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What Stress Does to the Brain

neurosciencenews.com

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Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#61

Post by graedus »

photonios wrote: post #58
coldcode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in such a period and have been for months. Stupid company demands we ship something no matter what, even though there is insufficient time to do all the work, and they keep adding more on top of it. I work 7 days a week, no vacations, hardly even a weekend day off much less a vacation. I even lost my temper at work and yelled a lot, something I never do. This is no way to do proper work either. At least what lit…

Isn't there a possibility of finding another job? Aren't we in a field where there's plenty of work and we shouldn't accept being exploited like this?

In theory, yes. But IMO a job search and all the accompanying tasks (resume updates, cover letter writing, studying for technical interviews, etc) takes a significant investment of time and energy that people don't typically have during a stressful crunch.

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#62

Post by xwdv »

coldcode wrote: post #55
want2know wrote: post #40

Some time ago I had a long period of intense stress. It is amazing how much it changes your mind and body. Muscles contract causing all kinds of insuline problems, your hormones become a mess, and all this is raising stress levels more because you don't know what is going on in your body. And then an anxiety disorder is right around the corner. And when everything is ok again your brain produces stress hormones when…

I am in such a period and have been for months. Stupid company demands we ship something no matter what, even though there is insufficient time to do all the work, and they keep adding more on top of it. I work 7 days a week, no vacations, hardly even a weekend day off much less a vacation. I even lost my temper at work and yelled a lot, something I never do. This is no way to do proper work either. At least what lit…

But why do it man? Would it be worth it if you were found dead at your desk with some unfinished code on your screen? The project would still go on and eventually be finished.

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#63

Post by graeme »

want2know wrote: post #40

Some time ago I had a long period of intense stress. It is amazing how much it changes your mind and body. Muscles contract causing all kinds of insuline problems, your hormones become a mess, and all this is raising stress levels more because you don't know what is going on in your body. And then an anxiety disorder is right around the corner. And when everything is ok again your brain produces stress hormones when…

>I think this is the most difficult part to get back to normal: The brain brings you in stress mode for no obvious reason. Then you have to reason about it so the stress goes away and you will slowly reset your brain. But I doubt the paths in the brain will ever go away. It will be like a overgrown path in the end but it is still there.

I had this. Try square breathing every time you have a stress trigger. It was almost magical in how quickly it stopped things. Basically telling my body “false alarm, stand down. Repeat, stand down and recalibrate”

Basically: trigger, hold breath, exhale for 4 seconds, inhale for four seconds, repeat if necessary, focus on breath and counting while doing it.

I would say I did this for 2-4mweeks, then didn’t have to anymore. I was well into the “everything is ok s]again” phase when I did this, had done other correctives prior. This was the finishing touch.

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#64

Post by dr_dshiv »

There are some important dimensions of stress that often get lumped together in a way that can be misleading.

First, there is good and bad stress -- eustress and distress.

Second, there is acute and chronic stress.

This study addresses acute distress -- like a car accident. As they say, it is hard to produce this in a lab study (for ethical reasons, one supposes).

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#65

Post by martin-adams »

tempguy9999 wrote: post #43
martin-adams wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me when my daughter used to wake in the middle of the night causing me to jump out of deep sleep. Doctor was useless and said I must be coming into contact with things. When my sleep was fixed, it went away. Then went though a short period of it happening again, and the rash came back.

In general contact eczema or a food intolerance would be the cause. Lack of sleep really would be unusual - I've never heard of it (though I'm not a medical person). I think slagging off your doc for making reasonable conclusions is unfair. Debugging ASM has got to be an utter picnic compared to troubleshooting humans in a short time-slot.

You're right, it is extremely unusual and I shouldn't be speaking in this way about my doctor. They do in fact do great work for the majority of cases.

Out of interest, what's ASM?

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#66

Post by [deleted] »

photonios wrote: post #56
hef19898 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst thng about that, at least for me, was that I actually liked it. I felt alert, productive, full of energy. Things moved gast and I felt on top of them, it was just great. When things changed, arguably forvthe better, I kind of wanted the previous status back. Took me quite a while to cool down again, yet I still prefer high pressure high speed environments. Funn thing is, my body felt good too. I was healthy…

I think there's a difference between high pressure environment and experiencing anxiety and stress. I've done months of work in a high pressure environment where my job and the company itself was on the line and experienced the same as you. For about four months I did nothing but work. I was laser focused, sharp and extremely productive. I was fine. I worked long days, did pretty much nothing else but work and sleep.…

[deleted]

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#67

Post by grep_name »

want2know wrote: post #40

Some time ago I had a long period of intense stress. It is amazing how much it changes your mind and body. Muscles contract causing all kinds of insuline problems, your hormones become a mess, and all this is raising stress levels more because you don't know what is going on in your body. And then an anxiety disorder is right around the corner. And when everything is ok again your brain produces stress hormones when…

Could you share any resources that helped you get past this? This is basically what my life is like all the time

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#68

Post by everdrive »

wodenokoto wrote: post #57
coldcode wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in such a period and have been for months. Stupid company demands we ship something no matter what, even though there is insufficient time to do all the work, and they keep adding more on top of it. I work 7 days a week, no vacations, hardly even a weekend day off much less a vacation. I even lost my temper at work and yelled a lot, something I never do. This is no way to do proper work either. At least what lit…

Not to add another load on your mind, but the long-term issue here is that - assuming this is a crunch that ends - you will still be heavily affected for a long time during normal, non-stress periods. It takes a long pause from stress for you mind and body to stop over-producing stress hormones. I hope you situation changes for the better soon, and when it does, remember to be mindfull of yourself and accept that eve…

Not OP, but thanks for this advice. I left a similar situation, and relaxation and re-normalization has been slow to arrive.

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#69

Post by ajt49 »

This is really interesting in terms of such an acute chemical change causing such a systemic alteration in connectivity. I can imagine if you are under stressful conditions constantly you can't truly function as these changes are constantly occurring. You could see how this would lead to ptsd, depression, other neurological conditions.

Re: What Stress Does to the Brain

#70

Post by germinalphrase »

coldcode wrote: post #55
want2know wrote: post #40

Some time ago I had a long period of intense stress. It is amazing how much it changes your mind and body. Muscles contract causing all kinds of insuline problems, your hormones become a mess, and all this is raising stress levels more because you don't know what is going on in your body. And then an anxiety disorder is right around the corner. And when everything is ok again your brain produces stress hormones when…

I am in such a period and have been for months. Stupid company demands we ship something no matter what, even though there is insufficient time to do all the work, and they keep adding more on top of it. I work 7 days a week, no vacations, hardly even a weekend day off much less a vacation. I even lost my temper at work and yelled a lot, something I never do. This is no way to do proper work either. At least what lit…

Do consider beginning the process of finding a new job.
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