Written by Muhammed Emin Yasul
What are the Types of Bullying?
Bullying is mostly observed among compeers. Peer victimization is unheeded and people have to become conscious about it. Bullying has 2 varieties; Cyberbullying and Physical Bullying. Of course, both are harmful for everyone but some researchers have a clash of ideas about “Which One is More Harmful?” Some of the researchers allege that cyberbullying is more harmful because of the freedom in social media. Contrary to this, some of them allege that living through bullying has a big influence that's why they allege physical bullying is more harmful.
Related to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System’s analytic information, 15.7% of high school students are bullied on social media (9). In proportion to this, cyberbullying rates have increased by 70% in the last few months. Moreover, related to JAMA’s research, the risk of suicide is 50% more than others who are bullied on social media (10).
What are Bullying’s Effects on the Brain and Mind?
Researchers have been making an effort to try to understand “Why Bullying has an Important Effect on Brain functions?” since the first works about it were published (3). For example, IMAGEN analyzed it. Approximately 30 percent of participants in the study said they had experienced chronic bullying (3). Moreover, researchers have detected some differences in the brain’s putamen and caudate parts.
Moreover, bullying has effects on our neurons as well. They damage the myelin sheath, which is located in the axon and helps transmit inputs 10 times faster to postsynaptic neurons, and our brain cells are dying via physical bullying (7).
In another research by IMAGEN, researchers analyzed that 36 of them had experienced chronic bullying from 682 participants from the United Kingdom, France, Ireland, and Germany (8).
In both types of research, they discovered putamen and caudate parts of the brain can be influenced by bullying. The neurons that leave from the putamen, create some pathways for simplification of block our movements (1). That is to say, bullying might impact our physical movements by implication. The Caudate is the part of the brain that controls and plans our free will movements, learning, memory, reward, motivation, emotion, and romantic reactions. When caudate and putamen are combined, they are named the striatum (6).
Image Credit: https://pin.it/7u6Nmtv.
Bullying has two types of effects: short-term and long-term. In the short term, Bullying can cause mental health problems and symptoms, psychosomatic issues, sleep problems, bad academic performance, socialization issues, Eating habit changes, skipping or avoiding school, low confidence and self-esteem, feeling shameful, high risk of illness, and high risk of absenteeism (2). But in the long term, Bullying can cause stress-induced sickness, family impact, depression, anxiety, increased risk of suicidal ideas, bad health habits, self-harm, substance use, eating disorders, and panic attacks (2).
Moreover, decreases in cortisol levels (5), disrupted neurogenesis, cell death in glucocorticoid receptor sites, systemic inflammation, and poorer cognitive functions are some of the reactions that the brain did (4).
Furthermore, the negative impacts from the outside can badly influence the brain. For instance, an impact can do a disservice to our brain cells and that can give rise to some serious brain issues. Such as loss of memory, change of heart, and bleeding in the brain tissue or between the membranes of the brain.
Taking into account all of these researches and sources we can see that bullying is an impact and factor that is unheeded by people but contrary to this a factor that should be addressed for our brain health and protecting from some sicknesses that keep in the background.
References:
Neurochallenged. (n.d.). Know your brain: Putamen. https://neuroscientificallychallenged.com/posts/know-your-brain-putamen
Advpsychiatry. (2023, November 10). Short and long-term effects of bullying on mental health. Advanced Psychiatry Associates. https://advancedpsychiatryassociates.com/resources/blog/effects-of-bullying-on-mental-health/
Bullying and the brain. (2023, September 27). Dana Foundation. https://dana.org/resources/bullying-and-the-brain
Bullying and the brain. (n.d.). Promoting Relationships & Eliminating Violence Network | PREVNet. https://www.prevnet.ca/media/blog/bullying-and-brain
Consequences of bullying behavior - Preventing bullying through science, policy, and practice - NCBI bookshelf. (2016, September 14). National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390414/
Driscoll, M. E., Bollu, P. C., & Tadi, P. (2023, July 24). Neuroanatomy, nucleus caudate - StatPearls - NCBI bookshelf. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557407
Fraser, J. (2023, June 17). How bullying harms the brain. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-bullied-brain/202306/how-bullying-harms-the-brain
How bullying affects the brain. (n.d.). King's College London. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/archive/news/ioppn/records/2018/december/how-bullying-affects-the-brain
McGovern Medical School. (2021, March 12). The impact of bullying on mental health. Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. https://med.uth.edu/psychiatry/2021/03/12/the-impact-of-bullying-on-mental-health/
The mental health impact of bullying on kids and teens. (2022, January 5). McLean Hospital | Mental Health Treatment, Research, and Education (Belmont, MA). https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/bullying-kids-teens
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