How Stress Affects Memory

This analysis persists of key points, about The article “Stress and the brain by Janet Elder”. The author forged an excellent informative piece to educate the reader on the effects of stress on the brain. The author states that “Stress can be both good and bad. It is part of life, and your brain and body respond to it”. The author clarifies that, "Whether stress is harmful or helpful depends on the amount of stress, how severe it is, and how long it lasts".

In the section “Tips from the Science of Memory-for Studying and for Life”, found in our textbook, “Experience Psychology”, the Arthur Laura A. King discusses the importance of study habits. She addresses the skills needed to turn short-term memory into long-term memory through organizing, encoding, rehearsing and retrieving the information we study and memorize. “No matter what the model of memory you use, you can sharpen your memory by thinking deeply about the “material” of life and connecting the information to other things you know.” (King. 2013).

Memory is the process of encoding, storing and retrieving information in the brain. It plays an import role in our daily life. Without memory, we cannot reserve past experience, learn new things and plan for the future. Human memory is usually analogous to computer memory. While unlike computer memory, human memory is a cognitive system. It does not encode and store everything correctly as we want. As suggested by Zimbardo, Johnson and Weber (2006), human memory takes information and selectively converts it into meaningful patterns. When remembering, we reconstruct the incident as we think it was (p. 263). Sometimes our memory performance is incredibly accurate and reliable. But errors and mistakes are more commonly happen, because we do

Stress is a big factor in everyday life. It influences how we approach life and events. Stress is why people run tight schedules and diet regularly. The power stress has is a negative effect over our brain and our body. Many people do not understand how to cope with stress. Therefore, people suffer from physical illness due to stress. Learning is not taking place when someone undergoes stress.

Memory is a set of cognitive processes that allow us to remember past information (retrospective memory) and future obligations (prospective memory) so we can navigate our lives. The strength of our memory can be influenced by the connections we make through different cognitive faculties as well as by the amount of time we spend devoting to learning specific material across different points in time. New memories are created every time we remember specific event, which results in retrospective memories changing over time. Memory recall can be affected retrospectively such as seeing increased recall in the presence of contextual cues or false recall of information following leading questions. Memory also includes the process

Post -traumatic stress can affect learning due to difficulties with their memory and concentration. According to J. Douglas Bremner, “Recent studies have shown that victims of childhood abuse and combat veterans actually experience physical changes to the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, as well as in the handling of stress. The hippocampus also works closely with the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that regulates our emotional response to fear and stress. PTSD sufferers often have impairments in one or both of these brain regions. Studies of children have found that these impairments can lead to problems with learning and academic achievement” (Bremner, n.d.).

There is consistent medical proof that provides facts supporting the claim that choice can’t be argued in the majority of cases. Another recent article titled, “Allostasis and the Epigenetics of Brain and Body Health Over the Life Course”, written by Dr. Bruce S. McEwen, PhD, from The Rockefeller University in New York, deals with the topic of “The Brain on Stress”. Dr. McEwen asserts that stressful experiences are often the precursor to psychiatric disorders ranging from schizophrenia to anxiety and depression. His research shows that there is existing evidence which supports the theory that a person under a great deal of stress from traumatic events cannot control the outcome of their own behavior.

However, during high stress times the hippocampus, which is associated with the ability to place memories in the correct context of space and time, and with the ability to recall the memory, is suppressed. This suppression is hypothesized to be the cause of the flashbacks that often affect people with

Stress is a common health issue for the body and mind, but it can be managed if not avoid.

I was surprised to discover that stress can cause memory difficulties and the inability to concentrate, through the emotional and physical strain as a result to pressures of life.

“We remember what we understand; we understand only what we pay attention to; we pay attention to what we want,” is a famous memory quote stated by an actor, Edward Bolles. Memory is a broad term that reflects different processing abilities on how humans encode, store and retrieves information. There are numerous domains in the human’s memory ability with the storage and retrieval of short-term and long-term information. For many centuries, theorist has tested recall and recognition capabilities on the human’s memory functions. Memory retention is our ability to retain experiences based on the mental process, through the organization of information through meaning, where relations between new information is associated with the previously stored

If you are looking to improve your professional life, one thing that you need at all times is presence of mind and a good memory. Being stressed out and nervous can impair your ability to concentrate and can lead to short-term memory loss. This is especially common amongst students preparing for exams. They tend to forget half of the syllabi on account of being stressed out with the very thought of taking the exam.

Memory makes us. It is, to an extent, a collection of unique and personal experiences that we, as individuals, have amassed over our lifetime. It is what connects us to our past and what shapes our present and the future. If we are unable remember the what, when, where, and who of our everyday lives, our level of functioning would be greatly impacted. Memory is defined as or recognized as the “sum or total of what we remember.” Memory provides us the ability to learn and adjust to or from prior experiences. In addition, memory or our ability to remember plays an integral role in the building and sustaining of relationships. Additionally, memory is also a process; it is how we internalize and store our external environment and experiences. It entails the capacity to remember past experiences, and the process of recalling previous experiences, information, impressions, habits and skills to awareness. It is the storage of materials learned and/or retained from our experiences. This fact is demonstrated by the modification, adjustment and/or adaptation of structure or behavior. Furthermore, we as individuals, envision thoughts and ideas of the present through short-term memory, or in our working memory, we warehouse past experiences and learned values in long-term memory, also referred to as episodic or semantic memory. Most importantly, memory is malleable and it is intimately linked to our sense of identity and where we believe we belong in the world.

We can have focused on bringing on by Cataclysmic occasions which, as indicated by Feldman are occasions that can influence numerous individuals in the meantime and are "calamities, for example, tornado and plane accidents, and terrorist assaults". Different components are close to home hassles and can be created by occasions, for example, a separation, passing or a friend or family member or the departure of a vocation. The other class is the thing that Feldman alludes to as foundation hassles and are the things that affect our everyday life. (Feldman, 2009)

Central idea: Memory is a process of the brain which is prone to certain failures, although specific steps can be taken to guard against these failures.