16/12/2025
Stress hits harder after a brain injury.
This takes place because, the injury itself disrupts the brain's ability to regulate emotions and manage stress hormones, making survivors more sensitive to stressors, exacerbating symptoms like: fatigue confusion, and increasing the risk for conditions like PTSD, creating a vicious cycle where stress worsens TBI recovery.
Here are some examples why worse after 🧠 injury:
•Damage to emotional centers: Injuries to the limbic system (amygdala, hippocampus) impair emotional regulation, making feelings of anxiety and stress harder to control.
•Hormonal disruption: Damage to the hypothalamus and pituitary gland affects stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline), keeping the body in a heightened state of alert.
•Cognitive overload: Stress increases the demand on an already compromised brain, worsening symptoms like memory issues, information processing difficulties, and mental fatigue.
•Heightened threat response: The brain stays on high alert, perceiving threats in everyday situations, perpetuating the stress cycle.
Here are a few examples of 🧠injury symptoms:
•Emotional: Anxiety, depression, irritability, anger, hopelessness, fear, feeling unlike yourself.
•Cognitive: Difficulty concentrating, memory problems, negative thoughts, "what if" cycles.
•Physical: Sleep problems, headaches, dizziness, shaking, rapid heart rate, fatigue, increased sensitivity to light/noise.
Overall, stress immediately followed by a TBI, or TBI with post-injury stress may exacerbate TBI injury mechanisms and deficits. However, pre-injury stress with adequate recovery followed by TBI may result in resilience and neuroprotection.
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