Through experience we have learned just how seriously stress can affect all areas of our body and mind.

Memory is one of those areas, and learning why stress can make it more difficult for us to remember things can also help us to be aware of the stress in our lives and even help treat it.

Almost all of us comment about how our memory gets worse as we get older; however, how many younger people also find their memory being affected?

The common denominator is stress. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have uncovered a hormonal connection between memory loss and stress in older people that could help develop research in future treatments.

“It’s quite well known that too much stress hormone is bad for memory, and previous research has found that as we get older, about 30 per cent of us have impaired memory, some have memories just as good as young people, and then there are some that are in between,” said Joyce Yau, of the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Cardiovascular Science, who led the study, funded by the Medical Research Council.

In addition, past research has found that older people who had a poorer memory, together with shrinkage of the hippocampus (a key area in the brain involved in the memory function), also had increasing levels of the stress hormone cortisol over the years.

“I’ve done studies on animal subjects in the past, where if you kept the levels of these stress hormones low it prevented memory impairment,” explained Dr Yau.

“In some older people, their mechanism for bringing cortisol levels back down after stress isn’t so good. So they tend to have higher than normal levels most of the time, and this is part of the reason why their memory is impaired.”

The study, which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience, found that high levels of the stress hormone in older mice made them less able to remember how to navigate a maze.

When the stress hormone is released at low levels, it activates a receptor in the brain which actually helps our memory. But if levels of the stress hormone rise too high, they can spill over onto a second receptor, which can result in memory problems.

“While we know that stress hormones affect memory, this research explains how the receptors they engage with can switch good memory to poorly-functioning memory in old age,” said Dr Yau.

“We now know that lowering the levels of these stress hormones will prevent them from activating a receptor that is bad for memory. Understanding the mechanisms in the brain which affect memory as we age will help us find ways to combat conditions linked to memory loss.”

Regular exercise is one way of combating daily stress; it releases the hormones which will help support the memory function. Of course, diet and coping mechanisms will also help the body to de-stress.

Another way to help us deal with our daily stress is to have a boss or manager who takes stress seriously and supports all staff at work.

Stress is a common problem at the workplace and staff should not have to feel they must cope on their own. Most employers now take the situation seriously due to the huge number of work days being lost annually through stress-related disorders.

The charity ‘Mind’ has been campaigning for managers to provide better policies and practices for good mental wellbeing at work. They expect all managers to recognise when a colleague or member of their team is suffering from stress. Training for managers to help them cope with this is vital.

Managing someone else’s stress is never easy but Mind has come up with a list of guidelines that will help managers safeguard against undue stress at the workplace. Here is a selection:

•Workloads match the employees’ abilities and experience;

• Reasonable and agreed deadlines for work completion;

• Reduction in repetitive duties within workloads;

• A suitable working environment (consider noise, office lighting, equipment);

• Employee involvement in the planning of their workload;

• Plans for employee training and development;

• Impartial and supportive supervision structures;

• Encouragement and promotion of mental disclosure at the workplace – employees need to feel confident they can be open about health issues and that they will be taken seriously;

• Clear guidelines around mental health issues for managers;

• Detailed records on sickness absence used to analyse causes for absence;

• Promoted and accessible policies and guidance to challenge inappropriate behaviour such as racism, sexism and bullying;

• Management awareness of relevant personal issues affecting staff such as illness, bereavement, financial worries or stress-related factors which might be contributing to them struggling to cope at the workplace;

• Policies in place for dealing with such issues; and

• Training for managers to deal with such issues.

kathryn@maltanet.net