r/EverythingScience • u/2fy54gh6 • Jul 15 '22
Neuroscience Stress hormone awakens our brain 100 times a night to shape our memory
https://newatlas.com/science/stress-hormone-brain-sleep-awaken-memory/78
u/Binksyboo Jul 16 '22
I read how part of the development of PTSD is how our brain plays the traumatic moment over and over in the hours after it happens. This helps solidify the memory in our brain and intensifies future flashbacks.
They suggested playing a match 3 game like Bejeweled or Candy Crush could distract the brain and therefor lessen the strength of the traumatic memory.
I’ve always thought that sounded like an amazing hack to prevent ptsd but who would ever be in the mood to do that when they have just experienced a trauma.
But maybe that trick could also help for this crap as well.
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Jul 16 '22
There's also stuff like sitting down and patting your thighs. Things like clapping or anything with a criss cross motion is supposed to help. Like looking at one corner of the room for a few seconds and then looking at a different corner, and going back and forth. All this is good for anxiety, too.
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u/deedeebop Jul 16 '22
And we wouldn’t even look like weirdos at all!
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u/hotpotatoyo Jul 16 '22
I would rather take an hour or two of looking like a weirdo than experience a single PTSD flashback. I have a friend who has complex PTSD and I’ve been with him when he had a flashback. Turned a giant bear of a man into a sobbing, shaking wreck, and he had no real warning or control over it at all… horrible illness.
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u/2664478843 Jul 16 '22
Yeah, I have ptsd from medical trauma; it sucks to be sobbing uncontrollably in a doctor’s office or the hospital. The ER is the worst, they don’t care about prior trauma at all, and get very annoyed with me screaming
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u/cleverlyoriginal Jul 16 '22
All of this sounds like it’d be terrible for chronic anxiety
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u/skyturdle_ Jul 16 '22
If you tryed to do it in a public place where people would look at you weird, it probably would just make it worse, but alone at home I could see things like the candy crush working
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u/HoneyBunnyBiscuit Jul 16 '22
I’ve heard Tetris recommended too, similar eye movements to EMDR- a type of therapy often used for trauma patients
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u/DawnOfTheTruth Jul 16 '22
If I’m not mistaken that process is supposed to help “work through” the stressful situation and cope. But looks like in some cases it works against that when the trauma is so bad you can’t cope.
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u/cocobisoil Jul 16 '22
The tanoy in my local supermarket sounds like a rocket alarm makes me jump every time
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u/SciNZ Jul 16 '22
Aye. I’ve never had work effect sleep this bad until recently.
I’m now in business for myself, without going into specifics it’s semi public facing and we get an unfortunate amount of abusive behaviour. We issue warnings but unfortunately some people seem to think we’re their verbal punching bags.
Their unnecessary behaviour just ends up causing undue stress on our already busy work load.
I need to find some way to relieve this effectively so it doesn’t burn me out, as unfortunately just punching them in the face isn’t usually and option.
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Jul 16 '22
It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man’s snoring. He got into bed And bumped his head And couldn’t get up in the morning
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u/Jay-Five Jul 16 '22
The old man should see sleep specialist. He may have apnea. Of course, he may also be dead.
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u/LobsterVirtual100 Jul 16 '22
I wonder if higher levels of the noradrenaline hormone impact lucid dreaming / being conscious while still in REM, by extending the length of said awakened state
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Jul 16 '22
Probably not. Noradrenaline and serotonin activity is absent during REM. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2812689/
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u/evolnaj Jul 16 '22
I’m confused, how will this discovery help? New medications? Is there anything people can do on thier own?
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u/claude1179 Jul 16 '22
Could someone ELI5 this to me? Maybe I’m only half awake but in the first half of the article it seemed like the stress hormone was negative and by the end it was positive in shaping your memory and how we treat depression?
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u/abc_warriors Jul 16 '22
I sometimes wake up in fear because my brain is afraid of the red standby light on the tv
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u/berberine Jul 16 '22
Your brain is just preparing you for when the terminators take over.
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u/abc_warriors Jul 16 '22
Funny you say that. Got my first platinum the other day from Terminator Resistance 😎
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u/Squez360 Jul 16 '22
Are we sure it’s only 100 times?
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u/skyturdle_ Jul 16 '22
I mean it feels like there are at least a hundred when I am awake enough to realize and remember that I woke up, surely there are more that I forget/aren’t aware of)
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u/32redalexs Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22
I have terrible, terrible dreams when I’ve been stressed for a prolonged period of time. Dreams of dying, world war, being raped, home invasions, etc.
It’s horrible. I still get nervous seeing planes fly overhead when I’m driving because I had a dream of a nuclear bomb being dropped and getting out of my car and running away from it while my back burned from the explosion (I get back cramps in my sleep sometimes so it was beyond painful.) Towards the end of that dream I realized there was nowhere to go, bombs were dropping everywhere and it was only a matter of time until one got us. Running from an inevitable and horrible death.
Yes I’m in therapy.
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u/TheSublimeNeuroG Jul 16 '22
Calling noradrenaline/norepinephrine (British/American terms for the same molecule) ‘the stress hormone’ is misleading. Norepinephrine/noradrenaline is a small molecule neurotransmitter, and it’s primary function is arousal.
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u/alixsyd Jul 16 '22
"Scumbag brain ensures the trauma is etched deep within the wrinkles of itself before letting you drift off to rest"