There’s an article in the latest issue of Wired by Jonah Lehrer explaining just how dangerous stress can be to our health.  It’s a fascinating read — and instead of relying on my poor attempt to paraphrase — I suggest checking out the article in its entirety.

The part of the story that struck a particular chord with me was Lehrer’s explanation of the experiments done by Elizabeth Gould, who studies how stress hormones affect the growth of new brain cells in adult brain, a process called neurogenesis.  Gould’s previous work, as noted by Lehrer, showed that when animals get stressed out, levels of glucocorticoids — one type of stress hormone — skyrocket in their brains.  With brain cells wading in a constant bath of these stress hormones, neurogenesis comes to a screeching halt.

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