Chronic Stress Fosters Anxiety
Neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School and its affiliate Mclean Hospital have shown that long-term exposure to stress hormone in mice directly results in the anxiety that often comes with depression. After years of circumstantial evidence linking stress and depression, this evidence may be the "smoking gun" of what, for some, causes some types of mood disorders. The research appears in the April issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, which is published by the American Psychological Association.
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This study helps to organize what we already know about stress, anxiety, risk-taking, and depression. First note the important term: long-term stress. Not short-term stress. This study showed adverse effects only from chronic exposure to stress hormone (two weeks in the mice).
This study does not provide much actionable intel. It indicates that people would want to avoid long-term stress. But people already want to avoid long-term stress. They experience it only if they can’t find a way to avoid it.
There is a link here to something I discussed in earlier blogs. I commented on findings by Caltech economics professor Colin Camerer and his colleagues. Camerer discussed aversion to ambiguity and suggested that “… aversion to ambiguity is like a primitive freezing response that we've had for millions of years”
The mice in the current study showed reluctance to enter unfamiliar territory. The researchers called that anxiety. But it is somewhat like what Camerer calls “aversion to ambiguity.” If we assume that The Caltech students in Camerer’s study had been under chronic stress, then their aversion to ambiguity might have been a result of chronic exposure to a stress hormone.
How long do the effects of chronic stress persist in humans? Say, for example, the stress of college students preparing for mid-terms. I don’t think the answer is known. It probably is a complex formula depending on the length and intensity of the stressing environment. But I would have to wonder whether a person’s readiness to tolerate ambiguity is a stable characteristic of the person or a situational characteristic that varies with the person’s recent stress levels.
Aside from the observation that such effects might give misleading results in economics (and psychological) research, how could we use this information? Perhaps the educational system needs courses in stress management. It seems to me that psychology has enough R&D on things like relaxation, and time control to create a stress management curriculum. The goal would not be to eliminate stress, but to keep it from acting as chronic stress.
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This study helps to organize what we already know about stress, anxiety, risk-taking, and depression. First note the important term: long-term stress. Not short-term stress. This study showed adverse effects only from chronic exposure to stress hormone (two weeks in the mice).
This study does not provide much actionable intel. It indicates that people would want to avoid long-term stress. But people already want to avoid long-term stress. They experience it only if they can’t find a way to avoid it.
There is a link here to something I discussed in earlier blogs. I commented on findings by Caltech economics professor Colin Camerer and his colleagues. Camerer discussed aversion to ambiguity and suggested that “… aversion to ambiguity is like a primitive freezing response that we've had for millions of years”
The mice in the current study showed reluctance to enter unfamiliar territory. The researchers called that anxiety. But it is somewhat like what Camerer calls “aversion to ambiguity.” If we assume that The Caltech students in Camerer’s study had been under chronic stress, then their aversion to ambiguity might have been a result of chronic exposure to a stress hormone.
How long do the effects of chronic stress persist in humans? Say, for example, the stress of college students preparing for mid-terms. I don’t think the answer is known. It probably is a complex formula depending on the length and intensity of the stressing environment. But I would have to wonder whether a person’s readiness to tolerate ambiguity is a stable characteristic of the person or a situational characteristic that varies with the person’s recent stress levels.
Aside from the observation that such effects might give misleading results in economics (and psychological) research, how could we use this information? Perhaps the educational system needs courses in stress management. It seems to me that psychology has enough R&D on things like relaxation, and time control to create a stress management curriculum. The goal would not be to eliminate stress, but to keep it from acting as chronic stress.
posted by Selby Evans at 2:57 PM
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