Dr. Lila Landowski

It makes the emotion part of the brain bigger, which is why we get more emotional and more visceral and just a bit more reactive to things.

Because it's, I mean, it makes sense.

Like if you've constantly got stress in your life, then the part of your brain that's involved with dealing with stress wants to get bigger so you can deal with the next stress that comes along.

Yeah, you've just blown my mind.

But it's also like we have to remind ourselves it's not that we've changed as a person.

It's not that we've become more angry or aggressive.

It's just that our brain is doing its best to try and cope with that situation.

So it's not our fault.

So we need to be kind to ourselves as well.

Yeah, you definitely can.

So, I mean, I guess the rule of thumb is that the longer you've been stressed, then the longer it's going to take to bounce back.

But some of the great things to do to reduce the level of stress or to reduce the impact of stress are things like exercise.

So exercise helps you make new brain cells in the hippocampus.

It makes it bigger.

You can do things like mindfulness or meditation practices, which are really great as well.

You can do breathing techniques.

You might have heard the physiological sigh before.

So it's where you do this – it's really the best way to de-escalate a panic attack, actually.

You do two inhales through your nose and then a long exhale.

So I'll show you in a second, but an example of it is imagine – you know when a kid might be throwing a tantrum or you're crying really, really hard and you just – you go –