How stress affects your brain - Madhumita Murgia 

Yay now I'm stressed about my stress.

And then parents wonder why their stressed children have a harder time to learn stuff...

I burst into tears watching this. I was always a very productive person, an A and B student as a child, read many books, was very confident in my knowledge, knew how to share and express my ideas clearly and confidently, did not stutter, bullies couldn't get to me...I'm not that person anymore...and seeing what my brain could look like now...it's really hard. I always put so much work into learning and expanding my knowledge. I don't know if I could ever be who I was before again. I don't know if I could even limit the damage that's still being made. Every time I take a step forward, I'm sucked back into the same whirl again somehow. I want to exercise and meditate and read and grow again, but I feel so tied up sometimes. I don't know. I want to so bad. It looks so easy when other people do it. I don't know why the simplest of things are so hard for me.

I drank alcohol every day for three years straight. I worked too much. Failed relationships. And depressed. I ended up homeless for a few weeks in a foreign country, with no money. The only way I recovered from all that stress was to go back to my mom and stay in my room for months on end. I had to remove myself from all the things I experienced as stressful. These days I feel so much stronger and healthier. If you're going through a lot, always remember it's not too late for you.

See mom, I told you school was killing us all.

this channel has become a class I never payed for, but learned a lot from.. thank you

This explains so much about my decreased memory, learning and overall cognition. If this doesn’t scare you into making changes I don’t know what will!

I suffered severe anxiety, stress disorders several years ago. Was actually addicted to alcohol. Also suffered mental disorder and cptsd. Not until my wife recommended me to psilocybin mushrooms treatment. Psilocybin treatment saved my life honestly. 8 years totally clean. Never thought I would be saying this about mushrooms.

Child deserves a loving parent for their mental well being.

I'm scared I don't want a smaller brain help

As someone going through massive amounts of stress this made me wanna cry ...but there's always hope

I find it so helplessly when someone say "take control of your problem", or "it's in your hands to change your life". I'm stressed and depressed because of the very fact that I can't cope with my problems anymore, I find life so overwhelming that it makes me want to give up.

Huh..... I'm seriously screwed

How did you know I was going through so much stress? I feel like I cannot even relax without guilt.

shrooms completely changed my whole life. I became a better version of myself This experience gave me a lot of confidence about myself and my body. A bunch of bad thought/behavior patterns were broken. One of these were pretty bad OCD that made me wash my hands a lot. It gave me a lot of hope that thing will be fine, this is one thing that I heard throughout the trip; Everything is alright. The main reason for the trip was my severe depression and it definitely helped me(although it's not gone). Before all I could do was lay in bed. Now I am trying to rebuild my life one step at a time which wasn't possible before.

Stress has taken control of me 3 years already Results: no reaction to my surroundings Never care of surroundings Easy to forget things

I wish I experienced a caring and concerned parent when I was a kid

"Get in control of your stress, before it takes control of you" easier said than done.

You can’t imagine the relief I felt when I learned that it’s fixable and manageable. Thanks for the great content ❤️🙏🏻

now i'm just mourning the things i've done to my brain as i've been stressed for so long. but!!! a reminder to those that feel like this too! we can heal our bodies and our brains. it's never too late

I'm going to cry, this made me even more stressed.

I think having well educated and understanding parents is the most important for a well developed brain

I can't take it anymore

Psychedelics have potential to deal with mental health issues like anxiety and depression. I would like to try them again

My 7 ways to reduce stress: 1. Get your sleep cycle in order. This means going to bed early and having a full 7 to 8 hours of sound sleep. Trust me, you will feel refreshed when you wake up. 2. Prioritize. Do things first which needs your attention the most. 3. Do not multitask. Our brains aren't designed to multitask, so stop doing it already and focus your attention on one work at one time. You'll perform much better this way. 4. Be a little conscientious. Try to keep your room tidy and things arranged properly. 5. Have a list of daily achievable goals and try to get those completed on the same day. 6. Keep away from social media as much as you can. Social media is like junk food for your brain. 7. Be thankful for what you have. If you are reading this, trust me you are truly lucky and have much more resources at your disposal than at least half of the world's population.

this video made me stressed about whether I have stress and therefore am indeed stressed

I really liked this video, it helps to structure more knowledge about stress, its effect on the body and methods of avoiding it. These include 1. Get your sleep cycle in order. This means going to bed early and sleeping 7-8 hours. 2. You don't need to do multiple tasks at the same time. 3. Do not perform multiple tasks at the same time. 4. Use social media as little as possible. 5. Make a list of daily achievable goals and try to achieve them on the same day. 6. Spend more time in the fresh air 7. Be grateful for what you have.

