Video

This is an interesting interview with V.S. Ramachandran on Charlie Rose. Check it out!

Autism and Mirror Neurons

Before I get to the subject of autism, I first need to explain mirror neurons. From the name you can start to gather what these neurons are involved in: imitations, mimicking, and theory of mind (empathy/understanding other peoples feelings/actions). when we pick up a book for instance, certain neurons fire in our brain (motor cortex, etc.) Simple and straight to the point. This is expected. Well, we don't even have to directly be involved in this action to have these neurons fire. Just watching someone else pick up a book causes the same neurons to fire. These are mirror neurons. That is why when someone smiles we smile back without thinking about it. Mirror neurons allow us to imitate others and learn new skills from them. Growing up, we learn a lot of things by watching others - mirror neurons make this possible. One thing unique to humans is the theory of mind. Not only can we "look" into our own mind and try to understand why we do the things we do, we can also miraculously feel the pain of others, put ourselves in their shoes, and try to understand why they do things similar or different than us. We can do this with minimal conscious cognitive effort, but mirror neurons allow this functioning to take place that other animals are not capable of. As well as returning the niceties of a wave or smile, mirror neurons also fire when you see someone in pain. Now, if the same neurons are firing, why don't we feel the pain and only sympathize with what they are going through? Our brains take care of that for us. Our executive functioning skills tell ourselves that it is not happening to us and inhibit the brain from sending the message to our bodies saying that we're in pain. The visual feedback you get from your own body that you see is not hurt, inhibits the signal from actually experiencing pain. One other abstract area that mirror neurons are found to have a role in is understanding metaphors. This is derived from patients with left supramarginal gyrus damage who have apraxia - which is an inability to mime skilled voluntary actions. These patients also have a difficult time understanding action metaphors. This region also has mirror neurons, thus why this connection was made.

Now that you have got a sense of how mirror neurons operate, let me switch back to how this relates to autism.
For those who have autism, they experience difficulty with social skills and interacting with others. They have a hard time processing facial expressing and empathizing with others. Neuroscientists are learning towards a deficiency of mirror neurons as a part of the explanation of what abnormality is taking place in an autistic brain. Researchers have done tests that have supported this hypothesis. There was a study done using EEG (electroencephalography) which picks up brain waves from placing electrodes on the scalp. It is found that the mu wave is suppressed int he brain when you make a conscious movement. Similarly, the mu wave was found to also be suppressed when someone watches another person performing the same movement. When the EEG was done on a child with autism, they had the same suppression of the mu wave when they performed the movement themselves; however, the suppression did not occur normally normally when they were watching the other person. This study has been replicated and supported many times, increasing reliability of this hypothesis. A more recent study has found less connectivity between the visual cortex in the occipital lobe and the mirror neuron region in the prefrontal cortex in patients with autism using fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). Other research has tested the mirror neuron hypothesis with another form of testing using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS creates electrical signals in the brain, creating activity. Researchers stimulated the motor cortex (right before the central sulcus, separating the frontal lobe from the parietal lobe) and then recorded the electromuscular activation in the participants while they watch other people perform movements. Usually, when people watch someone perform movement such as squeezing a ball, the activation in the participant's same hand will go up. The same muscles they would use if they were actually squeezing the ball become "ready" as if they were going to do it. Sustaining the mirror neuron deficiency hypothesis, participants with autism had no increased activation in their muscles when watching other people's movements.

This is some interesting insight to what things in the brain are what neuroscientists think to be linked to autism. This obviously does not explain the reason why their brains are like this in the first place, but it is a step in the direction of finding out in the future. I will continue in a future post on more about mirror neurons and its likely role in autism, but for now this is enough to get you all started. And to reiterate from other posts, these are none of my own personal thoughts or research, I have gotten most of my information from the Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran, which I had mentioned in a previous post on phantom limbs. I'm not trying to say any of this information is my own, I just would like to share what I'm learning :)

Fun facts

This isn't going to be a long post, but I just wanted to make a few quick points that you might not know about that is something interesting and possibly useful to know:

1. Being in sunlight increases serotonin in the brain. That is why we feel happier when the sun is out compared to when it's dark and rainy.
2. The brain size of someone who is overweight has four percent less volume than those not overweight (from BMI numbers) and looks eight years older. For those who are obese, the brain has eight times less volume and looks sixteen years older. Wow.
3. Someone with an extremely low BMI (such as someone with anorexia) also has a smaller brain than someone with a regular BMI.

