Stress could lead to memory problems and disease

Everybody wants to have good memory, since it enables one to remember important facts and information. This writing is the continuation of my previous writings related to the ways of boosting one’s memory.

I’ve helped so many individual from all walks of life, students to professionals, to boost their memory. Based on my experience as a mind coach, to have good memory, not only individual must know the principles and tools of memory boosting, but one should also protects himself from chronic exposure to emotional stressor. This fact surely easy to understand since everybody must have situations when they forget the information they should remember in the moment of stress. Situation like school/university test, job interview and others alike might cause stress to individuals. Maybe you have a situation like one of my client, a university student. Often times the night before test he learned really hard. But by the time he was in the class room, having the test paper on his hand, the answers like vanished from his mind. The “miracle” happened when the test’s over, as he went out the class, all of sudden the answers came on his mind one by one. But at that time, it’s already too late since the answer sheet already submitted.

This phenomenon is what I called as “the non-technical factors” that cause student getting poor grade. It’s called non-technical because it’s not related to one’s ability on certain subject. I would say the situation where student gets poor grade 80% is caused by non-technical factors while 20% caused by technical counterpart (related to one ability on certain subject). But ironically, most students put 80% of their resources handling the technical factors while the rest 20% they use to solve the non-technical factors. This answers why the best students of the class would remain the same on every semester, as well as the worst students, regardless on how hard they’ve studied.

It’s very much important for students to be able to control his mind in responding to the stressful situation. The recent study on neuroscience also emphasis on the importance of stress management to have good memory.

Simply being prone to worry and tension can cause memory problems in old age, another recent study shows. Robert Wilson and his colleagues at Rust University Medical Center in Chicago evaluated the distress susceptibility of more than 1,000 elderly people by rating their agreement such as “I am often tense and jittery.” Over a period of up to 12 years, volunteers who were anxiety-prone had a 40 percent higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment than more easygoing individual did. Mild cognitive impairment is thought to be a precursor for Alzheimer’s.

Brain autopsies on participants who have died did not turn up evidence of neurofibrillary tangles or any of the other knows features indicative of Alzheimer’s, Wilson says. But the thinks it is possible that chronic distress gradually compromises memory systems, ultimately rendering a person more vulnerable to the physical changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s.