To anyone who reads this: There is no limit for your dreams and your happiness.Just don't let yourself down and Always be a fan of yours. Uplift your energy level,whether or not everything is all right. make time for your mental health and bring peace to your seconds. You are the one who can do anything you imagine💪🏼Keep it up and remember how amazing you are❤

Highschool: *imma pretend I didn’t see that*

Stress has really destroyed me. I'm a walking testament to how prolonged stress and anxiety are serious illnesses, although they're brushed off by society. Ever since I entered this stressful phase in my life, I saw various physical and mental functionalities. For starters, I lost *so* much hair. I probably have 1/10 the hair I used to have. I developed IBS and ulcers. My face looks aged/tired. Mentally, I'm much worse; I get panic attacks for the simplest, stupidest reasons. I'm rarely happy. I forget everything, my long term/ short term memory is shit. I can hardly sleep at night. I get headaches often. With all these negative effects, I feel as though I would have damaged my body much less had I smoked weed or cigarettes. As horrible as smoking is, I feel that it would have alleviated stress, and whatever damage smoking would have caused would't be anywhere near as bad as what stress has caused. I hate myself for having done so much irreparable damage to my body. Although most of the blame is on my shoulders, I partly blame society for treating stress as if it weren't a serious issue, and placing expectations that force people into this horrible state of mind.

This video has changed my life for the better. Please accept my immense gratitude for sharing this! 💛 In the past 5 hours that I've been researching the affect stress and the menstrual cycle I've learned more than in my whole lifetime (I'm in my late 20’s).

I feel sad watching this, it's like every single word he's talking is "me, me, me and me..."

Start accepting things. Stop trying to control everything. Acceptance is the great beginning of a stress free life. Tested and proved 100%. Adopt a "if this happens to me is okay. I accept it and I keep going" believe me.

God please help me

Up until 2020, I was a person who's very organized and productive. Also very attentive towards my studies and goals. I had a clear vision and life motto then. I also exercised and meditated everyday back then. But this stress got me real good and now I can't focus, keep forgetting things, and lost that clear vision of life I had back then. Now I've become a procrastinator. It was all because of stress. Now I'm thinking of getting back on track.

In short You're dying slowly. I can feel that.

Because of this video I started running ( 3:29 ), and now 2 months later I completed my first 5K race, and feel very cheerful and strong. Also I'm back to practicing Vipassana meditation. Thank you very much.

This video made me cry. It is so well made, but it also told me that my brain was literally shrinking.

Stressed about stressing out makes me stressed tf serious glad to read im not alone

*when quitting your job or college is the only known cure for your chronic stress* :)

how do i tell my parents that they’re shortening my life span and decreasing my quality of life with the way they treat me when they’ve normalized that type of behavior for years?

So now I realised that I suffer from Chronic Stress and it literally has started to affect me in many ways, both physical and mental. Like I've this constant fear of failing and I overthink a lot like "letting go" is very difficult. I saw this video and I realized what damage I'm doing to myself by taking unnecessary stress. So TED-ED thank you so much for putting out this video. I will try my best to be a better person

Definitely one of the best videos I've seen on RU-vid! Will watch again, several times.

This is true. For the last 4 years I was stuck in a stressful job and it affected my brain. Now I get anxious for no reason, I cant focus on stuff and easily get distracted, I cant even learn new things easily now, I cant easily remember someone's name whom I worked with a year ago. I was not like that, I was a quick learner before and I had very good memory.

