How Does Chronic Stress Affect the Brain?
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Many of us drink (or drank!) to cope with stress. It feels like alcohol helps, but then we get stuck in a situation where we don't learn any tools to cope with real life problems. Stress is a normal part of life, but chronic stress can actually change the brain. Normally, the prefrontal cortex works to control our emotions and impulses, and help us think through our decisions. When the brain is constantly stressed though and filled with extra cortisol, changes occur.
Stress activates the amygdala, which controls emotions like fear and anxiety and our fight or flight response. When this is repeatedly activated through chronic stress, it gets stronger. The brain has to compensate when one area gets overactive to stay in balance, so the prefrontal cortex starts to get weaker and less energy is devoted to thinking things through and controlling our emotions.
In other words….
Less thinking things through, regulating our emotions, controlling impulses (prefrontal cortex)
More anxiety, overwhelm, stress, and living in survival mode (amygdala)
This just creates a cycle where it's even easier to drink to cope with stress because the part of the brain that helps us make good decisions and take care of future us is being weakened by chronic stress.
Everyone knows chronic stress is bad, but did you know that chronic stress can actually change your brain? And just like everything else we talk about, it can change the brain in ways that makes it easier to be stressed or to turn to something like alcohol to attempt to cope. In this episode you’ll learn what chronic stress does to the brain, results from the 2022 Stress in America Survey, and how you can turn some bad stress into good stress.
What to listen to next:
E119: Why We Can't Cope
E67: How Alcohol Impacts Cortisol and Causes Cravings
E22: Why You Think Alcohol Helps Your Anxiety
E64: Anxiety and Alcohol (Part 2)
Sources
American Institute of Stress, American Psychiatric Association. Stress in America Survey 2022.
Harvard Medical School. Protect your brain from stress. 2021.
Michael A. van der Kooij, et al. Role for MMP-9 in stress-induced downregulation of nectin-3 in hippocampal CA1 and associated behavioural alterations. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 4995
Cite this episode
Tietz, G. Episode 120: How Does Chronic Stress Affect the Brain? Sober Powered. 2022.
