OTO Episode 76: Stress Makes You Dumber

Find the full article text at otovets.com/post/feeling-dumber-you-might-be-stressed Stress makes you dumber.  Period. Our brains have a limited amount of working memory in them.  As such our brain seeks to utilize this limited resource in the most effective way. This means that when we are stressed the brain begins to shift blood to prepare us for action. A natural and necessary response from an evolutionary perspective. The shift allows us to prepare for using this memory to aid our fight or flight centers aka limbic system. However, this blood must come from somewhere.  That somewhere is the prefrontal cortex.  Responsible for conscious creative thought and critical thinking, the prefrontal cortex, or P F C, is the contemplative part of our brain. It allows us to appraise a situation rather than to simply react to stimuli. Thus, the simple of act of becoming stressed means we are less physically able to critically think our way out of the problem.