Healthy Brain Fitness Tip # 5
Minimize Stress
Dr. Robert Sapolsky, a renowned Stanford neurobiologist,
explained the dangers of stress in his book
Why Zebra’s Don’t Get Ulcers.
The zebras are busy eating grass until a lion starts chasing them. Then
the zebras go crazy, running all over the place, until the lion kills
a zebra. Believe it or not, after that, all of the other zebras relax
and go back to grazing while the lion eats his dinner right next to
them.
The problem with humans is we don’t discharge our stress by running
like crazy or relaxing after a stressful event. We just sit around and
stew in our stress juices.
One of these juices is a hormone called cortisol. Unfortunately, besides
causing or contributing to over 95% of all illness, chronic exposure
to cortisol shrinks your brain.
Dr. Sapolsky has shown that cortisol damages brain cells in the hippocampus
- one of the memory centers in our brain. We can’t avoid stress,
so we must learn to discharge its effects every day.
Go to a yoga class, learn tai qi, get a massage, make love, go for a
jog, play with your children, take a walk in the woods, watch a sunset,
but whatever you do, don’t just stew in your stress juices!