Television And Brain Health

After a long day at school or at work, do you ever feel like rolling up the sidewalk, turning on the TV, and just “forgetting” about your troubles? It works. But watch out— You may forget more than you bargained for! Instead of “unwinding” you may actually be “unraveling!”

Dementia is the clinical term used to describe an “irrecoverable deteriorative mental state.” There are a number of forms of dementia, and various causes. Mental deterioration can occur as a result of alcohol consumption, certain diseases or drugs, a high fat diet, inactivity, or chronic stress, to name a few. Now medical researchers are turning their attention to the possibility of excessively television watching as a significant contributing factor in the development of senility.

Why? TV spectators are exposed to a mass of successive, rapid stimuli with little or no possibility of rationally processing what they are watching. In addition, much of what they see tends to be stress producing. Stress causes a biochemical response in the brain. It stimulates the production of glucocorticosteriods ( an adrenal hormone) which in large amounts can actually damage the delicate nerve fibers in the hippocampus portion of the brain. And it is this area that is responsible for short-term memory storage. Clinicians are now being advised to inquire into suspected dementia patients’ television viewing habits as a possible factor in the development of the disease. One study suggested that viewing TV four hours a day or more may induce stress-related damage to the brain.

Quoted from Vicki Griffin in Inside Report- October 1995 .