Stress sets up the day

ON THOSE miserable days when everything feels like an uphill struggle, you really can blame getting out of bed on the wrong side.

A study has shown that those who wake up expecting it to be stressful will find the day harder.

The anticipation of stress was found to affect the working memory, making it harder to learn and retain information.

US researchers asked 240 people, aged 25 to 65, to report their expectations of a stressful day on a smartphone app.

All participants had lower scores in memory tasks when they were dreading pressure during the day.

“Humans can think about and anticipate things before they happen, which can help us prepare for and even prevent certain events,” the author of the study, Jinshil Hyun, from Pennsylvania State University, said.

“But this study suggests this ability can also be harmful to your daily memory function, independent of whether the stressful events being anticipated actually happen.”