I used to be depressed and extremely stressed when I was younger due to homework, exams and other things in life. I started to jog to see if that would change anything, and honestly, it helped me out quite an amount until I stopped after I got better (and lazy/lesser time to jog around.) I still am stressed from assignments now, but I can cope a little better. :) Edit: wow, it’s been 2 years and I just happened to receive a notif to this comment. TLDR: Things are better now compared with before in some aspects. Confidence and self-love went up, haven’t exercised as much, and will be going to soon. Not exercising, makes me feel so sluggish. It’s not bad, but I miss the times where I was more motivated and active, really. I hope everyone figures out a way to destress. Going out on a walk and being out in nature is nice. Go to the park and walk, take in the fresh air. It’s good for you, truly. Doesn’t make you feel boxed in or trapped, in my experience. I’ve been doing much better than I was when I was younger. Two years ago, I was more emotional and erratic with how I reacted, etc. I worked out at a gym for a few months until covid hit, and the gyms were closed because of it. I tried to maintain my diet/macros/calories and worked out at home, but with classes and my lack of motivation/preference to work out at the gym, I soon stopped. Fortunately, once the gyms were back, I immediately went back- but to my demise, my pt was switched because the gym didn’t pay him as much due to covid and so he left. During covid, I became more self-aware and realised I had gastric/stomach issues, even up till today, I still have acid reflux, heart burns, etc etc. it was worse during covid but it’s much better now. I’m still learning to take care of myself, but I have been wanting to get back into working out. I feel so sluggish after not working out for so long, even after my trail at the gym was completed, I tried to maintain but I wasn’t/am not as motivated as I was two years ago. I was so keen and active back then, but now I’ve accepted myself for who and what I am, and yet, I still feel pressured by my family and myself- to get back to being healthier. And I do want to, but it is very easily for me to lose motivation if I excessively start off strong or burn out too quickly from so much effort. This time, I’m trying to start slow and build it up with consistency; something I’ve never truly had for long periods of time. I recommend going out, have some peace-walks/walks without using your phone all the time (but keep it there in case of emergencies, idk, up to you,) and just take in deep breaths, and remind yourself that a lot of the times, our problems are short-term and temporary and we can always get through it, somehow. It’ll be in the past at some point, so don’t push yourself too hard and be sure to take a break from work or studies every now and then. I should do the same too. :) thanks

I love this video to teach my clients about the physiological impacts of stress. While I also understand the impact of parenting on stress responses, I have clients with nurturing parents who still have children that face excess anxiety. I wish I could share this video with them without including the part about contributions of the mother. Some of my more sensitive parents already carry guilt over the feeling of responsibility for their children's anxieties and that doesn't help. Also, while understanding the relationship of how stress responses are nurtured in early childhood, some of my clients don't need an excuse as to why they feel the way they do, providing them a target to point at and blame rather than one to aim for and seek healing. Man I wish that part of the video could be edited out. I really love the neuroscience of this video otherwise.

thx for teaching me about stress and ptsd

Well watching this was fucking stressful

Constant stress because of school, stress because of friends/fights and neglecting father in my childhood probably gave me depression.

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” ―William James

Me whenever a bad thing happens "Ah anything can be solved just kill mysel-" Good to know that til now I'm still exist

I need a hug! Exercise, meditation.. yeah, yeah, yeah, I want the loving caring hugs. Then we'll talk exercise and meditation.

This video makes me a teary-eyed while watching

I like how there are people like trying to improve humanity, thank you so much 💗, keep it up

This video is so well explained. Thank you!

I'm a student and the fact is that i suffer from concentration issues, decision and judgement problems and learning new things as quickly as i used to be able to. stress is a bitch. i literally always have a problem...

This has made me more stressed.

Thanks for making this insightful video. Even I haven't been cared much from my parents, I had a chance to know how I can care myself to stop epigenetics changes which can expressed through generations to generations.

