Everyone knows that stress is bad for you. In addition to higher blood pressure, insomnia, loss of appetite and other physical ailments, it can also cause a psychiatric condition known as Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
But, did you know that your baby girl may also suffer from the same anxiety as you do if the home environment she lives in is stressful?
Scientists from the University of Wisconsin - Madison studied the brain scans of 28 women and 29 men. These professionals concluded that tiny female tots raised by a mom who worried all the time were more likely to experience stress as kids and anxiety as teenagers. Interestingly enough, the same results were not shown when it came to male participants, according to the Washington Post.
"All of that evidence suggests, (study) authors explain, that the brains of baby girls living in stressed households may be shaped by that experience, as high levels of cortisol weakened the connection between those two mood-governing areas of the brain and that that early experience may have a lasting influence," the source states.
MRI scans were used to determine how strong the link was between the part of the brain that answers to negative emotions and threats, also known as the amygdala, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for managing these negative feelings.
In the end, analysts found that young females who had a weak connection between these two segments of the brain were reared by moms who reported experiencing high levels of anxiety due to marital conflict, depression or feeling overwhelmed from the duties of motherhood.