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Long-term stress erodes memory

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Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#101

Post by throw345343 »

thro3212 wrote: post #29
stevanl wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind elaborating a bit on the "took every advantage I could to compensate for the damage caused by stress." In a similar position and would be good to learn what worked for you.

At start I dropped everything non essential, then fixed it one thing at a time. Key was to establish routine and patterns, which does not drain mental energy and time from me. For example I have simple exercise routine I do every evening. It is just stuff I do before shower and bed. I also stopped driving in narrow city roads, I leave a car at motorway exit and walk last mile. Forget self-help stuff. It is really jus…

as someone that's suffering from these symptoms rightnow, I'd be happy to listen to any advice you could offer. My memory used to be very very good, but these days I forget things easily and have a hard time recalling details from stories that may have happened years ago. For me, i bootstrapped a startup for a long time (4 years) and ultimately failed and walked away from it and have been picking myself up since then.

Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#102

Post by WalterSear »

sevensor wrote: post #79
WalterSear wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of people on here discussing the stress of a new child. I don't think they are differentiating between stress, that this study discusses, from lack of sleep, which also affects memory.

In practice the two will be impossible to tease apart at any rate. Stress and lack of sleep make a feedback loop. The more you feel like you're drowning, the harder it gets to find sleep. Adding nighttime feedings just throws gas on the fire.

From a fine grained point of view, yes, stress causes sleep problems.

However, stress is a result of, and not the cause of the sleep deprivation that comes with nursing and changing a child throughout the night.

Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#103

Post by throw345343 »

jyriand wrote: post #92
thro3212 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At start I dropped everything non essential, then fixed it one thing at a time. Key was to establish routine and patterns, which does not drain mental energy and time from me. For example I have simple exercise routine I do every evening. It is just stuff I do before shower and bed. I also stopped driving in narrow city roads, I leave a car at motorway exit and walk last mile. Forget self-help stuff. It is really jus…

This is something I would really like to read more about. No pressure, but this would be excellent subject for a blog post.

I second this, I would love to hear more

Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#104

Post by rubicon33 »

hansreiter wrote: post #48
blackkettle wrote: post #44

actually makes pretty good sense as a coping mechanism I guess. decreased memory function might help erase bad experiences, thereby decreasing stress - unless your job depends on abnormally high levels of recall... probably not a big issue in days gone by.

I used to have an incredible memory, and in general attributed my SHARP decline in recall to just getting a bit older (though I'm only 27 now...). Still, I did feel that this decline helped me a lot for the very reason you mention. I used to get panic attacks a lot -- not so much anymore. I've joked before that it's almost like I've forgotten my triggers, and that my short term memory is so bad that I don't get stuck…

Hope you don't mind me asking - Are you on, or have you taken, SSRIs? I've been interested in them for a while, and one thing I've read fairly consistently is that they can cause short term (and in some cases long term) memory degradation.

Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#105

Post by quicklyfrozen »

ashark wrote: post #84
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> potentially-giant bill for the birth It boggles my mind that we consider the US a first-world country when I read things like this. Also not sure I agree about the breastfeeding being so bad. Sure, it's a bit of a chore, but most mothers I know (including my wife) found it to be a positive experience that increases attachment. And the leaving the house/car part I also don't follow. You have one more person to dress…

> And the leaving the house/car part I also don't follow. You have one more person to dress and one more item of luggage to carry; it's hardly an exponential increase. It's mainly that something so easy you barely think about it becomes something you do have to think about. It's a vanishingly tiny value being acted upon such that it is many times larger than it was, though still not huge. It does get worse with older…

Yes, getting an older child out of the house can be like a hostage negotiation.

Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#108

Post by goodcanadian »

jyriand wrote: post #93
goodcanadian wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. This immediately put me in mind of the birth of my own child. While no where near as bad as you describe, my short term memory did kind of go to crap after she was born. I blame it mostly on sleep deprivation, which is a kind of stress, I suppose.

I'm having first child in few months. I'm stressed out as it is, can't even imagine what will happen when he is born. Even worse, I'm working from home.

Always be cautious of advice as every child is different, and any one person's experience may be different from yours.

That said, the first three months will almost convince you that you can do it. Babies may only sleep 2 or 3 hours in a row (we were lucky and got four consecutive hours at nighttime), but they sleep a lot in total. If you can handle the sleep disruption, you will actually be left with a lot of time for work. From four months onward, they start to be awake a bit longer and they start to get very interested in what you are doing. It will then begin to get very difficult to work with them around. You might need to find an alternate place to work and/or begin to make alternate child care arrangements.

Re: Long-term stress erodes memory

#109

Post by khedoros1 »

ashark wrote: post #98
khedoros1 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It boggles my mind that we consider the US a first-world country when I read things like this. We had a hospital stay before the birth, emergency c-section (the cord was around my son's neck), hospital stay after the birth, and about 2 weeks of him staying in the neonatal ICU. I think the bill came to around $30,000 (covered by insurance), and I think we paid a couple of $20 copays. > And the leaving the house/car…

> We had a hospital stay before the birth, emergency c-section (the cord was around my son's neck), hospital stay after the birth, and about 2 weeks of him staying in the neonatal ICU. I think the bill came to around $30,000 (covered by insurance), and I think we paid a couple of $20 copays. If you that's the case and you hadn't already hit a larger yearly out-of-pocket-max through other bills, then your insurance is…

My wife actually handled the bills and tends to have a better memory for this stuff than I do.

There was a stress-related stay in the hospital for her for several days with a $250 copay, around late January. Then the whole birth+surgery+NICU+breast pump rental was judged as one incident, with a $250 copay.

Individual doctor visits are $20. Hospital stays are $250. Medication is heavily subsidized, and most of it that we've ever gotten had a copay under $10.

There was an with a demand for payment for the entire bill+interest. A series of calls to their billing department led to them finding the mistake in their system and sending us the bill for just the copay.

I'm positive that we fall under the "uncommonly good" category.

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