Extremely well researched and detailed book about our body's sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and how they impact our emotions and behaviors. I learned so much. At times I found it overly technical but Sapolsky does a wonderful job summarizing the technical parts so I never felt too lost.

Some quotes from the book that stood out to me:

Sustained psychological stress is a recent invention, mostly limited to humans and other social primates. We can experience wildly strong emotions(provoking our bodies into an accompanying uproar) linked to mere thoughts.

A stressor is anything in the outside world that knocks you out of homeostatic balance, and the stress response is what your body does to reestablish homeostasis. A stressor can also be the anticipation of something happening. Based only on anticipation, we can turn on a stress response as robust as if the event had actually occurred.

With sufficient activation, the stress response can become more damaging than the stressor itself, especially when the stress is purely psychological. This is a critical concept, because it underlies the emergence of much stress related disease.

A large percentage of what we think of when we talk about stress related diseases are disorders of excessive stress responses.

Never is the maladaptiveness of the stress response during psychological stress clearer than in the case of the cardiovascular system.

CRP(c reactive protein) levels are turning out to be a much better predictor of cardiovascular disease risk than cholesterol.

If you are turning on your sympathetic nervous system all the time, you are chronically shutting off the parasympathetic system. And this makes it harder to slow things down, even during those rare moments when you're not feeling stressed about something.

When you have a somewhat under-active stress response you have trouble mobilizing energy in response to the demands of daily life. That is precisely what is seen in individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome, which is characterized by, among other things, too low levels of glucocorticoids in the bloodstream.

If you activate the stress response too often you wind up expending so much energy that as a first consequence, you tire more readily.

Stress makes 2/3s of people hyperphagic(want to eat more) and 1/3 hypophagic(want to eat less)

Suppose you feel terrible and the docs can't find a thing wrong. Congratulations, you now have a functional GI disorder. These are immensely sensitive to stress. This is not just touchy feely psychologists saying this. Ongoing stress is closely related to IBS.

Chronic stress increases the risk of osteoporosis.

***Everything bad in human health is not caused by stress, nor is it in our power to cure ourselves merely by reducing stress and thinking healthy thoughts full of courage and spirit and love. Would that it were so. And shame on those who would profit from selling this view.

It is surprising how malleable pain signals are - how readily the intensity of a pain signal is changed by the sensations, feelings & thoughts that coincide with the pain. One example is the blunting of pain perception during some circumstances of stress.

A striking aspect of the pain system is how readily it can be modulated by other factors. The strength of the pain signal can depend on what other sensory info is funneled to the spine at the same time. Chronic throbbing pain can be inhibited by certain types of sharp & brief sensory stimulation.

The most relevant dichotomy is between nerve fibers that carry info about sharp sudden pain & fibers that carry info about constant diffuse pain. Fast fibers are about getting you to move as quickly as possible from the source of the piercing pain. Slow fibers are about getting you to hunker down, immobile, so you can heal.

Sometimes something goes wrong with pain pathways and you feel pain in response to stimuli that shouldn't be painful. Now you've got allodynia, which is feeling pain in response to a normal stimulus.

The emotional/interpretive level can be dissociated from the objective amount of pain signal. In other words, how much pain you feel and how unpleasant that pain feels, can be two separate things.

What if you are the sort of person where just seeing the nurse take the cap off the needle makes your arm throb? What we've got now is stress-induced hyperalgesia. Valium blocks stress induced hyperalgesia.

People with anxiety disorders have exaggerated startle responses.

Anxiety is about dread and foreboding and your imagination running away with you. It is rooted in a cognitive distortion. Anxious people overestimate risks and the likelihood of a bad outcome.

What is anxiety? A sense of disquiet, of the sands constantly shifting menacingly beneath your feet where constant vigilance is the only hope of effectively protecting yourself. Life consists of the concrete, agitated present of solving a problem that someone else might not even consider to exist.

5% of the population have chronically activated stress responses. What's their problem? These are the archetypal people who cross all their t's & dot their i's. They describe themselves as planners who don't like surprises. They live structured lives, walking to work the same way each day, the sort of people who can tell you what they are having for lunch in two weeks. Not surprisingly, they don't like ambiguity and strive to set up their world in black & white. They are stoic, regimented, hardworking people who are fine but have overactive stress responses. The levels of glucocorticoids in their bloodstream as elevated and they have elevated sympathetic tone as well.When exposed to a cognitive challenge, they show unusually large increases in heart rate, blood pressure, sweating and muscle tension....Back to our envious thought, "I wish I had their discipline, how do they do it?" They do it by working like maniacs to generate their structured repressed world with no surprises. And that comes with a physiological bill. It can be enormously stressful to construct a world without stressors.

n  
n  

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” – Paradise Lost, John Milton

n  
n

I have always loved this quote from Paradise Lost. I have it written down in several notebooks, typed out on a sticky note on my laptop that I frequently scroll over, and even had it framed on the wall of my room when I lived with my parents. From the time I first read it, back in second year university, it became a sort of mantra for me, providing me with comfort and reassurance that even if times seemed particularly bad and I felt incredibly stressed, my mind was strong enough to control those feelings and to get me through whatever stressors I encountered.

