First of all, the book should not be perceived as a self-help book - in fact, I imagine any reader who goes through the book in hope of getting immediate self-healing advice would be quite disappointed. Although the last chapter is devoted to applying the information to the reader's personal life, it doesn't hand out meaningless advice ("do this and that and every problem suddenly disappears" type of stuff). Sapolsky simply gives scientific information on the possible consequences of both controllable and uncontrollable factors such as life styles, personality traits, genetic components etc. in response to stress. He tackles the difficult feat of explaining such a complex subject, effects of stress on human physiology AND psychology, with a style so humorous and easily read.

The book is divided into fourteen chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of the effects of stress. The first ones are more packed with information about physiological pathways and such to prepare the reader for the upcoming ones. Some of the information (for example the ones about CRH and ACTH regulation) are repeated just enough to not let you forget any of it.

Some familiarity of physiology is going to be welcome but not completely necessary - although I would imagine it would be harder to digest the information if you have no relevant background whatsoever. I skimmed through the explanations of some pathways but most of it are essential to properly understand the book.

The examples of animal testing and human trials presented (building blocks of every chapter) are sufficiently interesting to keep you reading. There are always scientific work on the matter included, from every perspective in controversial topics.

All in all, it is a great book that I would recommend to everyone who are either professionally involved or at least interested in the subject - they are certainly in for a great read full of well-written information.

It turned out not to be all that I expected.
It started off well, providing a wealth of research-based information on how stress affects health, and then spiraled off into an incredibly repetitive and somewhat outdated post.
Non-fiction texts, especially when they aim to analyze the relationship between mind and body, fascinate me, this one bored me.
A pity

I finished it at last!
I did like it but the journey was such a pain. It was the first science-y book I read and the beginning was tough. But I do think I’ve learnt a lot, and hopefully it will stick for my exam haha.

A highly informative book about stress and its biology across multiple species, with an emphasis on humans - and how it manifests in harmful ways in our bodily systems mainly through abnormal glucocorticoid secretion. A lot of the points apart from the main content are worth pondering upon more in depth (for instance, even if something's statistically likely it shouldn't be taken as universally applicable - a simple idea, but something made oblivious by cognitive biases) - but leave the reader with a sense of discomfort too, as they show just how easily things can go wrong through allostatic load. The relation between genes and the environment is particularly stressed upon to highlight that it is not a straightforward process to draw conclusions in this field. The author provides several examples to illustrate important findings and also the pitfalls of drawing overly simplistic conclusions; it can certainly make the reader skeptical of pop sci in general.

Though the book generally has a pessimistic tone to it, it concludes with some hope, with the author providing approaches that can be taken to combat stress early on and his interesting opinions on related matters; the fact that these approaches are quite simple to implement does put the reader at a bit of ease. However, overall, reading this book can make one meta-stressed, and it should be done only when in a state of mind ready for it.

P.S. The Notes section of the book contains a wealth of references to (mostly) technical articles and is worth going through to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.

Actually I had to read this book for one of my study courses ‘Stress and Health’ so you can already guess what mood I was in when I started reading it. Oh how wrong I was: I never thought I’d like a study book that much - although Psychology is a great study - and would catch myself laughing out loud during the majority of the chapters. What a great book. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you want to know more about stress (in its broadest sense) and everything related to that (spoiler: a lot, I almost got stressed out - don’t do that folks - by reading about all the different kinds of stress and the possibility to die from it… lol). That being said, I think living the zebra life is maybe one I’d sign for ;)

Dr. Sapolsky is everything you could want from an author on a serious topic like stress: a world-class leader in the field of research, a clear and perceptive writer, and equal parts hilarious and profound. Learning about the physiology and psychology of stress would be interesting either way, but learning about it through his book is at least doubly so. Highly recommended.

Sapolsky is god. He's a great writer. But he is an immortal lecturer. Youtube his Stanford classes and behold! Pure genius.

Going forward, I'm not going to stress myself over anything.

While, I'm aware of how cortisol wreaks havoc, this book provides sheer evidence why our lifestyles are leading to shorter life spans.

More letting go, sleep and meditation for me. For the ones who are fascinated by jargons in the biology and neuroscience field, grab this book already!

