impact of stress
TRANSCRIPT
Impact of a Stressful Environment on Cognitive and
Emotional Development
Feelings Gate to the Cortex
Stress
Types of Stress
Two types of Stress Eustress is positive
stress Distress is a
negative stress
Eustress Opens the Gate
Neural pathways run from the eyes, ears and other sense organs to a central clearing house deep in the brain called the thalamus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh60EVl27kM
Thalamus is like a gate to pathways that run to the cortex--it is activated by how we feel about the information being processed by the limbic system
Eustress
When we experience a positive emotion, are actively engaged or appropriately challenged (retaining a sense of control) we experience eustress.
The thalamus “opens the gate” to the cortex where higher level thinking takes place
Referred to as upshifting
Distress Closes the Gate
When a threat is perceived we experience distress
The thalamus quickly sends a message to the amygdala that there might be danger
Amygdala is poised something like an alarm company
The alarm activates a cascade of chemicals (neurotransmitters and hormones) involved in the stress response: freeze-flight-fight.
Distress closes the gate to the main road to the cortex an the brain downshifts to the lower survival brain
Modulating the Stress Response
At the same time, another slower pathway moves up to the cortex - like a detour route
We can now access the prefrontal lobes to modulate our emotional reactions
This help us make a rational decision about how to respond to an emotional trigger
Emotional Hi-Jacking
Some emotional reactions bypass the cortex and can be formed without any conscious, cognitive participation at all
Degree of control we perceive we have over the threatening situation determines whether a high-jacking will take place.
Distressing Emotions Disrupt Thinking and Learning Often when we are emotionally upset, “we
just can’t think straight” Distress shifts the focus from the higher
thinking cortex to the more primitive survival brain
Distress interferes with working memory in the prefrontal lobes - emotional control takes precedence
Continual emotional distress can create deficits in a child’s intellectual abilities, crippling the capacity to learn
Types of Distress
Pressure Childhood anxieties
QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.