Stress causes cognitive impairment, loss of focus, poor workouts, and bad decision-making. Let's fix that.
Stress makes people stupid. More accurately, people under stress make bad decisions. They get brain fog and lose focus. Their thinking becomes inflexible, clogged. Even their memory and reaction times falter.
Stress can be acute or chronic. Losing sleep is a stressor. Multitasking is a stressor. Your workouts are stressors, even if you enjoy them. Big life changes and tragedies can stress you out for months or years, but so can a bad day at work. Even extreme temperature changes (hot or cold) are stressors.
Stress is a downward spiral. It leads to cognitive impairment, which leads to bad choices, which lead to even more stress. How all that works is fascinating, and luckily, there's a way to become more resilient to stress and its negative effects.
The Catecholamine Connection
Catecholamines are stress-related neurotransmitters and hormones. You know them as dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine:
- Dopamine: Motivation, reward, focus
- Norepinephrine (noradrenaline): Attention, arousal, vigilance
- Epinephrine (adrenaline): Energy, fight-or-flight
Under acute stress, your body's fight-or-flight system dumps large amounts of norepinephrine and epinephrine, which quickly drain neurotransmitter stores. Neurons fire more intensely, and if production can't keep up, signaling weakens. This leads to brain fog, reduced working memory, and slower reaction times.
With chronic stress, the enzyme that makes catecholamines falls behind. This slows dopamine and norepinephrine replenishment, while rising cortisol further weakens dopamine signaling and receptor sensitivity. Cognitive resilience declines.
Basically, stress "burns through" catecholamines by forcing constant release. And if synthesis can't keep up, neurotransmitter pools dip below optimal, impairing focus and decision-making. In short, you get "stupid."
The Resilience Nutrient
Catecholamines have something in common: they're all made from the amino acid tyrosine. Tyrosine is the precursor for dopamine, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.
If you eat a protein-rich diet, your baseline levels of tyrosine are easily covered. But add stress, and your demand for catecholamine production outpaces supply, leaving neurotransmitter stores depleted and cognitive performance impaired.
Supplementing tyrosine provides extra substrate for synthesis. This helps neurons replenish dopamine and norepinephrine faster during high demand (stressful conditions). In studies, everyone from frazzled execs and students, hard-training athletes, and military personnel has shown improved stress resilience when taking extra tyrosine.
If you lead a perfectly stress-free life, you won't notice much from supplemental tyrosine. But stressed-out individuals will notice improved focus and concentration, and clearer thinking. Tyrosine won't take your stressors away, but it will biochemically "toughen you up" so you can deal with them.
That's why we included tyrosine in our pre-performance supplement: Biotest Igniter. Whether your performance is tied to a workout, a sporting event, a military mission, or a challenging day at work, the extra hit of tyrosine ramps up dopamine and norepinephrine synthesis, sharpening mental performance. Take one or two scoops about 20 minutes before physical or mental challenges.
