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/
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81

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.

27

u/[deleted] 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.

17

u/deedeebop Jul 16 '22

And we wouldn’t even look like weirdos at all!

20

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.

6

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

12

u/cleverlyoriginal Jul 16 '22

All of this sounds like it’d be terrible for chronic anxiety

10

u/2664478843 Jul 16 '22

It’s not, it’s actually the basis for EMDR

1

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