This is an excellent and thorough outline of all the ways that stress impacts health. The author writes scientifically yet colloquially, making the read worthwhile. While there is a general theme that too much stress is bad, I still found it amazing how stress specifically affects every specific domain that he mentions, and how other things affect how we experience stress. He goes into themes like depression, cancer, relationships, and many kinds of diseases, all while citing studies and trying to be funny lol. I can’t wait to apply this all in my new job in the biofeedback clinic!!

4 stars because the science is so interesting and Sapolsky is such an entertaining writer.
The author, however, so obviously has a social agenda which in my opinion diminishes the credence of a science book.

The science nerd in me really enjoyed listening to this engaging book about the physiology of stress in our bodies, and all the links between stress and disease, weight, sleep, memory, etc. A little anxiety producing, since I’m a worrier and suffer from occasional situational anxiety myself. Most of this somewhat too long book is about the biological mechanisms and relatively little is about the means to deal with stress in one’s own life. That’s ok though. The author is good at making the science understandable for non-scientists and uses humor effectively. I wish I’d had him for a teacher in some of my dense coursework. One of the big coping mechanisms for stress and anxiety he mentions is aerobic exercise, which segues perfectly into my current audiobook about the biological benefits of exercise for the brain. My runner friends and I talk about running being our therapy, and the research supports that being literally true.

Skaičiau trečią leidimą - visai svarbu, nes autorius nuo 1994-ųjų, kai pirmąkart pasirodė ši knyga, didelę dalį informacijos atnaujino.

Sapolskis yra vienas mano mėgstamiausių akademikų, savo paskaitose ir knygose pavydėtinai sklandžiai derinantis sofistikuotą mokslinę kalbą su gyvenimiškais pavyzdžiais ir žaviu humoru. Šioje knygoje jis pristato, kas žinoma (ir kas nežinoma) apie chroniško streso poveikį žmogaus fiziologijai. Su kokiomis ligomis jis gali sietis ir kaip.

Kad ir kaip mėgčiau šį autorių, ilgai delsiau skaityt "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers", nes bijojau, kad knyga eilinį kartą gąsdins žmones, kad jie, nevykėliai, save lėtai žudo. Ir kad visi turi "mažiau stresuot". Bet nuo pat įžangos paaiškėjo, kad autoriaus pozicija daug kuklesnė, konstruktyvesnė ir realistiškesnė, o paskutinis skyrius puikiai viską apibendrino.

Tad norint ne tik įsibauginti ir nežinoti, ką veikti su visa ta informacija, knygą reikėtų skaityti visą. Iš eilės.

Tiesa, nežinau dėl kitų sričių, bet bent jau depresijos genetinio pagrindo dalį visai verta papildyti, nes pastaraisiais metais dėl šio menamo ryšio kilo nemažai šaršalo - ar jis apskritai egzistuoja, ar keliasdešimt metų vaikytasi tik statistinė iliuzija. Anyway...

"Genes are rarely about inevitability, especially when it comes to humans, the brain, or behavior. They’re about vulnerability, propensities, tendencies. In this case, genes increase the risk of depression only in certain environments: you guessed it, only in stressful environments.

"At one extreme, you have the mainstream medical crowd that is concerned with reductive biology. For them, poor health revolves around issues of bacteria, viruses, genetic mutations, and so on. At the other extreme are the folks anchored in mind-body issues, for whom poor health is about psychological stress, lack of control and efficacy, and so on. A lot of this book has, as one of its goals, tried to develop further links between those two viewpoints. This has come in the form of showing how sensitive reductive biology can be to some of those psychological factors, and exploring the mechanisms that account for this. And it has come in the form of criticizing the extremes of both camps: on the one hand, trying to make clear how limiting it is to believe that humans can ever be reduced to a DNA sequence, and on the other, trying to indicate the damaging idiocy of denying the realities of human physiology and disease. The ideal resolution harks back to the wisdom of Herbert Weiner [...] that disease, even the most reductive of diseases, cannot be appreciated without considering the person who is ill.
...
If we can’t consider disease outside the context of the person who is ill, we also can’t consider it outside the context of the society in which that person has gotten ill, and that person’s place in that society."

"It is clearly a travesty to lead cancer patients or their families to believe, misinterpreting the power of the few positive studies in this field, that there is more possibility for control over the causes and courses of cancers than actually exists. Doing so is simply teaching the victims of cancer and their families that the disease is their own fault, which is neither true nor conducive to reducing stress in an already stressful situation."

