Stress over every single thing? It’s actually not your fault – it’s biology

If you're known among your friends for stressing about things that they wouldn't bat an eyelid over, you can tell them that it's not your fault and much of it comes down to how your brain is wired.

In an effort to ascertain how different individuals cope with stressful situations, Rajita Sinha, director of the Yale Stress Center, conducted a study which has since been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

After recruiting 30 healthy individuals, Rajita and her team set about analysing their individual responses to certain imagery with the help of an fMRI scan session.

Dividing the group in half, the stressed group were shown 60 violent images of people being shot, stabbed and chased while the control group were shown images akin to an IKEA catalogue; chairs, lamps and tables.

Following this procedure, the individuals were then asked to describe their coping mechanisms in times of stress with emphasis on alcohol consumption, eating patterns and verbal disagreements.

The study indicated that during times of stress, the ventral medial prefrontal cortex of the brain –  the region involved in emotional regulation and inner detection of feelings like hunger, craving and want – underwent changes.

According to Time, researchers established that individuals with more neuroflexibility and neuroplasticity in this region were less likely to respond to stress in an emotionally destructive way, but were also more likely to binge drink and emotionally eat in general.

"The greater the magnitude of the change in the neural signal, the more active copers they were," clarified Rjita.

Researchers are currently investigating whether it's possible to increase flexibility in this region, with Rajita explaining: "We have a natural circuitry to try to regain control and to be resilient."

"I think it’s tied to the survival processes that are hardwired, and this is what we’re tapping into," she added.