BMI = body mass index
If you're interested in figuring out your BMI, you can go here. It's quick and easy!

4. The brain is 60 percent fat! Much of our gray matter, which are the dendrites and cell bodies in the brain, contain large portions of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA (or the more confusing docosahexaenoic acid. Neurons are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which is why it is important to eat foods with healthy fats, or take a supplement.

For more tips on the health of your brain, check out the book The Amen Solution: The brain healthy way to get thinner, smarter, happier, by Daniel G. Amen.

Phantom Limbs

Something I find fascinating and shows just how truly powerful our brain is compared to our body, is the issues associated with phantom limbs. Some people still have "feelings" where their arm or leg used to be. This does not seem possible because there is no longer anything there to have a feeling, so why does this happen?
There are different brain maps in the brain for different parts of the body. Say, for instance, when part of the arm is removed, there are no longer any nerves for that part of the body, and the brain map in the brain is no longer needed for that particular area. Instead of leaving an empty space in the brain for no activity, the brain wants to utilize any space it does have, so adjacent brain maps start to take over the free space. It is found that brain maps for the face are close to those of the arm, so the brain map for the face starts to infuse into the brain map for the part of the arm removed. Some people will feel an itch and they cannot scratch it because obviously their arm is not there. Well, if they scratch their cheek, they find that it alleviates their itch. Also, if a drop of water is falling down your cheek, it will feel like there is a drop of water going down the phantom arm as well. It's miraculous that you can still have feeling in a part of the body that is no longer there. But it's all in the brain.

There are some people who have paralysis in their phantom limb. Even though the limb is no longer there, they feel as if it is stuck and cannot move. Usually the reason for this is because before the limb was removed, it was in a sling or was not able to move, so the brain becomes accustomed to it. Plasticity makes it so your brain will learn that behavior and neurons have stopped firing to be able to move it, since it is so used to not moving. Well, once the limb has been removed, the brain doesn't automatically shift and say there is no longer a limb there so it is no longer paralyzed. Plasticity allows the brain to change, but it also accounts for us to form habits. The brain is so used to that arm being paralyzed, that it continues to be "stuck" in that way in the brain. A way to change this is through mirror visual feedback (MVF). This sounds crazy and doesn't seem like it would work, but there has been improvement for people with phantom limbs, and also stroke victims. What happens during this type of therapy, is a mirror is placed in a box, while the patient places his real arm in front of the mirror and the phantom arm behind the mirror. If the patient looks at the side of the mirror with his intact arm and moves it, it will appear as if his phantom arm is moving as well. The visual feedback provides feedback necessary for the brain to change and allow the phantom arm to move again because without the arm there, there is no negative feedback to the brain to tell it to stop firing the same way it has always been. So the learned paralysis carries over to the phantom limb because the brain doesn't know any better. Through mirror therapy, the brain "sees" the phantom limb moving, and so the brain can change to start firing again and "move" the limb, unlearning the paralysis it had before. The mirror re-teaches the brain and therefore reshapes it, and alleviates the pain or cramps suffered from the paralysis. It's amazing how our brain can function the same way as if there was still a limb there even though it's not. But it's also amazing, how something so simple as presenting a limb as "moving" even though it's not there can trick the brain into believing it can move again.

A lot of this information I gathered from The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran. These ideas are not my own; I'm only relaying the information. Also, Ramachandran actually pioneered this type of mirror therapy, and is a highly esteemed neuroscientist and professor at the University of California, San Diego. His work is fascinating, so you should check out some of his books! 

