Dr. Majid Fotuhi

When you stress out, you increase levels of cortisol, and cortisol is like a poison for hippocampus.

When you increase cortisol levels, hippocampus shrinks more so than other parts of the brain.

And there are literally a dozen studies that have shown in humans that when you have high cortisol levels, your hippocampus is smaller.

One study in Japan looked at people in their sixties and they did baseline cortisol levels and did the baseline MRI.

And then they looked at them seven years later to see what happens to people with different level of baseline, cortisol level, baseline stress.

baseline high stress and high cortisol level versus those who have low stress and low cortisol levels.

And then seven years later, they saw that people who had high cortisol levels, they had as much small hippocampus than people who had low cortisol levels.

And lots of other studies have shown that if you just bring, let's say 200 people and do a questionnaire about the stress level and do a blood test for cortisol and just do MRI, those with higher cortisol levels have a small hippocampus.

That is well established.

Now, mindset is one thing is to manage your stress.

I think that you have to realize that if you're stressed out, I'm sorry to say it's your problem.

Many people blame other people for their misery.

And I understand that yes, other people who do things that stress you out shouldn't do those things.

However, it's you who's getting stressed out.

You are interpreting what these people said and it's your problem.

If somebody does something that stresses me out, let's say somebody is chewing loudly next to you and it's stressing you out.

Listen, it's your problem.

They shouldn't be chewing loudly, but if you're stressed out, it's your issue.

And it applies to people you live with, your coworkers, economy, the world.

If you have the mindset that I own my problems and that if there's something wrong, I am the one who's gonna do something about it, you will feel a lot less stressed.