 |
 |
Does Stress Disrupt Our Ability to Learn? |
I can remember a speech I had to give to an organization I worked as a trainer for many years ago. This particular speech was important, and was to be given to the entire organization. It had career implications for me and I was seriously nervous. I wanted to "nail it" so I practiced long and hard right up until the1st rehearsal day before my momentous talk. Just to be certain we had our preverbal ducks in a row, each presenter was to deliver his or her speech to their respective supervisor. I entered the hall where the speech was to be given, got up on stage, looked at my boss, and blurted out the first line of my speech, and than stopped. An embarrassing look came over my face as I realized I had forgotten the entire speech. I drew a complete blank! Somehow what I had been practicing for days was literally gone from my brain. Luckily my boss was pretty cool about it. He just shook his head and said, "just be ready tomorrow". What had happened you might be asking? Did the stress of the moment erase my memory? Is stress that powerful?
In 2005, Sabrina Kuhlmann of the University of Dusseldorf conducted experiments to determine the effects of stress on memory. She was testing to see if stress affected emotionally charged verses neutral materials. She presented test participants with a list of 30 words to memorize some with positive, some with negative and some with neutral associations. After this some of the participants were exposed to stressful situations like making a job application speech in front of a 3 person panel, or performing mental math problems in front of the panel. After some time the subjects were asked to recall their list of words. It was determined that the induced stress negatively affected the recall of the emotionally charged words, but not those words with a neutral association.
This result actually seems like it should be reversed and in fact in 2003, it was. Another experimenter, Larry Cahill (University of California, Irvine) asked 48 men and women to look at emotionally charged materials. Immediately after some of the participants were asked to submerge their hands in ice water, brrrrrrr! A week later the participants were tested and low and behold, the participants receiving the cold water shock appeared to have better recall of emotionally charged material than the control group.
In 2006, Marian Joels (University of Amsterdam) provided the key that explained the contradictory studies. Apparently what Joels had discovered was that stress facilitates memory only if it occurs at about the same time as the thing that is to be remembered. The instant plunge into ice water then solidified the emotional memory content.
But memory is only enhanced if the stress is short lived and in fact, our memories deteriorate with long term chronic stress. Initially stress focuses our attention, enhances perception and improves learning. Cortisol, the stress hormone, works to actually consolidate new memories. But if the brain's hippocampus (The part of our brain intricately involved with the consolidation of long term memory) is chronically exposed to excesses of cortisol, neurons within the hippocampus die.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Here are a couple of easy things to do to reduce stress levels.
Identify stressors in your life and eliminate them. If your old cell phone battery dies before the end of the day, don't try to live with it, get a new battery or better yet a new phone!
We don't all use them, but we'd all agree To Do Lists work! Stressed that you're not getting everything done in a day, here's a solution.
Exercise – it eliminates stress and actually grows brain cells in the hippocampus.
De-stress with relaxation techniques, meditation and yoga. Stress in our lives is a real problem and if you're not proactive about it you're allowing it to be a bigger problem.
Make a daily plan. Each morning carve out a brief time to plan your day. You'll waste less time, get more done and reduce your stress levels all at the same time.
So you might be wondering how my speech went. Very well actually. Apparently I didn't lose it all, but it did give me a momentary scare.
Source: Scientific American Mind – Sept/Oct 2011
|
|
|
 |
|
