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With chronic stress, that stockpile ends up around the midsection, in the form of a spare tire. This is detrimental not only to our physique, but also to our health, because fat stores can easily make their way into the arteries of the heart and cause blockage. For anyone skeptical of the notion that stress can kill, herein lies one of the physical links between stress and heart attacks.
It also helps explain why constantly high levels of cortisol—due to chronic stress—make it hard to learn new material, and why people who are depressed have trouble learning. It’s not just lack of motivation, it’s because the hippocampal neurons have bolstered their glutamate machinery and shut out less important stimuli. They’re obsessed with the stress.
This is where the ripple effects of the body’s stress response can lead to full-blown mental disorders such as anxiety and depression, as well as high blood pressure, heart problems, and cancer. Chronic stress can even tear at the architecture of the brain.
on the repetition of unhealthy patterns
Today, I wanted to write a tinyletter. I send tinyletters only when I cannot bring myself to publish my thoughts in public. These are far and few in between: since writing the first…