CHRIS ZDEB, Journal Staff Writer Edmonton
Is the workplace bad for your brain? Dr. Gary Kaplan, a Long Island neurologist, says it is. Research has already proven that job stress can damage the heart by increasing the risks for high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and stroke. Turning their attention to the brain, researchers have now found that high stress, long hours, and bad diet (fast food) in the workplace also take a terrible toll on the brain.
The area most affected is the prefrontal cortex, located behind the forehead. Brain imaging and behavioural studies show that the so-called CEO of the brain, that regulates judgment, planning, problem-solving, decision making, moral reasoning and sense of self, is knocked out by stress. Over time, this can lead to impulsive, short-sighted, even violent behaviour, as well as increased anxiety, depression and alcohol and drug abuse, memory loss and an increase in other stress-related diseases, according to Kaplan, a member of the New York Professionals for a Stress-Free Workplace.
Stress generates a fight or flight response in the body that results in a form of tunnel vision. The brain is solely focused on the problem at hand, effectively knocking the prefrontal cortex offline. Whether the person experiencing the stress is a student or a businessperson, he or she can’t see beyond the immediate problem, says Fred Travis, director of the center for Brain, Consciousness, and Cognition at the Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa.
“The brain is constantly rewiring itself - every experience rewires the brain, and if you’re under constant stress, your brain is rewiring to just deal with surface facts, the immediate experience,” Travis explains. “What businessmen are saying is that they’re noticing more people entering the workforce who are unable to plan ahead or make far reaching decisions, which are the function of the prefrontal cortex.”
Over time, the body’s natural feedback mechanisms break down, so even when you’re not in a stressful situation, your body’s activation remains permanently on and at a higher level, Travis says. It can lead to high blood pressure, high anxiety, and difficulty sleeping.
To counter the damage of workplace stress, some people are taking up meditation, specifically Transcendental Meditation, which was introduced 50 years ago by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Travis says. Those around in the ‘60s will remember MMY as the spiritual leader of The Beatles for a time. TM is a method of detaching yourself from the problems and anxieties around you through silent meditation and the repetition of a mantra. Practiced for 20 minutes twice a day before breakfast and supper - meals make you sluggish and you have to be fully alert when you practice, Travis says - it helps produce a state of “restful alertness” in the brain. He compares the experience to taking a camera lens and slowly widening it. “The lens is like your sense of self and under high stress the focus is very small. As the lens opening widens, you see things in their proper perspective so they don’t have as much effect on you,” he explains.
TM is different from other meditation in that it connects you to the deeper, quieter part of yourself, he says. Exercise stimulates blood flow to the brain, takes your mind off stress, and relieves the effects of stress while you’re exercising, but it all comes back when you get back to the stress of the office, Travis explains. The effects of meditation are cumulative in producing a state of restful alertness that can help you handle stress better.
TM spokesperson Steve Yellin in New York says people are amazed to see how a few months of meditation changes completely the way they handle a common stressor. “They’re amazed at how calm they were able to remain during a deeply aggravating situation,” Yellin says.
Kaplan and Travis are part of a panel of medical researchers and business leaders taking part in the first annual national brain conference for business Friday in New York City, that will explore the impact of job stress on the brain. Travis, the most published American researcher in the field of meditation and the brain, will present new research showing the effects of meditation on executive brain functioning.