"The realm of stress management is mostly about techniques to help deal with challenges that are less than disastrous. It is pretty effective in that sphere. But it just won’t work to generate a cult of subjectivity in which these techniques are blithely offered as a solution to the hell of a homeless street person, a refugee, someone prejudged to be one of society’s Untouchables, or a terminal cancer patient. Occasionally, there is the person in a situation like that with coping powers to make one gasp in wonder, who does indeed benefit from these techniques. Celebrate them, but that’s never grounds for turning to the person next to them in the same boat and offering that as a feel-good incentive just to get with the program. Bad science, bad clinical practice, and, ultimately, bad ethics. If any hell really could be converted into a heaven, then you could make the world a better place merely by rousing yourself from your lounge chair to inform a victim of some horror whose fault it is if they are unhappy."

"Stress is not everywhere. Every twinge of dysfunction in our bodies is not a manifestation of stress-related disease. It is true that the real world is full of bad things that we can finesse away by altering our outlook and psychological makeup, but it is also full of awful things that cannot be eliminated by a change in attitude, no matter how heroically, fervently, complexly, or ritualistically we may wish. Once we are actually sick with the illness, the fantasy of which keeps us anxiously awake at two in the morning, the things that will save us have little to do with the content of this book. Once we have that cardiac arrest, once a tumor has metastasized, once our brain has been badly deprived of oxygen, little about our psychological outlook is likely to help. We have entered the realm where someone else—a highly trained physician—must use the most high-tech of appropriate medical interventions
...
These caveats must be emphasized repeatedly in teaching what cures to seek and what attributions to make when confronted with many diseases. But amid this caution, there remains a whole realm of health and disease that is sensitive to the quality of our minds—our thoughts and emotions and behaviors. And sometimes whether or not we become sick with the diseases that frighten us at two in the morning will reflect this realm of the mind. It is here that we must turn from the physicians and their ability to clean up the mess afterward and recognize our own capacity to prevent some of these problems beforehand in the small steps with which we live our everyday lives."

Excelente libro, aprendes .

This book is a good introduction to stress and its effects on physiology and psychology (Nicola's area of expertise). Although it is written for a lay audience, I often got the feeling it was written for a lay audience of primarily MDs.

By the end of the book, you will feel like you and epinephrine, norepinephrine, and glucocorticoids are all old friends--but in spite of the terminology, it is really an easy read and full of good humor and interesting anecdotes (e.g. hyenas are very peculiar).

Here is a quote, taken out of context, that I enjoyed:
"Every child cannot grow up to be president; it turned out that merely by holding hands and singing folk songs we couldn't end all war, and hunger does not disappear just by visualizing a world without it....Would that it were so. And shame on those who would sell this view."

You may not like all of his opinions. Sapolsky is an unapologetic atheist, but appears to have a high opinion of many religious people. He also speaks frankly about sex. He also believes in animal testing, although he thinks that some past tests went too far.

I've been wanting to read this ever since I saw a documentary on stress that included Sapolsky's research.

In the meantime, I've also become fairly interested in the human microbiome. So, this kinda played right into all of that... so as far as books, this was pretty much my introduction to the field of stress research, as well as how human digestion works and where hormones and neurotransmitters come from and what they can do, etc... that said, I did this one as an audiobook, which might not have been entirely appropriate to the level of detail contained. Maybe I should come back to it someday.

This is hands down the best medical book I have ever read. In a series of memorable and highly amusing stories and anecdotes Sapolsky explains the complex biology behind why well known principles of psychology, religion, new age philosophy and even voodoo curses work.

The central story of the book is how the fight or flight response – the most powerful force that has shaped vertebrate evolution for hundreds of millions of years - is now being turned against modern humans through chronic stress and anxiety. He outlines how modern stress triggers that have nothing to do with immediate survival - whether brought on from traffic, bad bosses, bad relationships - can be linked to exacerbating the development of almost every modern epidemic from cancer to colitis, depression to dwarfism, diabetes to diarrhea, heart disease to infertility to immune disorders.

The book concludes with some stories about coping with stress, and the unique psychological profiles of the people who avoid the development of stress-related diseases and experience health improvements with aging in a process he calls “successful aging.”

This guy is very good at explaining the science behind stress to a layman, but ultimately I didn't like it and wouldn't recommend it. There are times when the author is pretty full of himself. It was annoying. And the random sexual references that are totally unnecessary are also a deterrent from recommending it to others. (There were times when sexual subjects were an appropriate topic and relevant to the discussion. I obviously don't mind those.) I read this book to find help and just got more of a "you're already screwed" vibe.

Zebras don't get ulcers because they kick anyone trying to shove a endoscope into any of their orifices. What you can't see doesn't exist

Should be compulsory reading for every high school biology student. A thorough dismantling of the reductionist cell biology mindset of the 20th century, Sapolsky shows you how very complex and intricate the interaction is between organism and environment, and how 'genes' may be overrated in a lot of ways.

The author spends 22 chapters beating us to death with hundreds of studies about how and why stress is bad for us. He focuses strongly on the chemistry and physiology of stress in animals and humans. He then spends 1 chapter on things we can do about it. Basically: don't be born poor, don't have a bad marriage, exercise and be religious. There. Now you don't have to read the book.