Find yourself stressing over the minutest of things? Do these stress bouts affect your ability to think and function beyond a point? It's time to calm your nerves. Overthinking and stressing may take you a step closer to paranoia. Paranoia is a severe mental condition, which is characterised by delusions of an exaggerated impending crisis. According to a recent study, excessive stress makes people sense danger in harmless situations.
In the fast-paced urban scenario, overthinking and stressing have become inevitable. As an instinct humans tend to identify dangerous scenarios, for which they arm themselves mentally as a mode of self-defense. However, at times people can misidentify such cues, and fret over what could be possibly not a critical situation.
Researchers from Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, New York University and McGill University, whose research appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that when older memories are coupled with stress, people are likely to perceive danger in harmless situations and this repeated and excessive bout of stress may lead to increased risk for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a disorder which causes inability to discriminate threat from safety. Researchers also noted that the data helps one understand why PTSD symptoms are often aggravated during times of stress. And how fear generalising could be a core factor behind anxiety and stress-related disorders.
Human beings take cues to defend themselves from adverse situation, These cues could be based on past situations or hearsay. But sometimes the cues could be wrong, and lead to unnecessary stress building. The findings indicated that stress levels, and the amount of time since an hostile event tends to promote this type of overgeneralization, which could be dangerous to the mind.
For the study the team tested the effects of stress and time on a person's ability to correctly identify a cue associated with a negative outcome. During the study, individuals were made to hear two tones, with one followed by a shock, set by the participant at the range of the 'highly annoying but not painful'. The researchers then played the tones in the range of the two frequencies and gauged participants' expectations of shock by their self-report and the data based on skin responses indicating emotional arousal.
One of the groups took the shock expectancy test immediately after the initial shock. This was followed by the second group who took the test 24 hours after the initial shock. Both groups were made to undergo the stress/control priming activity just before the shock expectancy test. The data could be a fruitful intervention in medical care of people with in-congruent patterns of fear and anxiety.
Stress can prove to be hazardous even for your overall health and heart in the long run. You can load up on these foods to beat stress -
1.Oats: Oat meal boosts positive energy as it is considered to be a serotonin enhancer, a chemical that can induce much needed calm and happiness in the stress bouts.
2.Lentils: Lentils are packed with all types of Vitamin B, nature's own happy pill. It helps reduce tiredness and fatigue. Lentils also stabilise the blood sugar and fire-up your energy levels.
3.Banana: Bananas are rich in Vitamin C which works wonders to fight stress. It helps repair cell damage caused due to stress. Also, the potassium that it contains helps in maintaining healthy heart muscles.
4.Yogurt: Yogurt is packed with calcium which is a great source of slashing stress. It also has good bacteria that kill anxiety and depression. So don't forget to add more yogurt to your diet.
5.Coconut: Coconut contains medium chain fats that improve our mental health and infuse positivity. The scent of the coconut is known to have a psychological effect that helps reduce anxiety and slows out heart rate.
