Does Eye Contact etc end up damaging our brain?

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Having read the studies about how the amygdala part of the brain can change in size in those with an ASD, and having read the scientists concluding this could mean that the amygdala shrinks if constantly overstressed, what do people think of this?

If people are in a high-stress situation quite often, where eye contact and socialisation is important and expected and you have to just cope with it, have you found that you're getting gradually worse at recognising people or their emotional states over the years/worse at coping with the unexpected, etc? Certainly seems to be true for me.

If there is/ could be truth in this, how does this affect how we should best look after ourselves? Anyone know?

http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/web/pubs/2 ... volume.pdf
is an example of the research.

I can only talk of my personal experience.

I had no eye-contact (didn't know it existed) prior to the diagnosis. Now I have been described as having adequate eye-contact.

I found that my ability of recognising people has also increased rapidly since I am in ASD therapy.

I had a lot of trouble remembering names and faces prior to the diagnosis.

I have mistaken strangers for people I knew for more than 10+ years until I had the time to study them and notice my error and I needed more than half a year to learn the 3-4 names of my friends whom I've been going to school with every day at that time. I got better a year after that at the next place, but it was still hard.

At my new job now, I easily memorised the names of a whole class of children and several teachers in 1 week.

Though I still do not know the names of those people at my workplace that I do not associate with.

No idea how come, but both abilities, the eye-contact and improved recognition, happened at the same time.

So far, my mind seems to work better than ever.

Interesting...but I wonder if it means your brain is repairing anything that's broken, or just learning to put in new wiring or new techniques that help to identify people?

One possibility is that this is a really good thing, and that it'll mean your amygdala won't have so much stress going through it.

The other possibility is that you're finding ways to keep the stress going at an even higher level on the amygdala, in which case I wonder if it has any effect on it in the long term still?

Anyone else wish the scientists would hurry up and do some proper research into these things?