Brain Fitness Tip of the Week: Stress

Focus on stress. Our own, and many other researchers’ work, has shown that stress has a negative relation to memory. Stress may affect how well you can pay attention, and the chemicals it increases in our body (sometimes called stress hormones) may have a negative impact on your body. Whatever the cause, stress has a negative effect on your ability to remember what you want to remember.

What to do? First, check out your stress level. Do you often feel tense, worried, and jumpy? Stress might be the reason. How often do you feel out of control, or as though events have gotten away from you? Those are the sorts of experiences that make for increased stress. People sometimes forget that we adapt to stressors, so that after some time we may not even notice how stressed we are.

Simple ways to control stress include mental “time outs,” relaxation, and exercise. Mental “time outs” mean simply taking a few minutes once or twice a day to shift gears. Stop the headlong rush through the day for just a few minutes. Do something else for 10 minutes, but be sure that you take a few seconds to breathe and mentally shift gears. Still better, practice relaxation for 15 minutes twice a day. Simply sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and focus on relaxing the muscles of your body from your head to your feet. Finally, exercise five times a week. It doesn’t mean that you have to go to a gym and lift weights or train for a marathon. Just walking 30 minutes can make a difference

The most important things are to notice your stress level and make a plan for dealing with it. Your memory will thank you.