How can we improve our mental health after the stress of the pandemic

Chronic stress can also alter the frontal cortex, the executive brain control center, and the amygdala, the area of ​​fear and anxiety. Too much glucocorticoid over time can damage excessive connections both in the frontal cortex and between it and the amygdala. As a result, the prefrontal cortex loses the ability to control the amygdala, leaving the center of fear and anxiety out of control. This pattern of brain activity (excessive action in the amygdala and insufficient communication with the prefrontal cortex) is common in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), another condition that has occurred during the pandemic. especially among primary health care workers.

Social isolation caused by pandemics can also be detrimental to the structure and function of the brain. He has been associated with loneliness reduced volume in the hippocampus and amygdala, as well decreased connectivity in the prefrontal cortex. Perhaps not surprisingly, people who lived alone during the pandemic had higher rates of depression and anxiety.

Eventually, the damage done to these areas of the brain affects them not only emotionally but also cognitively. Many psychologists have attributed the impact of chronic brain pandemic to stress on the frontal cortex, which can impair concentration and working memory.

Time to go back

That’s bad news. The pandemic hit our brains hard. These negative changes ultimately lead to a decrease in stress-induced neuroplasticity: loss of cells and synapses rather than new growth. But don’t despair; there is good news. For many people, the brain itself can regain its plasticity after the stress is gone. If life begins to return to normal, so will our brains.

“In many cases, the changes that occur with chronic stress are actually reduced over time,” says James Herman, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Cincinnati. “At the brain level, you can see that a lot of these negative effects are reversed.”

In other words, when your routine returns to its pre-pandemic state, so should your brain. Stress hormones will go back as vaccines continue and anxiety about dying from a new virus (or killing someone else) will calm down. And when you dare to go back into the world, all the little things that once made you happy or challenged you in a good way will do it again, helping your brain fix those lost connections that were once created by these behaviors. For example, just as social isolation is bad for the brain, social interaction is especially good for it. People with larger social networks have a higher volume connections in prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and other brain regions.

Even if you don’t feel like socializing again yet, maybe push yourself a little. Don’t do anything unsafe, but there is an aspect to treating some mental illness “until you get a fake”. In clinical terms, it is called behavioral activation, which also emphasizes getting out and doing things if you want. At first, you may not feel the same feelings of joy or fun as when you went to a bar or backyard for a barbecue, but if you continue with this, these activities will start to get easier and can help increase feelings of depression. .

Rebecca Price, an associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, said behavioral activation can work by enriching your environment, scientists know growth of new brain cells, at least in animal models. “Your brain will react to the environment you present in it, so when you’re stuck alone in the house if you’re uncultivated and unenriched, that will probably result in some reductions in the available pathways,” he says. “If you create a richer environment, you have more input, interaction and more possible stimuli [your brain] he will answer that. ”So get off the couch and go see a museum, a botanical garden, or an outdoor concert. Your brain will thank you.

Physical exercise it can also help. Chronic stress exhausts levels An important chemical called neurotrophic factor (BDNF) derived from the brain that helps promote neuroplasticity. Without BDNF, the brain is less able to repair or replace cells and connections that are lost as a result of chronic stress. Physical exercise levels increase BDNF, especially in the hippocampus and frontal cortex, which at least partially explains why physical exercise can boost cognition and mood.

BDNF not only helps to grow new synapses, it can help generate new neurons in the hippocampus. For decades, scientists thought that human neurogenesis stopped after adolescence, but recent researchhas shown signs of neuronal growth until aging (although the problem still persists competed hard). Whether or not it works through neurogenesis, physical exercise has been shown time and time again to improve people’s mood, attention, and cognition; some therapists also promise to treat depression and anxiety. It’s time to get out of there and start sweating.

Go to treatment

It changes how people’s brains recover from stress and trauma and not everyone will bounce back so easily from the pandemic.

“Some people seem to be more vulnerable to getting into a chronic situation where they are stuck in something like depression or anxiety,” Price says. In these situations, therapy or medication is needed.

Some scientists believe that psychotherapy for depression and anxiety works at least to some extent altering brain activity, and shooting the brain into new models is the first step in winding up new models. A review the paper when psychotherapy of different anxiety disorders was evaluated, the treatment was effective in people who showed more activity in the weeks preceding therapy after a few weeks before therapy, especially when the area was under control over the fear center of the brain.

Other researchers are trying to change people’s brain activity through video games. Adam Gazzaley, a professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, developed the first brain training game that received FDA approval for its ability to treat children with ADHD. The game is also shown improve attention among adults. Moreover, EEG studies showed greater functional connectivity associated with the anterior cortex, suggesting a boost in neuroplasticity in the region.

Now Gazzaley wants to use the game to treat people with pandemic brain fog. “We believe there is a perfect opportunity in terms of exclusive recovery here,” he says. “I think it can be expanded as a care system [mental health] the conditions and symptoms that people suffer, especially because of the secret. “