But, what I have learned in the last year is that (sometimes…often) the mind isn’t enough. Robert M. Sapolsky has a similar quote in his book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: “To a certain extent, our perceptions and interpretations of events can determine whether the same external circumstances constitute heaven or hell…” The crux of Sapolsky’s text, though, is that the mind isn’t always strong enough to overcome external circumstances and put them in perspective and, what’s more, sometimes the mind isn’t even capable of doing this sort of heavy lifting if there is a disorder or disease (such as depression or anxiety) that prevents it from doing so. To believe that the mind can persevere in all instances and actually change one’s perspective on reality 100% of the time is foolhardy and naive, and probably was incredibly detrimental to me back in university and had adverse effects on how I would learn to cope with stress as an adult. The point being that understanding stress and the science behind it is no simple task and certainly can’t be reduced to the belief that the mind, if persistent enough, can get a person through anything.

I don’t often read non-fiction books. In fact, I rarely read them, if ever. However, it seems that this year I have done a lot of reading of non-fiction and the main reason for this is that I have felt empowered and motivated recently to finally try to understand my anxiety. When it became evident, towards the end of my third trimester of pregnancy back this past March, that my anxiety was going to be made much more severe by my pregnant condition, I knew (partly because my doctors were telling me) that something had to give and that I needed to get a better handle on my anxious condition once and for all. Not only for my baby’s health, but also for my present and future well-being and overall happiness. Part of this process has involved seeing a psychiatrist and learning about meditation and mindfulness techniques. Part of it has been about exercising as often as possible and forcing myself to go out and interact with my friends and family members even when I don’t feel up for it. But, I have always been an avid learner, a true student at heart from the moment I entered my grade one classroom, and so I felt that I wanted to supplement my doctor’s appointments and daily activities with reading material that would allow me to come to grips with feelings I have had for my entire life. I never have put in the effort to truly understand my anxiety in this way, and I immediately picked up the self-help book Let That Sh*t Go by Kate Petriw and Nina Purewal hoping that it would be a quick and easy read that would at least help me feel a little bit better. It certainly did and it was good, but it wasn’t anything truly groundbreaking or earth-shattering and it didn’t by any means fundamentally change my perspective on anxiety. I next delved into a book recommended by my psychiatrist, Mind Over Mood, and this was of course a huge eye-opener to me in that it taught me the basics of cognitive behavioural therapy and worked wonders to help me reframe my insecurities and fears and better manage my heightened emotions. What I felt these two books lacked, though, was an explanation of what was going on in my brain, of the chemical, biological and physical mechanisms that were clearly contributing to my anxious state and probably had been since my birth. It was a desire to get to the bottom of these internal processes that led me to pick up Sapolsky’s book.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is easily one of the best books I have ever read, of any genre or category. (That’s right, I’m putting it right up there with Jane Eyre although it is, naturally, a very different text!) I was utterly blown away by Sapolsky’s work, and as someone who has never studied psychology and who only studied science up until the end of high school, I was thoroughly impressed by how accessible and relatable he made the scientific explanations in this book. This type of text could easily become overwhelming, but Sapolsky is very careful to keep things manageable for his reader, and he even infuses dry humour, jokes and wit into the text (especially in his often unexpectedly hilarious footnotes, which are a must-read in themselves). He of course uses terminology like “glucocorticoids” and names of “catecholamines” like “epinephrine” and “norepinephrine” often, but he uses them so frequently and explains them so thoroughly that the reader gets the sense, by the end of the book, that these concepts aren’t all that incomprehensible. 

I also made a conscious effort to take my time while reading this book, not because it felt dense at all, but because it did feel heavy. I admit, it was an emotional read for me because I could so easily and fundamentally relate to the findings that Sapolsky examined; I became one of the test subjects he discussed because I recognized how my experiences fit into the results and conclusions. On the one hand, it was nice to know that there is a scientific explanation for why I feel a certain way, but it was also jarring and terrifying to be confronted with so much evidence and research to explain something that I have kind of taken for granted for my entire life. It made my anxiety feel that much more real and that much more difficult to ignore.

