Life@MA • Advice

The Scientific Mindset

Using Neuroscience to Reduce Stress

By Cameron Ericksen '28 in Winter 2026

You just got back from practice. It’s 10 o’clock at night. Tomorrow, you have two tests and an essay due. Your parents just yelled at you, again, for being late last Saturday night. And, your whole friend group hates each other, so they are spamming your phone. You know you need to study and write half of your personal essay, which is 90 percent fiction at this point. Instead, you decide to decompress and scroll on TikTok. It’s now 11 p.m. The stress is overwhelming. Why does this keep happening?

Stress isn’t only a feeling people experience — it’s a brain and body response. When one faces a stressor, their body activates systems like the HPA axis, a hormone chain that ends with the release of stress hormones called glucocorticoids. This can be helpful in the short term, such as activating a fight-or-flight response, but chronic over-activation is linked to negative outcomes, including increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression, according to The National Library of Medicine.

Fortunately, neuroscience also points to practical methods to lower stress levels. One of the most effective techniques is control: having behavioral control over a stressor can change the outcome of the situation. For schoolwork, this technique would work best for breaking down an overwhelming workload into small, doable steps. Making a short plan and starting with one easy task signals the brain that the situation is manageable. Instead of doom scrolling, take ten minutes to make a list of actionable steps to feel more productive. The list itself creates a sense of control and should, in theory, lower stress levels.

There are also many ways to calm stress physiology, like meditation, yoga, deep breathing, relaxation, and exercise. These all work as reset buttons for your nervous system, helping you shift out of fight or flight and back towards calm.

You can’t eliminate stress, but you can change how your brain and body respond to it. By increasing control and using simple habits like breathing, movement, and relaxation, you’re working with your biology, not against it, to make stress less intense and easier to handle.