Filling in the blanks

Something I find fascinating about the brain is how efficiently it can function and account for missing information. Take for instance vision and our blind spot. There is a sizable blind spot in the retina of your eye where there is an absence of photoreceptors. Well if there aren't any photoreceptors, why can we see things clearly without random things missing? One reason for that is we have two eyes, and the blind spots are in different, non-overlapping locations and can assist each other to get full coverage of the scene in front of you. Now that isn't really the interesting part. What is amazing is that when you close one eye so that you don't have help from your other eye, you obviously experience your blind spot at some point in time, but we never realize this because our brain "fills in" the missing piece to make a continuous coherent image. Crazy right? And don't believe me? Go here and try the test yourself (http://www.ophtasurf.com/en/blindspot.htm). It's freaky, but where an object once was, at a certain distance the object will be in your blind spot so you can no longer see it, but instead of there being an empty hole, the brain patches the hole with the background pattern, so we don't even realize when something is in our blind spot.

This to me sounds crazy because we're seeing something that we're not really seeing. But that is the truth about everything we "see." We don't see anything with our eyes, we see with our brain. Visual stimulation comes in through our eyes, but the brain takes that information and forms a picture for us. Ever wonder why our eyes deceive us? Our brain makes inferences about visual stimulation from previous experiences and knowledge, so it infers a lot of the things we see. If you ever see those sentences that say it twice in a row but you don't notice it, it's not because you're dumb or blind, your brain automatically files that out because it wants to make everything as coherent as possible. You just glaze over it and don't realize that it's there because it would interfere with the overall meaning. No need for the confusion, so just pretend like you didn't see it. Or take for instance sentences that have words with the letter jumbled up, but the first and last letters are the same. We are able to read them fine, with a little slower reaction time, but not much considering the letters are in different positions. The brain automatically gets rid of the clutter and confusion it sees. The brain is smarter than what we imagine. It does it without any conscious effort. Amazing, right?

BDNF and larger brains in autism

Can you imagine being in a situation where there is so much stimulation, somewhere like your eyes, ears, or skin, that causes an overload of neurological impulses to the brain that makes you want to shut down? Sometimes we are in a place that has too much going on that we have to take a step back and regroup because it is clouding our brain with too much information. Well for some children with autism, this is a regular occurrence in normal activities. Now it has been shown that children who have autism having larger brains. When the brain is developing, children go through a pruning process that gets rid of unimportant dendrites in the brain so it frees up space for the important things to make more connections and become stronger. This pruning doesn't occur in this instance and there are many neurons with not as strong of connections between them.

During what people call the critical period of development, your brain is like a sponge, absorbing all new information easily. The specific nerve growth factor brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a chemical that plays a large role in reinforcing plastic change during the critical period. It also increases the speed of which electrical signals are being transmitted. BDNF turns on the nucleus basalis, which allows us to focus our attention and remember the stuff you are learning. Not only does it help you to learn new information easily, it also shuts down the critical period, because the brain needs some stability and isn't effortlessly plastic at all times. This is why we must be learning something that surprises us or particularly interests us or is important, because it activates the nucleus basalis which helps us to pay specific attention and store that information in our brain. Now back to autism, neuroplastician Michael Merzenich's theory of why there is no pruning and overstimulation and oversensitivity occurs is because of a premature release of BDNF. He thinks that there is a gene that predisposes children to have this premature release of the chemical that opens and closes the critical period, so that instead of important connections being reinforced, all connections are reinforced, which skips the pruning process, and since BDNF also closes the critical period, it closes earlier with many connections that are disconnected. This means that if say a child has sensitivity to auditory stimulation, if they hear one frequency, the whole auditory cortex starts firing because connections were never strengthened and therefore causes confusion in the brain when all neurons are firing at once.