Gastrit olduğumu öğrendiğimde bu kitabı okumayı bitirmiştim. Dolayısıyla neden gastrit olduğumu anlamam hiç zor olmadı. Gastrit olmuştum çünkü ben bir zebra değildim. Keşke olsaydım ama değildim işte. İnsan olarak dünyaya gelmiştim fakat evrim sağolsun, zebranınkiyle aynı stres tepkisine sahiptim. Zebra olsaydım böylesi bir stres tepkisi hayatım boyunca çok işime yarayacaktı; ancak insan olarak her stresli olay karşısında zebranınkiyle aynı tepkiyi vermek bedenimi altüst etmişti.

Neyse ki sadece mide ve bağırsak sorunlarıyla kaldım. Kitaba göre stres tepkisinin sık sık aktive edilmesi çok daha ciddi sonuçlara yol açabiliyor. Örneğin çok stresli bir olay yaşadıktan sonra kalp krizi geçirme riski artıyor; özellikle öfke gibi olumsuz ve güçlü duyguların yoğun hissedildiği herhangi bir olaydan sonraki iki saat içinde iki katına çıkıyormuş. Üstelik erkeklerin kadınlara kıyasla daha yüksek oranlarda kalp krizi geçiriyor olmalarına karşın, kalp krizleri ABD’de kadınlar açısından birinci derecedeki ölüm nedeni imiş: Yılda 500.000 (meme kanserinden ölümler ise yılda 40.000). Ve erkeklerdeki oran onlarca yıldır azalmaktayken, kadınlardaki gittikçe artıyormuş.

Elbette beslenme de önemli bir etken ancak stres sırasında zebranın aslandan kaçmasını sağlayacak kadar enerjinin glükoz olarak kana verilmesi, yediğiniz abur cuburlardaki besinlerin depolanmak üzere kana karışmasından veyahut damarlarınızda gezinen o lanet kolesterolden çok daha hızlı ve çok daha fazla miktarda. Dolayısıyla stres olduğunuzda kana salınan bu parçacıkların çeşitli nedenlerle (mesela yıllardır içtiğiniz sigara yüzünden) plak oluşmuş damarlarınıza gidip oraya yapışması ve tıkanmaya yol açması çok daha olası. Böyle bir senaryonun yaşanmaması için yapılacak en akıllıca şey ise arkanızdan aslan kovalıyormuş gibi koşmak. Çünkü o zaman kandaki bu fazladan enerji kaslarınıza aktarılır ve orada hızlı bir şekilde yakılır.

Evet, stres tepkisi, ister insan, ister zebra, ister aslan, ister binbir özenle büyüttüğü kızı ergenliğini maksimumda yaşayan bir anne olsun, aşırı sıcaktan terlediğinizde de üşüdüğünüzde de aynı şekilde devreye giren çılgın bir tepki. Bir kaza anında arabayı tek başınıza kaldırabilmenize yarayan bu muazzam mekanizma, sadece fiziksel durumlar için aktive olsa iyi de, ekranda bir yazışma okurken bir anda devreye girip sizi olduğunuzdan büyük göstermek için omuzlarınızı kasarak yukarı kaldırdığında, birazdan avınızın üzerine atlayacakmış gibi rahatsız rahatsız kıpırdatmaya başladığında biraz abes kaçıyor. Çünkü o enerjiyle en fazla parmak kaslarınızı kullanarak tıkır tıkır cevap yetiştirirsiniz; e stres tepkisi de rasyonel beyinle bağlantıyı kestiği için düşüncesizce yazdığınız şeyler genellikle kışkırtıcı olur ve karşıdan daha beter bir cevap gelir. Sonuç olarak zincirleme tepkilerle karşılıklı olarak gün boyu stres yaşamanıza sebep olmaktan başka bir işe yaramaz. Bakalım, evrim buna ne zaman çözüm bulacak? Çünkü stres tepkisinin kilometrelerce koşmanızı ya da kas gücü gerektirecek başka olaylar dışında aktive olması işlevli olmadığı gibi, gün içerisinde defalarca devreye girdiğinde epeyce zarar veriyor.  

