Suffering from acute stress? There's an upside. Bouts of stress could be good for your memory, especially if you are a woman.These are the findings of University of Cape Town academic Christopher du Plooy's five-year research.As part of his doctoral thesis, Du Plooy conducted a study into whether acute stress affects the memory. He found that while acute stress does not impair people's visual and spatial memory [memory related to information such as pictures], exposure to it does appear to improve verbal memory [memory related to verbal information such as words and stories] in women."I have always been interested in memory and how we learn and remember things in different situations, such as arousing and stressful situations," Du Plooy said.He reached his conclusion after analysing data obtained from 250 participants.In his two main studies, participants were exposed to locations in virtual environments and were taught a list of words. They returned 24 hours later and either underwent stress manipulation or were administered prednisone, a synthetic drug similar to the hormone cortisol which the body releases in stressful situations."My results revealed that neither acute stress nor prednisone administration impaired visual and spatial memory," said Du Plooy. "However, exposure to the acute stressor appeared to enhance verbal memory in women, and prednisone administration appeared to impair verbal memory in both men and women."Du Plooy said women reacted better to stress than men because they were less likely to release cortisol...