So if a child has a melt down in a place that has a loud area, doesn't look you in the eye, or can't stand certain fabrics on your skin, they are not necessarily doing it on purpose. The brain is overexcited from the stimulation and cannot handle all of the stimulation at once. The brain is meant to strengthen connections that are important so we can use those repeatedly and the messages start to travel faster, which is why we end up having habits (good and bad) and can do things on autopilot (like drive to our house or place of work without consciously thinking about every turn), but when it is not allowed to strengthen the important ones and keep the unimportant ones weakened, the brain cannot differentiate and takes in all information because it thinks it's important. Remember this if you're ever around people with autism - everyone would become frustrated if their brain overly fired signals that made for chaos in the brain - so relax, and help them to relax too.

Stress

While we know that stress isn't the greatest feeling in the world, there are more complications than it making you anxious. It effects your overall brain function if you are stressed over long periods of time. Don't get me wrong, there are good types of stress and bad types of stress, but short periods of stress can pump you up and make you feel ready for anything, while long periods of stress can cause cognitive impairment and make us age faster than what we want. When we become stressed the brain releases adrenaline and cortisol from the adrenal glands which helps pump us up and feel ready for battle. These hormones are also helpful in what most of you know as fight-or-flight response. Your body reacts naturally to stressful stimuli and gets your heart pumping, getting you ready to protect yourself.
There are a few ways in which chronic stress affects your overall health physically and mentally.

First, it harms your brain. It lowers your overall brain function and prematurely ages your brain. Higher cortisol levels directly effects the hippocampus, making it smaller and decreasing memory storage. Older adults with high cortisol levels have a 14% smaller hippocampus, which means they have a worse memory than older adults with normal cortisol levels. Not only does higher levels of cortisol negatively effect the hippocampus, it cause more cortisol to be released because the hippocampus is responsible for sending out signals to stop the production of cortisol when there is no longer a threat. Since there are not as many neurons in the smaller hippocampus, it can no longer send out the signal to discontinue cortisol, so greater amounts of cortisol are then released. Stress doesn't just make you feel uncomfortable or upset, it literally changes your brain for the worse, reducing your memory storage. Cortisol doesn't just affect the hippocampus, it also decreasing activity in the amydala, which is important for emotional balance, and the prefrontal cortex, important for planning. Overall, it reduces brain reserve which makes way for physical signs of stress as well.

Second, having chronic stress makes you age prematurely. Now, I don't know anyone who wants to look older than they really are (unless maybe they are a teenager, but as an adult, more wrinkles and looking ten years older than you really are isn't such a good thing), so managing your stress can help your skin to make you look and feel youthful. Stress has been found to be similar to the effects of smoking, being obese, or just looking ten years older than you actually are. The reason for this is because of telomeres, which are protective caps on the end of our chromosomes protecting our DNA. When telomeres become too short, DNA can be damaged in the replication process. Researches relate the length of telomeres to determine cell's age and how many more times it will duplicate. When they become too short they stop duplicating and cell senescence kicks in, which is basically what we see as aging. The longer the telomeres, the more protection there is for the chromosome. Telomeres naturally shorten over time, which we can all understand because we know that we all age as we get older, but stress can speed up this process. It is shown that women with higher levels of stress had shorter telmoeres, meaning premature aging. With aging, skin loses collagen and elastin (proteins that keep the skin wrinkle-free and tight). Stress cause both collagen and elastin to break down prematurely, causing wrinkles and sagging skin, as well as causing acne breakouts. This is not something most people want to have happen to them. Look at your life and the areas that cause you stress. There are ways to downplay the stress in your life and lead a calmer, happier, youthful life. I'll relay some of those ways at the end after displaying more ways stress is harmful to our bodies.