Stresin yol açtığı hastalıklar yalnızca kalp, mide ve bağırsaklarla sınırlı değil. Yetişkinlik döneminde başlayan diyabet, hipertansiyon, kardiyovasküler hastalıklar, hafıza problemleri, osteoporoz, üreme sorunları, uzun süreli streslerde bağışıklık sistemi baskılanması; geçici ancak çok sayıda stres faktöründe, yani sistem sürekli aç-kapa yapıldığında otoiümmün hastalıklar ve daha nice problem. Pandemi koşullarında yaşamaya başladıktan sonra bu hastalıklardan en az ikisine sahip olmayan kalmadı sanırım. Her çağın kendine göre zorlukları vardır muhakkak; ancak sosyal izolasyonun maksimuma ulaştığı bu çağda insan, doğadan ve doğasından bu kadar uzakta yaşamanın bedelini ödüyor olmalı. 

Herneyse. Kitaba gelecek olursak, yazarı Robert Sapolsky Stanford Üniversitesi'nde biyoloji, nöroloji ve nörolojik bilimler profesörü. Kendisi muhteşem bir araştırmacı olduğu kadar muhteşem de bir yazar ve eğitimci. Her çağın kendine göre zorlukları olduğu kadar hoşlukları da var elbette. Sapolsky bunlardan biri, internet bir diğeri. YouTube sayesinde Sapolsky'nin ders videolarını oturduğunuz yerden izleyebiliyorsunuz. Umarım o sınıftaki gençler nasıl bir cevherle karşı karşıya olduklarının farkındadırlar... (Human Behavioral Biology: https://youtu.be/NNnIGh9g6fA)

Gelelim kitaba. Kitap, stres ve stresle ilişkili hastalıklar üzerine muazzam bilgiler sunuyor. Kitabın kendisi de zaman zaman stres kaynağı olabiliyor ancak öyle keyifli bir okuma deneyimi sunuyor ki aynı anda antidepresan etkisi de yaratıyor. Ve en sonunda stresle baş etme üzerine kısa bir bölüm de var. Merak etmeyin, "5 adımda stresi yenin", "9 adımda defedin, bitirin" gibi şeyler değil. Tam Sapolsky tarzında, şablonik olmayan, yer yer kafa karıştırıcı, öğretici ve en önemlisi yalnızca bireysel düzeyde değil, aynı zamanda sosyal, kültürel ve politik seviyelerde de ele alan bir bölüm. 

Neden bu halde olduğunuzu anlamak, neleri değiştirip neleri değiştiremeyeceğinizi öğrenmek istiyorsanız bu kitabı mutlaka okuyun. Kitap bittikten sonra hayatınızda neleri değiştireceğinizi bilemem ama bir şeyin garantisini verebilirim, o da "glukokortikoid" kelimesi sözcük dağarcığınızda o kadar sıradan ve gündelik bir kelime haline gelecek ki 2 cümleden birinde bu kelimeyi kullanmadan edemeyeceksiniz. Ama merak etmeyin, geçiyor. Bakın yazının sonuna kadar sabırla bu kelimeyi kullanmadan durabildim. Sonuç olarak, hayat kısa, kuşlar uçuyor; kitabı okuyun ki glukokortikoid seviyeleriniz gereksiz yere uçmasın a dostlar.

A list of qualifications as long as your arm but in the one section I bothered to read he sounded like a charlatan. He still maintains that stress causes ulcers when we know that a bacteria does. He even describes how this amazing discovery came about but he still goes down the stress path.

Yes, it took me almost 3 years to read this book. I didn’t want to half-ass it. I took notes and reread things that were confusing and really tried to get all I could out of it. I wanted to push myself to read an informational book about a topic I’m fascinated by, but once reading it by choice started to feel like a chore, I had to switch it up and read other books in between.

Robert Sapolsky is a genius and demonstrates throughout the book how qualified he is to write a book about stress. The sections (and there were a lot of them) about exactly what goes on in the body during stress and what happens as a result were made as entertaining and engaging as possible because of his writing style and expertise. It feels unfair for me to rate this book less because it was too “scienc-y” or technical because that’s exactly what it claims to be.

What’s cool about me reading this book at the time I did is that I feel like I’ve learned a lot about myself and therefore curated and improved my own stress responses in the past 2 years. It’s not until the end of the book that Sapolsky really dives into how to deal with stress and it felt really validating that many of the strategies I use are backed by actual science and research.

I have so much to say about this book but I’ll try to summarize it into a few points:

1. A lot of the concepts in this book was illustrated with the dichotomy of “westernized” and “non-westernized” people as a shorthand for developed and non-developed societies, which I found dated (despite me reading the latest revised edition published in 2004) and bordering on offensive. Based on this alone, I might’ve given the book 1 or 2 stars.

