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A new study explains why stress and anxiety may be both a boon as well as a bane for your brain. "That edge sounds good. It sounds adaptive. It sounds like perception is enhanced and that it can keep you safe in the face of danger," said Alexander Shackman, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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However,
it makes us more sensitive to our external surroundings as a way of
learning where or what a threat may be, but interferes with our
ability to do more complex thinking, said co-author Richard Davidson.
When participants in the study were faced with a possibility of
receiving an electric shock, researchers saw enhanced activity in
brain circuits responsible for taking in visual information, but a
muted signal in circuitry responsible for evaluating that information.
In the absence of the threat, however, the effect is reversed: less
power for vigilance, more power for strategic decision-making. Your
ability to do more complex tasks is disrupted just as the amount of
information you are receiving through your eyes and ears is enhanced,
Shackman said. You are having trouble focussing on the information
coming in, but your brain is taking in more and more potentially
irrelevant information. You can have a viscous feedback loop, a sort
of double-whammy effect. — ANI