Third, chronic stress weakens our body's immune system which can make you sick more easily. Short-term stress boosts immunity because of the resilience and pumped up heart rate that you feel, but long-term stress starts to wear down your immune system and makes you more prone to getting sick or having a disease. Stress has been implicated in heart disease, hypertension, and even cancer. Not saying that stress makes you have those problems, but they can be a contributing factor, especially if you're already biologically prone to one. Anytime you weaken the immune system it is easier to contract a sickness and also makes it harder to get rid of it. I know that I just had a run in with this. During October when I was constantly stressed with school and work (and let me tell you I was very stressed and sleep-deprived) my immune system was weakened and as soon as stopped working the 20 hour weekends, I became sick like that and stayed that way for at least a week. My body was just entirely exhausted and if you are less stressed and get good sleep, even if you're exposed to someone who has a sickness, you have a better chance of not getting it or fighting it sooner if you do have it. I usually run every day, at least 20 minutes, if not up to 40, but I could not find the energy to run for about two weeks when I became sick. It was terrible, but there was nothing I could do except let my body recoup. Now I'm back to normal and I'm very grateful because it's terrible to not have energy and feel helpless all day long. I would much rather be able to manage my stress and feel calm and get good sleep so I remain healthy and thin, as I will talk about next.

Fourth, stress can make you gain weight, especially in your stomach. Stress, and the stress hormone cortisol, have been shown to increase appetite and cravings for sweets and carbohydrates, which make us fat because we can't just eat one. Studies have shown that stress causes people to turn away from healthy low-fat foods and eat more food than normal. People look for "comfort" foods when they are stressed to make them feel better because it gives them instant gratification, but that gratification wears off quickly, the sugar high bringing you back down, making your crave more. At least for me, I also know that this makes me feel shitty about myself because especially if I'm trying to eat healthy, it makes me feel like I'm not in control and overindulge on the stuff that I'm trying to stay away from. It also makes me gain weight which also makes me feel bad about myself, so why give in to the stress when it can have these bad effects on your body and brain when you don't want them to? This weight goes to your midsection, and that is not only something that makes us look worse, it is also bad for our health because having large amounts of fat in your abdomen surrounds vital organs that are associated with serious diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. A study done at Georgetwon University Medical Center found that high stress with a high-fat, high-sugar diet leads to abdominal obesity in mice because of the neurotransmitter neuropeptide Y (NPY), which the brain releases NPY directly into the fatty tissue in your stomach. In the mice, the release of NPY from chronic stress increased abdominal growth by 50 percent in just two weeks. Stress not only makes you gain weight, it does it fast. Another reason why you end up packing on the pounds is because chronic stress usually is linked to a lack of sleep, just like I experienced. This also throws your appetite out of whack and you have less prefrontal activation which keeps you from picking healthier foods and turning to sweets and carbs instead. I remember eating a lot of sweets and I seemed to never feel full. I just always wanted to eat and eat even though I didn't want to, but I didn't feel like I could control myself. Once my stress started to go away and I started sleeping more, my eating habits started to become normalized because of my hormones regulating again.

Fifth, even though this doesn't effect everyone at this time, or maybe even ever, stress can make it difficult to conceive. Chronic stress causes hormonal changes that disrupt your reproductive function which makes you infertile. Stress hormones can clamp on the smooth muscle of the fallopian tubes that makes it difficult for the woman to get pregnant, as well as emotional stress damages sperm cells. So, whether you're a male or female, stress can be part of the problem why you can't conceive if you are trying to.

Sixth, stress activates the limbic system and drains your emotional well-being. Stress causes anxiety, depression, and even Alzheimer's disease (as shown from memory in the first example). Some people have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which could never go away. If you're constantly stressed you could start to become depressed from problems that I've already explained, because if stress is hindering your brain from functioning at its best and you're also gaining weight, this isn't generally a positive feeling for anyone. Depending on the person, they can become depressed because of all the anxiety and maybe a feeling of helplessness and giving up under such continual stressful situations. I think we can all think of a situation where we were so stressed to the point of wanting to give up or just getting to the point where we go over the edge of what we can handle. This effects the health of our brain and body where we might not realize it. If you are experiencing short-term stress, it can be an upper and be good for your body because it pumps you up and if you concur whatever stressful situation you're in, that makes you feel good. But constantly being in stressful situations wears your body and brain down, which also makes it more difficult for you to handle more stress, which will then make you feel more depressed because you can't combat all the stress that is being thrown at you. Chronic stress can overwhelm you and cause mental problems. Why would we want this?

