How are these going? I hope you are all having fun learning more about ways to decrease stress and stimulate good feelings for a healthy brain. In an earlier post, I know I mentioned that prolonged stress can lead to brain shrinkage. One of the areas that shrinks the most is the hippocampus. The hippocampus is in charge of creating our memories!
With shrinkage in the hippocampus we can not only have memory loss, but we can also have a feeling of dissociation because we can have a reaction to something that our body remembers as scary or stressful, but we don't remember the event that created that reaction, so we just feel like we are anxious for no reason, and that can lead to even more discomfort!
So, in order to stimulate our memories and also release some good chemicals in the brain, today's activity is looking through old photos!
Not the ones online, or the one in your photo library on your phone that you scroll through from time to time, but the OLD ones. The ones you really have to remember where you were, you try to recall why a photo was being taken, how did you feel in that moment? What are some other memories associated with the same time period, trip, or day?
Let yourself relive the feelings of these memories! Your brain doesn't know if something is happening just in our mind or really happening, so in lieu of making new memories, replay the old ones for the same brain boosting effect!
Love always,
Dr. Evelyn