2020: A Bad Year For Your Brain?

By Julie Russell, MA

On a global level, this has been a year of extraordinary change to daily life, an historic period during which humankind connected through a collective state of worry, isolation, and adaptation to the spread of the COVID-19 virus. While many have been directly affected by the virus, there are many more who live in fear that they will become personally affected before adequate treatment is available.

In addition to these worries about the virus, many families face significant stress related to:

• job security or loss
• managing working from home and remote schooling for children
• marital discord
• lack of social engagement with friends and loved ones
• poor quality sleep
• changes to eating habits
• disrupted exercise routines
• excessive screen time
• distress from headlines of political and social unrest

Taken together, these life stressors and lifestyle changes may be taking a significant toll on many people’s physical, psychological, and cognitive health.

How This Affects Your Brain

When life stressors and lifestyle changes co-occur and persist, it causes excessive release of stress hormones that can lead to inflammation in the body, which can eventually spread to the brain and adversely affect multiple domains of cognitive function1. Hormonal changes associated with chronic stress along with inflammation in the brain can impact both the reward-related brain regions that result in reduced motivation and loss of pleasure2 and reduced volume of the region of the brain involved in learning and memory3. This can result in noticeable difficulty concentrating, planning, problem-solving, reasoning, and making decisions, which then feeds an unrelenting cycle of increased anxiety and depression, and continues the release of stress hormones that maintains inflammatory processes1,2,3.

The stress response can manifest very differently on an individual level, but many will report symptoms such as headache, increased pain in the body, gastrointestinal changes, weight change, increased blood pressure, fatigue, irritability, and clouded thinking4. While these ongoing life challenges that we collectively face may feel overwhelming, there are numerous ways we can halt and even reverse their health-related and create the conditions for resilience and cognitive recovery5.

What Can You Do?

The best place to start is to prioritize rest, not just in the form of good sleep hygiene (see tips for better sleep), but also in the form of taking a rest from screen time. Excessive screen time impacts attention, energy, mood, and circadian rhythm6. As an alternative, consider listening to music after waking up and before bed rather than turning on a screen. Take a refreshing walk outdoors and stretch on a daily basis; the minimum recommendations for physical activity are 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week7. Ditch the junk food that leaves you feeling energy depleted and eat more foods from the MIND diet that has been shown to protect the vascular system and cognitive health.

Prioritizing better rest, less screen time, regular walks, and improved eating habits, will gradually reduce the stress response cycle and allow the body and the brain to recover from inflammation. Persistence is the key to recovery and for developing resilience.

Our minds and bodies are designed to adapt to the adversities we face, and the basic choices we make each day will either help or hinder our adaptability. Protecting and promoting our brain health has never been more important than it has been this year. While we may all be socially distanced, we are going through this together, and we can collectively adapt and recover.

References

1. (1) Ménard, C., Pfau, M., Hodes, G. et al. Immune and Neuroendocrine Mechanisms of Stress Vulnerability and Resilience. Neuropsychopharmacol 42, 62–80 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2016.90
2. (2) Felger, J., Li, Z., Haroon, E. et al. Inflammation is associated with decreased functional connectivity within corticostriatal reward circuitry in depression. Mol Psychiatry 21, 1358–1365 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2015.168
3. (3) Lupien SJ, Juster R-P, Raymond C, Marin M-F. The effects of chronic stress on the human brain: from neurotoxicity, to vulnerability, to opportunity. Frontiers in neuroendocrinology 49, 91-105. (2018). https://doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2018.02.001
4. (4) Wekenborg MK, von Dawans B, Hill LK, Thayer JF, Penz M, Kirschbaum C. Examining reactivity patterns in burnout and other indicators of chronic stress. Psychoneuroendocrinology 106, 195-205. (2019) https://doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2019.04.002
5. (5) Ortiz JB, Conrad CD. The impact from the aftermath of chronic stress on hippocampal structure and function: is there a recovery? Frontiers in neuroendocrinology 49, 114-123. (2018). https://doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2018.02.005
6. (6) https://www.rallyhealth.com/health/unexpected-effects-screen-time
7. (7) https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/adults/index.htm