Stress can make you anxious about harmless things: Study reveals how it alters fear memories

A study showed the impact of stress on memory formation and how it can make even harmless things appear distressing.

Stress triggers the fight, flight or freeze response, as one undergoes extreme panic as they confront the distressing situation. In fact, stress is so potent that it can alter memories, how one remembers event. This further causes to generalise the fear to even non-threatening situations. A study published in the journal Cell uncovered how stress has a significant impact on memories related to fear.

Stress can generalize fear, making the brain perceive harmless things as threatening (Shutterstock)

How stress skews memories

The researchers examined mice to understand how stress affects memory formation. They played two different sounds for the mice. One sound was followed by a mild shock, making the memory of that sound scary, while the other sound led to no shock. Now brain remembers the memory to make sure the distressing situation does not occur again. But with a lot of stress brain begins to generalise it.

In the experiment, the mice were so stressed that their memory was affected. Their memories became more generalized as they started getting scared of other the sound too, instead of just the specific one that followed the shock.

What the researchers found was that the endocannabinoid system in the brain helps manage stress. However, too much stress can mess with how it works, leading to confusion in our memories.

Generalisation of fear

Too much stress makes even non-threatening situations appear scary. (Shutterstock)

Much like how the mice generalized the sounds and couldn’t differentiate between the safe sound and the scary sound because their brains were overwhelmed, our memories too can become blurred under stress. When the brain is overloaded with stress, it can no longer clearly distinguish between what is safe and what is dangerous. So later, with the skewed memories, people may even start to find what’s safe as threatening. Stress makes one anxious about things which might not even be harmful.

Instead of remembering just the dangerous event and staying cautious, brain begins to generalise it. It causes one to worry even about the similar things when in reality it's not harmful.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.