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Stoic Stress ep 47 : Moral Letters 12.4-6 : Aging and Memory Loss
Stress is very much a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can motivate you and spur you on to tackle challenges. On the other, it can seriously impair certain processes in your body, especially if your stress is long term.
One process that it can hinder is your memory. While under stress, there are lots of things going on behind the scenes that can make your memory worse. When you’re stressed, you can’t sleep – and a lack of sleep leaves you feeling confused and fuzzy with your memories.
Another issue that you’ll face with memories and stress is the forming and recalling of long-term memories. This is because of cortisol, a stress chemical, which forces you to prefer your short-term memory instead. This is something meant to help us in short term stressful situations, but it actually ends up hurting you if you’re continuously stressed out.
This can happen as you age but interestingly Seneca writes about looking forward to growing old.
Moral Letters 12.4-6 states I owe it to my country-place that my old age became apparent whithersoever I turned. Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it. Fruits are most welcome when almost over; youth is most charming at its close; the last drink delights the toper, – the glass which souses him and puts the finishing touch on his drunkenness. Each pleasure reserves to the end the greatest delights which it contains. Life is most delightful when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline. And I myself believe that the period which stands, so to speak, on the edge of the roof, possesses pleasures of its own. Or else the very fact of our not wanting pleasures has taken the place of the pleasures themselves. How comforting it is to have tired out one's appetites, and to have done with them! "But," you say, "it is a nuisance to be looking death in the face!" Death, however, should be looked in the face by young and old alike. We are not summoned according to our rating on the censor's list. Moreover, no one is so old that it would be improper for him to hope for another day of existence. And one day, mind you, is a stage on life's journey.
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By Matt SchmidtStress is very much a double-edged sword. On one hand, it can motivate you and spur you on to tackle challenges. On the other, it can seriously impair certain processes in your body, especially if your stress is long term.
One process that it can hinder is your memory. While under stress, there are lots of things going on behind the scenes that can make your memory worse. When you’re stressed, you can’t sleep – and a lack of sleep leaves you feeling confused and fuzzy with your memories.
Another issue that you’ll face with memories and stress is the forming and recalling of long-term memories. This is because of cortisol, a stress chemical, which forces you to prefer your short-term memory instead. This is something meant to help us in short term stressful situations, but it actually ends up hurting you if you’re continuously stressed out.
This can happen as you age but interestingly Seneca writes about looking forward to growing old.
Moral Letters 12.4-6 states I owe it to my country-place that my old age became apparent whithersoever I turned. Let us cherish and love old age; for it is full of pleasure if one knows how to use it. Fruits are most welcome when almost over; youth is most charming at its close; the last drink delights the toper, – the glass which souses him and puts the finishing touch on his drunkenness. Each pleasure reserves to the end the greatest delights which it contains. Life is most delightful when it is on the downward slope, but has not yet reached the abrupt decline. And I myself believe that the period which stands, so to speak, on the edge of the roof, possesses pleasures of its own. Or else the very fact of our not wanting pleasures has taken the place of the pleasures themselves. How comforting it is to have tired out one's appetites, and to have done with them! "But," you say, "it is a nuisance to be looking death in the face!" Death, however, should be looked in the face by young and old alike. We are not summoned according to our rating on the censor's list. Moreover, no one is so old that it would be improper for him to hope for another day of existence. And one day, mind you, is a stage on life's journey.