memories for your protection, right,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: but also when you look at things like trauma PTSD,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: that's where the ambig dela is quite active in those
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: times in people's lives. Okay, but the amygdala, basically, higher
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: levels of cortisol is going to keep the amygdala really
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: really active. More connections within the cells that are in
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the amygdala are kind of there's a lot of activity
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: going on there now at the same time that this
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: is happening with the amygdala, like overfiring, overfiring, fear, fear
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: stress or stress stress stress. At the same time that
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: all that's happening signals because of the cortisol and the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: high levels of constant cortisol signals in the hippocampus and
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the hippocampus is a part of the brain that controls
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: memory and learning and consolidation of memory, so saving memory,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: that part of the brain starts to deteriorate. So they
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: found that high levels of cordsole in the brain will
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: shrink the hippocampus, So you're going to get less connectivity
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: in that area, less size in that area, less activity,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and neuronal connections in that area that is involved with
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: memory and learning. So it starts to make sense. Now
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: if you start looking all these things, it starts to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: slowly click when you listen to all of this why
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: it is that people that are really stressed start to
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: forget things, that don't really know where they place things.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Then because of that, they get irritable because it's really annoying,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and it's just kind of this vicious circle. Now on
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: top of that, when all of this is happening in
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: the amygdala, all the cortersole, all this like increased activity,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it's then reducing it's kind of inhibiting the activity in
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the adrenal access, which is what I was talking about.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: That releases cortersole for instant response. It inhibits the ability
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: for the adrenal access to control your stress levels. So
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: instead of knowing when to kind of tape it down
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: the release of cortisol, when to crank it up, it
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: inhibits its ability to control that, so then it starts
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: just constantly releasing more and more cortisol. It doesn't have
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the ability to kind of wind it back or switch
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it off all together. So now you can see a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: bit of a like a vicious cycle going on where
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: there's an inability to control the cortisol that's going on
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: that's being released, and then that cortisol is affecting the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: amigdala and the hippocampus, and then due to it affecting
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the amigdala making it overactive, it's then pumping back more
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: cortisol through the brain, and then the adrenal axis is
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: even less likely to be able to control the cortisole release,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: so it's going again and again back round around in circles.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: So as all of this is happening, then you're actually
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: getting when there's that much cortisol present all the time,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: it actually is damaging to synaptic connections within the brain,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: not just the hippo campus, but within the brain in general,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: and that's where you can literally get the brain begin
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: to shrink after a prolonged period of time. Time and
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: then imagine when the brain shrinks, what happens. You're less proactive,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: You're less likely to be using like all the areas
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of your brain in a like coherent way. You're going
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to have more everything's going to be more emotionally fueled.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Because there's less activity through the prefrontal cortex. Cortisol makes
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the area, in particular the prefrontal cortex of the brain shrink,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: which means less connections. Less connectivity in the prefrontal cortex.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: That part of the brain is that that controls concentration,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: executive function, judgment, social interaction, decision making, predicting what's going
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: to happen in the future. All of that is happening
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: in the prefrontal cortex. And the prefrontal cortex has a
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: lot of influence normally in a normal brain, it has
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of influence in kind of downplaying the limbic
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: system and the amygdala. It kind of what I was
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: talking about in my last episode or two episodes ago,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: about attachment theory and whatever. It's actually kind of downplaying
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: and it's letting that part of the brain know, Okay,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you need to like relax, you need to chill. Everything's fine.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: If you're then getting shrinkage in that part of the brain,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: then the limbic system kind of has like you know,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: total like full rain. They've got like a green light
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to kind of go a bit haywire, and it takes
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: over the brain and that's where it starts to become
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: everything's really emotional, quite stressful, quite you know, you look
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: at a task that some people perceive is quite doable,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: yet it's a little bit stressful, but it's fine, and
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: someone who's got chronic chronic stress will look at that
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: as an insurmountable task. It's got nothing to do with
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: your levels of intelligence. It now comes to do with
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: what part of the brains are overactive and what is
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: taking over. There can be very intelligent people who can
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: get to a point in their life where they've had
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: chronic stress for years and years and years that look
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: at a task that seems basic and drown in a
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: glass of water because I just can't I can't wrap
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: my head around this. This is just too it's too much.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And that's because their emotions are just going hay, why
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: are on them? So then looking at all of this
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: and looking at the lack of connections within different areas
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of the brain, it starts to all make sense as
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to why. It kind of really sets the stage here
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: for depression, severe anxiety, anxiety disorders such as social anxiety
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder. There's a lot of things
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: that can come out off and I don't know if
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: you can think of any personal examples. I know a
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: lot of my listeners could pinpoint personal examples of people
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: in their lives where they've seen them kind of you know,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: when people say, oh, that person lost the plot because
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: they were too busy or whatever. There's a science behind that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: If you're too stressed, if there's way too much weighing
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: down on a person chronically, of course they're going to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: go quote unquote insane in the sense that they can
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: develop some sort of a disorder off the brain because
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: they have kept it in this toxic environment for too long. Okay,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: So if you know somebody in your life, or you
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: yourself in particular, but your parents, your relative, whoever, if
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: you're seeing that person under chronic stress and they're in
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: a situation where no one's doing much to help them,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: it's important that you do something to step in and
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: try and alleviate some of the stress, or try and
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: educate that person on what could be happening if they
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: themselves aren't going to try and alleviate some of that stress,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: because that's when you start to encounter all these issues
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: within actual degenerative problems within the brain. So then you've
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: got you know, depression, all these problems. But then even
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: more scary than that, Scarier than that, is full on
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: degeneration like Alzheimer's disease. That's a big one, very heavily
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: linked to chronic stress dementia as well, And there's a
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: whole like, there's a shitload more. I'm not going to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: mention them more that you can just imagine anything that's
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: going to break down in the brain, he's going to
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: cause some sort of an issue down the track.