Stress may improve your brain’s performance
Being overworked and stressed may have a positive side, say scientists who found short-lived stress primes the brain for improved performance and optimal alertness.
Researchers from University of California, Berkeley uncovered exactly how acute stress — short-lived, not chronic — primes the brain for improved performance.
“You always think about stress as a really bad thing, but it’s not. Some amounts of stress are good to push you just to the level of optimal alertness, behavioural and cognitive performance,” said Daniela Kaufer, associate professor of integrative biology at the UC Berkeley.
In studies on rats, they found that significant but, brief stressful events caused stem cells in their brains to proliferate into new nerve cells that, when mature two weeks later, improved the rats’ mental performance.
“I think intermittent stressful events are probably what keeps the brain more alert, and you perform better when you are alert,” she said.
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