Now I will look at some of the ways that you can combat stress. These ways are laid out in Change your Brain, Change your Body by Daniel Amen, where I also got a lot of the information from above, as well as my previous post. Like I said before, this book is extremely informational and it makes you aware of how things we don't normally think of affect our body, and keeping us from being the person we want to be.

1. Meditate or pray - meditating and praying both calm stress and enhance brain function. Meditating decreases activity in the left parietal lobes, which decreases awareness of space and time. It increases functioning in the prefrontal cortex, which helps to tune people in to their thoughts, feelings, and goals. It also increases activity in the right temporal lobe, which is an area that is associated with spirituality. Meditating helps you relax and get rid of all the stress that builds up in us over the days, weeks, months, everything. Most of us can relate to being on the run all the time, always having something to do at all times of the day, but this doesn't give our body any time to take a break and recuperate. What people need is to erase all the stresses from their mind for just 10 minutes a day and breathe. Meditating can make you lose track of outside spacial time, but it tunes you in. It increases your brain functioning and memory, which will help you out throughout the day paying attention and sticking to plans and schedules easier. It puts us in a place where we can let our worries dissipate. We all need a little time to relax, and it will make you feel calmer to combat the stress in your life as well as feeling rejuvenated. Also, people who pray or read the Bible every day are 40 percent less likely to suffer from hypertension that others. Spiritual coping strategies can help people to keep from becoming depressed and give in to the bad levels of stress that they may endure.
2. Take a yoga class - this is such a great way to relieve stress because it is all about calming your entire body and deep breathing. Focusing on breathing gets more oxygen to the brain and to the body and it calms your heart rate. This gives you a calming feeling over your body so you don't feel so hopped up on everything. It promotes mental calmness, self-awareness, and a focus on being in the present. Thinking too much about the past or too much about the future is not a good thing. If you dwell upon past experiences or regret things, it is not good to continue having those bad thoughts, get past them and move on because you can't change it. If you're thinking too much about the future you can stress out too much about what you're doing and that can get in the way of what you want to accomplish now in the present. Now, it is shown to be good to think about good past experiences that make you happy because it enhances brain function. So take a yoga class and live in the present. 
3. Delegate - we pride ourselves on always being busy and having things to do, but it is better to be able to say no every once in a while. We don't need to do every single thing we're asked to do, we don't have to have every minute of the day planned with work, volunteer opportunities, etc, we have to say sometimes so that we have a little break. Most of the time we just say yes without actually processing the information, but take the time to think about it first and then decide if you should take part in an endeavor or not. We all need a break, so practice saying no thanks, maybe another time. 
4. Practice gratitude - be grateful for the good things in your life. Simple right? Well a majority of the time we don't do this. Maybe once a year on Thanksgiving, or when you're going through a really tough time and someone is really helpful so you tell them you're grateful to have them in your life, but this is definitely not something that is practiced enough. "Appreciation meditation" makes the brain look very healthy compared to always thinking about the stresses or fears in your life. In a brain scan done on a woman after she thought about fears and stressful situations in her life, her cerebellum had completely shut down, which is involved in physical coordination. New research has also shown that the cerebellum is involved in processing speed and thought coordination. With there is low activation in the cerebellum, people are clumsier and less likely to think through problems. Thinking about your fears and stresses can make it so you don't work your way through them as well! Thinking too much about the bad things and not the good things makes it harder for you to combat the bad things, which makes it even worse. Think about the good things in your life! Also, the left temporal lobe especially became less active, which is involved in mood, memory, and temper control. With less activation, people have a negative mood, think dark thoughts or about violence, and are associated with depression. Being in a negative mood while trying to combat negative things makes it harder to do this and your threshold to giving in to bad thoughts is lower. If you are in a negative mood you are less likely to be in a positive mood and brush off the bad things and get past them. A negative mood breeds more negative things to happen because you allow yourself to process them as negative. Being positive keeps negative thoughts out and makes it harder for bad stuff in your life to effect you. It has also been shown that people who have a greater sense of well-being are more helpful to others. If you are more grateful for the things in your life, you will be more optimistic and feel better about yourself and you are more likely to help other people are you. Sounds like a win-win to me. 
