Such constant stress sculpts the brain for the worse, it seems.15 Brain scans of people who for years had faced work that demanded up to seventy hours each week revealed enlarged amygdalae and weak connections between areas in the prefrontal cortex that can quiet the amygdala in a disturbing moment. And when those stressed-out workers were asked to reduce their emotional reaction to upsetting pictures, they were unable to do so—technically, a failure in “down-regulation.”
