Title: What Parents Need to Know About Stress and Learning | HuffPost Life
Headings: What Parents Need to Know About Stress and Learning
What Parents Need to Know About Stress and Learning
Stress and learning
Stress management tools

Content: We are all familiar with the term "test anxiety," and have all experienced that feeling of not being able to concentrate because of stress. How stress affects brain performance
Stress hormones affect our memory and cognition. When we get upset, our cortisol levels elevate in the blood, and the part of our brain in which learning and memory resides -- the hippocampus -- starts dumping neurons as a reaction to stress. By getting smaller, our hippocampus negatively impacts our memory and learning capacity. Therefore, increases in stress hormones can cause a range of deleterious cognitive and physical symptoms. When the brain is relaxed, more blood goes to the prefrontal cortex and we can use more of our mental reserves. The prefrontal cortex is where our critical and abstract thinking lives, and it is typically the captain of our ship; however, under stress, the mental activity of the prefrontal cortex slows down and the amygdala, where our fight-or-flight response exists, gets larger and takes over our mental operations. Therefore, when the brain is stressed, we are thinking more emotionally and less critically. As a result, our decision-making is colored by our fight-or-flight response.