5. Get enough sleep! I think this one goes without saying since I've focused on this before. Sleep is essential to being less stressed and worn out. 
6. Exercise - read my previous post if you'd like to know more about the effects of exercise on your brain and body. Exercise helps to alleviate stress and it boosts your mood.
7. Practice diaphragmatic breathing - when we breathe, we eliminate waste products such as carbon dioxide. When there is too much CO2 in our body, it can cause stressful feelings of disorientation and panic. Deep breathing gets the wastes out of the body and brings in more oxygen, which every part of your body needs to keep going, especially your brain. Brain cells start to die within four minutes when deprived of oxygen. Four minutes! That is a short amount of time before brain cells die. Oxygen is essential to keep your mind going strong. Diaphragmatic breathing calms the basal ganglia, which controls anxiety. It helps your brain run more efficiently, regulates your heartbeat, and relaxes your muscles. A lot of the time if we get anxious our heart rate starts to rise, but we can consciously change that with deep breathing because it forces your heart to not work as fast. This will start to help calm you down by using your brain power. Breathing is obviously important, but it is also very helpful in keeping you relaxed if you work at controlling it during anxiety-producing situations.
8. Listen to soothing music - listening to soothing music can bring peace to a stressful mind. On the other hand, listening to upbeat music can get your heart rate up and pump you up. If you're trying to calm down, don't listen to upbeat music. A slower rhythm can calm your body and heart rate down to match its rhythm. 
9. Smell lavender - the smell of lavender has found to have calming, stress-relieving properties. It reduces cortisol and is involved in stress reduction.
10. Practice being in stressful situations - the more you combat a stressful situation, the less you will fear it and be more in control. Rehearsing or being in stressful situations where you are focusing on being calmer and not getting too worked up will reinforce your behavior and help you to combat those stressful situations the next time it arises. 
11. Avoid substances that harm your brain - caffeine disrupts a natural process that keeps stress under control. Adenosine is a chemical that is released to reduce the body's response to stress, but caffeine actually prevents the release of adenosine, so stress is heightened instead of lowered. Caffeine increases stress hormone levels when people are stressed so it only makes stress worse, so it is definitely not something you should be consuming when you are stressed; it will only make it worse. Alcohol induces stress and lowers the blood flow to the brain, which decreases your ability to cope with stress. Most people drink to try to get away from their stresses, but it hinders your ability to deal with the stresses that you are trying to get away from. 
12. Laugh - laughing counteracts stress and is good for the immune system! Something so simple as laughing that doesn't seem like it would have an affect on the body actually is good for you. It releases endorphins that make you feel better and also lowers the flow of dangerous hormones that suppress the immune system. Spend time with people who make you laugh because it will make you feel better and lower your stress level. This is an easy thing to do, so why not take advantage of it. Have some fun and laugh your stress away. 

I hope some of this can help you become aware of your body and brain and see how something like stress can negatively affect you in ways you didn't think it could. If you want to keep your brain and your body healthy and youthful, learn to avoid or combat stressful situations and take more time to relax and calm your body down. We are always running around and not taking a few minutes out of our day to take a step back and slow down. It is essential to be able to let your body rejuvenate itself. Chronic stress doesn't make you feel good and it doesn't make your body and brain feel good, so do something about it and be aware of the situations around you that could cause stress and in turn harm to yourself. Be aware and alleviate your high levels of stress! (And sorry for the extremely long post)