While reading "Stress and Your Brain", I immediately began to relate the texts to instances that have occurred in my own life. When PTSD was mentioned, I thought back to my senior English class. We had a veteran come in to talk with us about life before, during and after war. Some topics were just too painful for him to share with us. He did though, share with us that he has been in therapy and sharing war stories with adolescents has forced him to come to terms with what happened over seas. If we really can tell if someone is more likely to develop PTSD, I believe we should do everything we can to prevent him or her from going to war. The consequences are just not worth it.
I feel like I now understand which part of the brain works with memory, the hippocampus. The hippocampus is damaged when patients are diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. I read a book, Still Alice, which goes inside the life of a mom with Alzheimer's. I will always remember this book, and how emotional I was while reading it. How can someone try to live a normal life when a part of his or her brain is damaged?
In the text, R.S. says, "Stressors that last less than a few hours tend to sharpen memory, mostly as a result of adrenaline. If the stressor persists, the enhancement disappears, replaced by forgetfulness, mostly because of glucocorticoids". I have experienced this first hand with dance tryouts. If I'm nervous before I even arrive at the tryout, I tend to freeze up and forget the dance half way through. On the other hand, if I don't think about it until right before I go on, I let my muscle memory and adrenaline get me through the dance.