This is one of the most concise and well explained video on this topic. Thanks

this made me cry when i saw the rat alone

After years of dealing with anxiety and depression, and now finally being able to somewhat come out of that dark place...I can now see how it has affected me drastically. I am not able to respond fast in conversations, and my focus on detail has worsen. I wish I could have gotten help sooner

Incrivelmente maravilhoso e esclarecerdor!!!!! Neuropedagogos agradecem :)

I love myself so much...I know that I'm kind & sensitive but so many traumatic stressful accident happend to me...I send myself all the love that i have... i love myself ..i pray for my healing..and all you who are kind sensitive and stressed out, i love you so much...take my love......be fine.💕

Thanks mom, thanks dad for mentally fucking me up so much that I am unable to find a job, or a girlfriend, stick to a goal, lose weight, find a purpose, and lead any kind of meaningful life whatsoever. My most repeated recent activities include curling up in a fetal position and smoking two packs a day. I often ask myself a question why am I even here? I don't matter to anyone. I don't even matter to myself. I'm overweight, stressed out, anxious, socially awkward, possibly borderline, ocd, lazy, unmotivated, unhealthy, depressed, overly attached to this one girl who doesn't want me and abandoned me, cant cope with it, cant cope with anything negative really. Watching youtube videos about self help all day long has no effect. I kniw every piece of advice under the sun on how to get better. Whatever I do I'm not getting better. I tried all of it. I cant stick with anything either. I feel worthless, disposable, imprisoned, hurt, sick and useless. I have no sense of self, no direction, no boundaries, no idea how many things are wrong with me because there are so many that I cant keep up with it. My friends dont care, my family doesnt care, my parents dont care. Nobody cares. My genes are literally designed to be mercilessly weeded out of the gene pool. Why do I even wrote this? Do I really think that someone will give a fuck? Do I want to get attention? What for? Will it bring me happiness? Will I get a sense of importance for a moment? Is that what this is all about? It's all about whys. Why am I here. Why here. Why in this body. Why am I so screwed up. Why dont I have a girlfriend. Why is everything so hard to deal with. Why cant I take care of myself. Why do I feel like a victim. Why do I feel so weak. Why did I overeat for past 20 years. Why is nothing the way its supposed to be. Why? Why nobody seems to have satisfying answers to these kinds of questions??? WHY

As someone who suffered extreme anxiety and chronic stress often to the point of being physically sick for 2 years this video made a lot sense. Although there hasn’t been human trials, the study about the effect of neglect at infancy rings true to me so I’m glad it was included in the video

Stress kills...

Why did this make me cry with passion

As someone with anxiety disorder, this video is stressing me out.

Stress exists: *I'm going to end this man's whole career*

My brain is permanently damaged from stress. Had a massive breakdown 3 years due to stress and alcohol, damn couldn’t sleep and was having these terrible night panics were adrenaline was just coursing through my body. Some receptors were clearly burnt out in that whole episode as I have had derealisation since. Just wish I quit my job and stopped drinking instead of trying to soldier through it.

I liked this video. Thanks to him, I learned a lot more about stress, how it occurs and what methods can be used to avoid stress. It is interesting to know that stress is not only bad but also good. We need to find out in what situations we experience positive emotions during stress))

I hate society it is clear that people are overworked and stressed out about numerous things, but jobs and school are like "ARE THE NUMBERS DOING GOOD?!?!? NO? THEN LEAVE!!!!! WE WILL REPLACE YOU WITH ANOTHER PERSON OR A ROBOT JUST TO PROVE HOW WORTHLESS YOU ARE! Oh wait the numbers are doing good? okay are you stressed? why are you stressed be thankful for what you have NOW GET BACK TO WORK GOTTA KEEP THOSE NUMBERS GOING UP!" Basically every job and school system ever.

This video stressed me out.. I just felt my brain shrinking.

Sleep is extremely important to deal with stress. There are a few tools that help minimize stress ... great presentation.

Im glad i discovered this video, just last year i was always hyped about learning things when i was in school but after some stuff i constantly felt a heavy pressure on my head, but after the incident, my head felt insanely light to the point where i lost myself and only this year i realized i was really slow to understand and learn compared to previously, so thank god i discovered this.

To everyone that's becoming anxious over the video (and I'm definitely one of them), remember to breathe. Just take a deep breath. And then another one. And another. Stress is a lot harder when we give into it. So eat when you're hungry even if it's just a bite, drink water when you're thirsty even if it's just a sip, leave the lights on to sleep if you have to. It's a process, but each instance that you're kinder to yourself makes it easier.

