Try This Breathe: Reducing stress can help your brain
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Nov 6, 2025 
In this engaging conversation, Richard Sima, a Washington Post Brain Matters columnist, sheds light on how chronic stress affects brain resilience and contributes to cognitive decline. Helen Lavretsky, a neuroscientist and geriatric psychiatrist from UCLA, shares groundbreaking research on the power of breathwork and yoga for mental health. They discuss how breath exercises can combat stress and inflammation, improve mood, and even enhance brain connectivity. With practical tips and insights, they highlight the importance of mindful breathing for overall brain health.
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Chronic Stress Rewires The Brain
- Chronic stress floods the brain with cortisol and reshapes neural circuits, making the brain less adaptable.
- Prolonged stress can lead to chronic inflammation and accelerate brain aging, including hippocampal atrophy.
Caregiving's Toll On Brain Structure
- Helen Lavretsky describes caregiving and chronic stress as something that "eats out the brain" and accelerates aging.
- She links repeated depressive episodes and chronic stress to measurable gray matter loss, especially in the hippocampus.
Try Short Daily Chanting
- Do a 12-minute daily chanting meditation like Kirtan Kriya to pace your breath and reduce inflammation-linked proteins.
- Helen Lavretsky reports this practice improved connectivity, gray matter, metabolism, and cognition in caregivers.