Is stress an invaluable asset for brain health?

On 31^st July 2016, the most dangerous stunt ever attempted was shown live on US TV.  

Forty two year-old skydiver Luke Aikins leapt out of an aircraft at 25,000 feet, landed and walked away, without a parachute.  

After a terrifying two-minute freefall, he landed just off-centre in a 100-by-100 foot net at the Big Sky movie ranch in California. Was there any point to this alarmingly stressful stunt, other than sheer daredevilry? The answer to that is, ‘yes’.  

The organiser was Chris Tally, a leading nutritionist in the US for elite athletes and military special forces. All of these have one thing in common: high levels of stress and anxiety which can critically impact their performance. Chris wanted to know the effect of the highest level of stress imaginable: the threat of an imminent and violent death. So, what did he find? 

First and unsurprisingly, Luke’s stress hormones were ‘through the roof’. Adrenalin, noradrenaline, cortisol. Second, all of his ‘stress’ nutrients were zeroed out. Gone. Nothing. But two things concerned Chris. Cortisol is a long-term stress response and it takes longer than two minutes to strip out stress vitamins such as C and B6. He concluded that it wasn’t just the acute stress of the two-minute fall but the many weeks of worry leading up to it.

Most of us never reach the dizzy heights of stress like Luke Aiken, but all of us suffer from daily stress that can sometimes be debilitating. What can we do about this? The first thing to realise is that up to a point stress is beneficial. That said, it does depend on how much, but as humans, we have evolved competent mechanisms for dealing with the stresses of life and we all have a ‘stress system’. It is a self-regulating physiological mechanism, millions of years old, residing in the brain for its protection against threats or stressors – heat, cold, pain, hunger, thirst, hard physical challenges and the existence of events beyond our control, which inevitably cause us worry and anxiety. As stress increases, so does our alertness and our performance improves. But then, if the stress exceeds our coping levels, we enter a downward spiral.  

Any stress level before the peak is ‘good’ stress and anything after it, ‘bad’. The secret is to find our own individual ‘sweet spot’ and seek to change behaviour and circumstances to stay at that level. Exceeding it will not kill us but long term it will certainly ruin our daily performance and brain health. Individual differences in our acceptable stress level are huge.  Some are only satisfied if they have solo-climbed a death-defying mountain. Some risk everything on a single gamble and some find that it’s stressful enough just getting through a single day.  Most of us are somewhere in between but all of us have to take great care in making sure that we deal with any ‘bad’ stress. Stress, in a word, must be managed.   

Stress management isn’t just ‘relaxing’. We must look after ourselves physically. Without adequate nutrients we won’t cope well over the long term. Chris Tally recommends the ideal ‘anti-stress’ diet: lots of lean protein, whole grain, fruit and vegetables and dairy but avoiding ultra-processed foods including ‘take-aways’ and refined, sweet foods. Sleep is also vital. The rule is 7-8 hours per 24 hour period – which means that as we age, short naps of no more than 40 minutes are beneficial to the brain. In the same breath, exercise and physical activity are indispensable. As well as 150 weekly minutes of aerobics exercise, we must keep our eye on how long we spend sitting down.  

For millennia, people have used alcohol as a means of moderating our stress. But like stress, there is a peak level beyond which alcohol debilitates our brain and makes us more vulnerable to stress. Our limit should be 21 ‘units’ per week. Good everyday social connections with friends, family and neighbours are known to counter stress. Around the world, loneliness is recognised as extremely harmful to our stress levels and the brain. Finally, certain leisure activities are known to be both brain healthy and stress resistant. The most popular being yoga, meditation, art and music.

Luke Aiken was in great physical shape. He ate well, exercised regularly, got adequate sleep and had a rich social life. We may not be leaping out of an aircraft anytime soon, but if we challenge ourselves mentally and physically, know our limits and modify our lifestyle, we will reduce our stress and benefit our long term brain health.