I recommend soft jogging, bird watching, and stretching somewhere in local nature alone and if headphones make you feel comfortable try lyric-less instrumental music.

Exercise is an excellent way to alleviate stress. The problem in my case is that due to ongoing illegal entries in my locked, rented room, my personal belongings are getting stolen/destroyed ! Thus, forcing me to carry multiple bags of paperwork, computers, and other items with me. In addition, because my vehicle was vandalized, I have no where to store these items, even if I tried to go for a run or a bicycle ride. Last, to make matters worse, the gaslighting and lies of those who may be involved in this is abundant. However, the truth is eventually revealed and those responsible, will be held accountable. In order for my stress to decrease, I need justice and financial restitution ..like yesterday !

I feel more stressed knowing how it's affecting me

Well that explains a lot why memories have deteriorated over the past months.

The part about the rats and how nurturing and caring parents can make a difference for several generations is probably the most important in the whole video. Exercising and meditating can only do so much for you, the only long-term help for this issue is genuine affection and strong social/familial bonds.

A huge thanks to all the Ted-ed members for creating all those wonderful lessons. It not only creates awareness but also gives hope for a new beginning in life. I ❤️ Ted-ed.

I want to share three tips that help me deal with stress myself. * Stress can cause anxiety. So try this: First, recognize that some stress is inevitable. Fretting over things you cannot prevent increases your stress. Second, understand that quite often things do not turn out the way we may fear they will. * Be modest, set reasonable standards, and know both your limitations and those of others. When you do this, you will reduce stress all around and even encourage greater success. Also, keep a sense of humor. When you laugh​-even when something goes wrong-​you relieve tension and brighten your mood. * play chess and solve chess puzzles. If you want to play with me, write me, I will be very happy!

Living in a stressed household with a stressed mom, I can now see why I am how I am. Jesus helped deliver me from my stress. I'm praying for you all

I blame my mum for teaching me from an early age to react to things in a stressful manner. It's her natural state but sadly, she has passed it on to me. I'll never let her know though.

This video is useful for me because I learned new information about stress. Stress can be good or bad. Good stress helps you win the competition. Bad stress has a negative effect on the functioning of the brain. During stress, the harmonic kartisol is produced. I think it is important to know about stress because I find myself in stressful situations sometimes. It is also important to control stress.

The narrator has a very calming voice which made me feel calm about my stress

Yes it's called highschool

being at home and school stressed me.out so much.I would start crying to myself...all the.time

6 years ago,when you posted this i was stress free. Now i have no other chance cause of my medicines and real life tragedies. I'm trying my best

This video help me so much in understanding my situation. Thank you so much TED-Ed

I remember basically nothing about this video, that’s how I know I’m stressed

You guys should put sources in the description.

Feeling overwhelmed and isolated Constantly stressed (usually everyday) Fatigue even right after working out Forgetting small things Shaking and sobbing without crying I’m scared and sad and I hate when negative, unwanted thoughts feel out of my control

Watching this while bursting into tears 😃

This is exactly what I've been looking for!! I was trying to figure out why I cannot understand simple sentences and my efficiency at work dropped dramatically. Everything seems to be to difficult for me :-(. I feel tiried all the time not mentioning that it also impacts my relationships with others.

High school has already given me clinical severe depression and anxiety ooooof

The thing is, with my schedule I can not even afford to stress less. And when I attempt at doing so, I lose my motivation pretty fast. When I see people giving advices to “reduce stress”, I often see “sleep more, over 7-8 hours” as one of first points, but I’m so stressed and scared something will happen that I can’t fall asleep for a long time every single day and all I’m doing is getting worse

Fighting stressors and anxieties instead of running from it helps, like mine was revealing some things about myself that wasn’t that deep. Talking and expressing yourself/thoughts sounds cliche, but it makes a huge difference I promise.

It's amazing how much mental stimuli can affect us physically. Stress runs rampant these days, but there are ways to manage it when you understand what's going on in your brain!