Stressbusting

I had stopped by work on a day off recently when a man appeared in the doorway, eyes downcast, asking for a food parcel. It was his first time to visit us and he was humiliated. I welcomed him in and reassured him that we were happy to help out. His shy and nervous demeanour relaxed as we chatted and I eventually prompted him to share his situation while he picked out some food to tide him over until his disability payment came through.

This man used to have a decent job, a fun life, and lots of friends. He worked in the music industry so there were lots of late nights making music and singing. His craft was his passion. Slowly and steadily the demands and accusations of high maintenance musicians wore down his protective veneer, and he had a mental breakdown. The diagnosis, as he put it, was schizophrenic tendencies. Triggered by stress. Can you imagine that turn of events in your life? If you knew that excessive and prolonged stress would trigger schizophrenia or other mental health disorders, would you initiate any changes?

From a post in Forbes Magazine in October last year, David DiSalvo reports that 'stress, no matter its cause, alters brain circuitry in ways that can have long term effects on mental health...traumatic events appear to cause depression by derailing the brain's so called reward system, which normally causes pleasurable feelings whenever we engage in fun activities like spending time with friends...stress also causes the release of chemicals that impair the function of the prefrontal cortex, home of higher level thinking...acute stress mutes our reflective tendencies, leading to everything from anxiety to aggression to depression.'

Curious about the possible link between stress and schizophrenia, I visited schizophrenia.com and discovered this: 'These lines of research are converging: brain development disruption is now known to be the result of genetic predisposition and environmental stressors early in development (during pregnancy or early childhood), leading to subtle alterations in the brain that make a person susceptible to developing schizophrenia.' There is a whole lot of cool information at the website if you are interested,  just travel via the link above.

What really intrigued me, though, is this: 'research has now shown that children's and teen's brains are very sensitive to stress (up to 5 to 10 times more sensitive than adult brains) and can be damaged by frequent or ongoing stress. ... This stress-related brain damage can greatly increase risk for many types of mental illness later in life.' (sourced from the same article listed above)

There will be more about mental health in our civilised first world in a coming blog because it's a growing concern, but before I sign off I would like to share an interesting bit of information: people with the genetic predisposition for schizophrenia had a 1000% increase in their risk of developing the illness if they smoked marijuana!! If that is your fallback choice to alleviate stress, you may want to try something else. And if your children get stressed a lot, consider finding ways to help them handle it. Their brains continue to grow until they are 25 years old, and while they are amazingly adaptable and capable, able to regenerate and learn quickly, it would be great to fortify them with a solid foundation to handle stress easily as they travel down the road to independence.