2. The science in this one was well summarized and generally engaging. A lot of it was not new to me and which I had learnt in Physiology classes back in university, but I appreciated some concepts on a deeper level given the way Sapolsky explains it. Sometimes the technical jargon can get a bit heavy and my eyes would glaze over if I was reading the ebook, and in times like these I much preferred the audiobook. I would’ve given this aspect 4 stars.

3. A special shout-out to the last chapter about managing stress, which I found exceptionally well done compared to the rest of the book.

I find that there’s been not enough said about Point 1 in particular in the reviews for this book so I’ll devote a bit of my review to calling that out.

A huge part of this book is concerned about how far human society has evolved compared to wild animals but a lot of our physiological stress responses hasn’t quite caught up with that. There’s even a motif through this book about a zebra escaping from a lion on the savannah, which lends to the title of the book and is a way Sapolsky uses to illustrate what we have evolved to do (short-burst fight or flight physiological responses) compared to what we actually do in this time and age (utilizing what is meant to be short-burst responses but dragging that out into prolonged stress responses to human society things like mortgages, job security, anxiety over our long-term health, our children, etc.).

All of that is well and good, but what I raise issue with is how Sapolsky basically divides humanity into two halves: you’re either “westernized” or “non-westernized”. If you’re “westernized”, you live in the most advanced frontier of humanity and your society has developed far along enough that you’re dealing with high-end jobs and therefore high-end stressors. This book is written about and for you. If you’re a “non-westernized” person, then you’re literally not far from that zebra being chased by the lion on the savannah. Here are some quotes to back that up (from the 3rd revised edition published in 2004):

”If you’re a human, having enough food and water for this meal, but not being sure where the next meal is coming from is a major stressor as well, one of the defining experiences of life outside the westernized world.” (Ch 5)

”Stress-induced glucocorticoid secretion works roughly the same in all the mammals, birds, and fish..and it has only been in the last half-century or so that westernized versions of just one of those species had much of a chance of surviving something like a stroke." (Ch 10)

So yes, if you’re from a “non-westernized” part of the world, you’re definitely going to be so poor and living in the wild that your “defining experience of life” will be not being sure where your next meal is going to come from. You also would have not much of a chance surviving a stroke because of course the healthcare in your society is likely to be non-existent, given how backward your society even is. Do you even have a society or are you just troops of animals living in the wild?

Another example of this casual racism is found in Ch 9, where Sapolsky talks about stress and pain. He zooms in on how acupuncture, a traditionally East Asian medical technique dating back thousands of years, has been found to release opioids to help patients deal with pain. He notes that “Western scientist” had heard of it and “[dumped] it into a bucket of anthropological oddities—inscrutable Chinese herbalists sticking needles into people, Haitian shamans killing with voodoo curses, Jewish mothers curing any and all disease with their secret-recipe chicken soup.” OK, already eyebrow-raising but at least he acknowledged that they were dumping it into a bucket, although I would raise issue with how these are written off as “anthropological oddities”. “Western science” hasn’t yet figured out how they worked or bothered spending money researching into them but that doesn’t mean that they’re entirely nonsense just because they originated from a non-Western/non-white society.

But I haven’t come to my point about this chapter. The concern here is about how to tell if these techniques really were objectively efficacious or if they were some kind of cultural placebo, where the people within these societies have been raised to believe in the efficacy of it and therefore derived those benefits from them, even if they were objectively useless. Sapolsky then talks about a “prominent Western journalist” (see the continued emphasis on ‘Western’) being administered acupuncture in China for pain relief after an appendicitis surgery: ”He survived just fine. Hey, this stuff must be legit—it even works on white guys.” I quote this verbatim and Sapolsky doesn’t even seem to be writing this in any kind of satire. Non-Western techniques are only legitimized when they work on “white guys”. No matter how many countries and people have benefited from them in the past thousands of years, it’s obviously all bogus until “white guys” or “Western science” says they aren't. This language and concept is just so extremely problematic in this time and age.

So… I won’t go into the actual science of the book beyond what I summarized in my points above, because there’re plenty of reviews already that talk about it here. I just wanted this review to focus primarily on the points that probably a lot of people even today would glaze over but which I really think shouldn’t be ignored. The book’s science is solid and engaging, but my enjoyment of the book overall was dampened significantly by the casual racism peppered through the book.