- [Voiceover] Okay, so current literature suggests that
the two areas of our brain with
the most glucocorticoid receptors
are the hippocampus and the frontal cortex.
This is the hippocampus, right here.
The hippocampus is the area of our brain
that's associated with learning
and with memory
This is frontal cortex.
That's in the front part of our brain and that's really
the human part of the brain responsible for things
like impulse control control and judgment
and planning and reasoning.
Remember that glucocorticoids are
major stress hormones like cortisol.
These parts of the brain are getting lit up
during times of stress.
The mechanism for stress-related damage
is still fairly unclear but we do see atrophy,
which means damage or death,
of the neurons in these areas
that follow increased stress in rats and monkeys.
Now that we have less invasive brain scans,
we see that in humans as well.
It follows that if these parts of the brain
are damaged because of an overabundance of stress,
that the effects of stress can play out
in our emotional and behavioral responses.
One of the major emotional effects
of stress is depression.
We're going to learn in future videos
about stress coping and management,
that a great way to combat the negative outcomes
of stress is to think lightheartedly
or through optimism.
That's actually what makes depression such an awful disease
for stress to contribute towards,
because the main symptom of depression is anhedonia,
which is the inability to feel pleasure.
Clinically speaking, depression's certainly validated
by biology because parts of the brain,
specifically the anterior cingulate,
which is the inner part of the frontal cortex here,
stop making and responding to serotonin,
making us feel gloomy.
The damage is compounded by the fact
that without good serotonin response
we perceive more stressors.
While we're feeling gloomy, we perceive more stressors.
A great term describing the relationship
between chronic stress and major depression
is "learned helplessness."
"Learned helplessness" essentially means that you learn,
from having the control ripped out of your hands,
that you don't have control,
and this leads you to take less and less control
of your life.
You lose the ability to identify coping mechanisms
and to respond to your stress
because you're taking less control over your life
and the outcomes of your life,
and this cycle just continues downwards
into major depression.
Major depression is one the major emotional effects
of chronic stress in our life.
Another major emotional and behavioral effect
of stress on our lives is anger.
Anger is an emotional and behavioral effect of stress.
Our understanding of stress impact on behavior
in psychology in based on a classic study
by Meyer Friedman and Ray Rosenman.
They were testing the notion that stress is associated
with increased vulnerability to heart disease,
which is something that we talked about
in the physical effect of stress video.
As a part of the assessment,
they interviewed the participants and categorized them
as Type A
and Type B.
Type A were those reactive, aggressive, competitive,
easily-angered individuals,
and then the easier-going participants
were considered Type B.
It turns out that the majority of those participants
over nine years that suffered from heart attacks
had been considered Type A.
The studies that followed and clarified this study
determined that the real toxic component
of Type A personality was this prone
to hostility and anger.
We mentioned that stress initiates
the fight-or-flight response
and anger naturally accompanies that fight part,
so anger is often a behavioral response to stress.
We have anger and we also have anxiety.
Anxiety as another major emotional effect of chronic stress.
This centers around another part of our limbic system
in our brains, which is the amygdala.
This area right here is the amygdala.
The amygdala has a lot to do
with our fears and our phobias,
so it fits in perfectly with this response system to stress.
What I just connected was that the anger response
to stress connects to the fight part
of that sympathetic response.
What naturally accompanies the flight aspect?
Well, fear does.
With the "flight" response we have fear.
As you perceive stressors, it's like you're
working out your amygdala muscle,
and you perceive more things as fearful,
which increases your anxiety.
The last big, major, emotional and behavioral effect
of stress that I want to talk about
in this video is addiction.
That's nice, we have three "A" words.
When searching for coping mechanisms to stress,
there are a lot of really great, healthy options
but there are also a lot of really terrible options.
For example, alcohol is often abused,
especially by men as a coping mechanism,
and it's associated with high rates of addiction.
Similarly, many people become addicted to tobacco
or illicit drugs as a coping mechanism to stress.
Something that compounds the relationship
between stress and addiction is the impairment
to the frontal cortex, that area that we showed earlier.
That frontal cortex, again, is associated
with reasoning and planning, so impaired judgment
can increase the likelihood of becoming consumed
by these inappropriate coping mechanisms with addiction.
There are many emotional and many behavioral effects
of stress but these are kind of the big four areas,
four kind of negative behavioral outcomes
that often accompany chronic stress in our life.