The stress of taking an exam, competing on a quiz show or speaking in front of an audience can make you go blank in a minute. Sometimes even the best and most prepared will ‘blank out’ under the glare of the harsh spotlight. If you think you’re alone on this, check out former 2012 Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry.
It’s painful to watch him blank out in front of a national TV audience of potential voters. He was proposing the elimination of three government departments to balance the national budget by the year 2020 if he were elected – “commerce, education and… and…” Well, the YouTube video says it all. Given three chances to remember the poor guy still drew a blank ON NATIONAL TV! In his own words… “Oops!”
Perry found out the hard way that stress is a big killer of memory. In fact, that’s the way we’re wired. When we’re stressed, the adrenal gland releases cortisol that shuts the brain down. Therefore, stress instantly makes you dumb, and it was meant to. That’s actually how we survived threatening situations back when man had to live by instincts and not intellect. “Don’t think just do!” was the message for surviving whatever life-threatening situation we were faced with in that hostile environment.
Today’s stressful situations are mostly intellectual so that same survival instinct becomes our enemy. Memory blocks are often caused by stress because our higher brain functions shut down in order to handle the potential danger.
Here are my top three tips to prevent absent-mindedness and stress based memory loss.
1. Breathe deeply
This will relax the brain and help you get control (it helps with panic attacks too). Shallow breathing is great for the fight or flight response but it only makes things worse when you are under intellectual stress. Get some oxygen into the body and you’ll think clearer.