Читать книгу The New IQ: Use Your Working Memory to Think Stronger, Smarter, Faster - Tracy Alloway - Страница 44

One of the pervasive characteristics of life these days is stress, and unfortunately stress considerably undermines our working memory, as Mauricio Delgado of Rutgers University found. To test this in a study, Delgado created stress by submerging participants’ hands in a bath of cold water. Though this may seem a procedure unlikely related to stress, it is a psychologically recognized method for inducing stress without harming participants. Delgado found that the stress undermined the participants’ working memory to such a degree that when they were asked to determine the outcome of a series of financial investments, they tended to just give up thinking things through and use their emotions to give an answer.

The negative effect that stress has on working memory was also shown revealed in a study conducted by Amy Arnsten and colleagues at Yale University. They worked with rats to simulate stress by increasing their levels of protein kinase C (PKC). High levels of PKC are connected to increased stress: the more PKC there is in its system, the more stressed the rat. When the researchers raised the levels of PKC in the rats, their working memory literally shut down. As a result, they had impaired judgment, high levels of distraction, and displayed impulsive behavior. High levels of stress definitely have a negative impact on working memory.

But what’s really interesting is that having a stronger working memory can also help inoculate you against stress. In 2006, Rachel Yehuda of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and her colleagues at Yale Medical School examined working-memory-type skills in a wide range of traumatic and stressful situations. They looked at combat veterans who had experienced posttraumatic stress disorder, those facing the loss of a family member, women in early stages of breast cancer, and those who had just survived a natural disaster. They found that skills associated with working memory played a big role in helping them to cope.