Feeling stressed? That may actually be *good* for your brain, study shows - Study Finds

Researchers say that low to moderate levels of stress appear to promote improved working memory.

Not surprisingly, study authors stress that these benefits are limited to moderate stress.

Once stress levels reach high levels, it can be detrimental to one’s health. “The bad outcomes of stress are pretty clear and not new,” says lead study author Assaf Oshri, an associate professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, in a university release.

“Our findings show that low to moderate levels of perceived stress were associated with elevated working memory neural activation, resulting in better mental performance.”.

In previous research, Oshri and colleagues had demonstrated that low to moderate stress levels could help individuals build resilience and reduce the risk of developing mental health disorders like depression and antisocial behaviors.

That earlier project had also found limited bouts of stress appear to help people cope with future stressful situations. This latest work builds upon that earlier study, providing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that displays how low to moderate stress levels can benefit parts of the brain that control working memory.

Results show that people who experienced low to moderate stress levels had increased activity in the parts of their brains involved with working memory.

Conversely, those dealing with chronic high levels of stress showed a decline in those same brain areas.

To assess working memory, subjects were shown a series of four types of images of things like tools and individuals’ faces.

Notably, people who reported high levels of social support from friends and family were better able to cope with low to moderate stress levels in a healthy way.