OK…this is not exactly a new discovery. From the little bit I’ve read today, the first authoritative article about this came out in 1999. But it’s taken till now for this to make it to my store of knowledge. Came across this article yesterday (someone cited it on Metafilter). Seems that stress actually has a highly detrimental effect on the brain. I’ve been thinking about it since I read it and just needed to share.
GT
wow, i haven’t had the time to go through all of it (got about a third of it, and then a few subsequent paragraphs) but it looks rather interesting. it wouldn’t phase me at all if they actually conceded that the overabundance of stress did these deleterious things. i wonder where the line between good and bad stress gets drawn? is it good to straddle that line? approach that line? i’d also assume that the line would change from person to person as well.
Life itself consists of phases in which the organism falls out of step with the march of surrounding things and then recovers unison with it—either through effort or by some happy chance. And, in a growing life, the recovery is never a mere return to a prior state, for it is enriched by the state of disparity and resistance through which it has successfully passed. If the hap between it and environment is too wide, the creature dies. If its activity is not enhanced by the temporary alienation, it merely subsists. Life grows when a temporary falling out is a transition to a more extensive balance of the energies of the organism with those of the conditions under which it lives.
-John Dewey