Impact of Stress on the Brain Flashcards
Help students to recognize the components of the brain, and how their ability to learn and retrieve information is impacted by stress.
What does the word metacognition mean?
It is an awareness of your your own brain and thinking processes.
What are the three brain components of the limbic system?
Amygdala, Hippocampus, and Prefrontal Cortex
The part of the brain that is responsible for your fear/danger response.
Amygdala
The part of your brain that is responsible for concentration, decision making, judgement, and social interaction.
Prefrontal Cortex
The part of your brain responsible for learning, memory, and stress control.
Hippocampus
What is the function of the amygdala?
Danger/alert/fear response.
What is the function of the prefrontal cortex?
Concentration, decision making, judgement, and social interaction.
What is the function of the hippocampus?
Learning, memory, and stress control.
How can you help your amygdala to “calm down” if it is activating your fear response?
Breathing (box breathing, meditating, exercising.
Name 5 strategies that might help someone to regulate when their engine is running too slow or too fast.
Chew gum, rock on a chair, push tips of fingers together, pressure point massage, wall pushes, chair push ups, wiggle your toes in your shoes, stretch, go for a walk, go outside.
What is the definition of bravery that we discussed?
Being brave is having fear but finding a way through it.
Our amygdala cannot tell the difference between things that are safe and dangerous. What are 5 examples of things that are scary but safe?
Writing a test, having a hard conversation, trying out for a team, joining a club, going on a date, hanging out with new friends, presenting in front of the class, going to school.
Our amygdala cannot tell the difference between things that are safe and things that are dangerous. What are 3 examples of things that are scary but dangerous?
Dark alleys, tricky people, fire, weapons, wild animals, large/poisonous insects.
How do we convince the brain to manage the discomfort of anxiety?
By having the experience the brain is trying to avoid. The more we avoid the experience the more the brain locks on and says “no, I’m not going to let you do this!”. Disarm your brain by taking baby steps towards doing the thing it is fearful of.
What is cognitive load?
The amount of information your working memory can hold in a moment.
What is it called when you take information from your working memory to your long term memory?
Encoding