Chapter 15, thus, became an incredibly meaningful chapter for me as it investigated anxiety disorders and the personality types that lend themselves to these sorts of disorders. Needless to say, I checked pretty much every box, and that was, as I mentioned, both liberating and scary. There was this sense, as I read, that Sapolsky just understood ME, on a fundamental level, and again, while it was nice to know that I am not alone in any of my feelings, it was also emotional. It made me even more moved when Sapolsky began to call anxiety a “disease” and distinguished it from chronic stress as being rooted in “a cognitive distortion”. Sapolsky posits that, whereas chronic stress is normally a response to an actually perceived external stressor (whether physiological or psychological), anxiety can arise due to stressors that are entirely imagined. This is definitely in-line with my own personal experiences, and while I appreciated the understanding Sapolsky’s description provided to me, no one ever wants to hear that they suffer from a disease. That’s not an easy pill to swallow, and I found myself realizing that I even exhibited anxious tendencies and behaviours as a young child (such as obsessive thinking and phobias) and becoming a bit saddened and melancholy about this. With my increased knowledge certainly came a better understanding of myself, but this wasn’t always a pleasant experience to be sure.

What I did gain, most definitely, was a better comprehension of the biology of anxiety and a greater appreciation of the fact that it is a physical, scientific condition rooted in the brain. I’ve always known deep down that my anxiety is not something I have very much (if any) control over, but it is easy to believe, when something is a mental struggle, that if you can just be stronger, you can get past it. That is, after all, what Milton suggests and that quote from Paradise Lost is still one of my favourites. What is important to remember, however, is that mental illnesses are in fact just as physical as clearly physical ones, and although I always had an inkling of that, Sapolsky’s book solidified it for me. It made it clear to me that I shouldn’t be hard on myself, that I might not be able to conquer this all on my own, and that is okay. It made me realize that, just as I would seek help for a broken leg, there is nothing at all embarrassing or shameful about seeking help for a troubled mind. On the contrary, it is actually quite important and necessary.

I’d like to close my review with a few quotes that particularly spoke to me from Sapolsky’s text. I will never be able to explain myself the concepts he espouses (he is a scientist, after all, and I don’t claim to be), but hopefully these quotes will give you a sense for how he writes and what value can be derived from picking up this book. It is one that has undoubtedly changed my life in so many ways and I would not hesitate to recommend it to those who wish to get to the root of what their brains might be undergoing on a daily basis.

Quotes That Particularly Resonated with Me:

“Anxiety is about dread and foreboding and your imagination running away with you.”

“the distorted belief that stressors are everywhere and perpetual, and that the only hope for safety is constant mobilization of coping responses. Life consists of the concrete, agitated present of solving a problem that someone else might not even consider exists.”

“most things that make us anxious are learned…we��ve generalized them based on their similarity to something associated with a trauma.”

“For all anxious people, life is full of menacing stressors that demand vigilant coping responses.”

***********

“Find ways to view even the most stressful of situations as holding the promise of improvement but do not deny the possibility that things will not improve…Hope for the best and let that dominate most of your emotions, but at the same time let one small piece of you prepare for the worst.”

“Find that outlet for your frustrations and do it regularly.”

“Have the wisdom to pick your battles. And once you have, the flexibility and resiliency of strategies to use in those battles…”

“Sometimes, coping with stress consists of blowing down walls. But sometimes it consists of being a blade of grass, buffeted and bent by the wind but still standing when the wind is long gone.”

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.

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."

700 de pagini în care se vorbește despre stres. Nu este doar o carte de popularizare a științei, este o carte aplicată, foarte densă, în care stresul este întors pe toate părțile, explicat, analizat, dinspre cauze până la efecte. Nu se oferă decât puține soluții de a scăpa de el și de efectele sale, spre final, în rest, este un volum care trece prin toată lumea organică pentru a ne dezvălui felul în care stresul pare cel mai nociv lucru care ne duce spre îmbolnăvire și moarte. Cum scăpăm? Una dintre ei idei este că ar trebui să fim mai indiferenți față de cei și cele care ne stresează - muncă, oameni, trafic etc.

While the book was published in the early 2000s,

I still found it to have a crazy amount of information following how the body responds to stress, what chemicals are released, and what systems are affected. The author also made a great effort to not make it feel text-booky, at some points I did have to pause, but in a general sense the author did a good job of explaining complex systems to a non science reader.

At some points I found the writing uninteresting and at others I was intensely fascinated with new learning.

Overall if you have any interest in how the body works, this is a rather solid choice. Especially when talking about something everyone can relate to.

A very interesting book, but probably not one to read during a pandemic. Yeah, I know; you would think it would help. But somehow, talking about stress response, cortisol and anxiety during a time of world-wide physical and psychological stress response is actually a bit stressful.

It's somewhat technical, but readable. It walks the reader through different aspects of the body and normal physiological response. Although he relies on the extreme examples ("ancestors confronting lions"), the information contained is valid. I suppose that's one of the troubles with science-translation.

It's been updated twice since original publication. I feel like most of what it is saying isn't surprising, but I last intensively looked at stress response in the late 90s, so I'm wondering what more current thinking is.

Interesting data to think about... A tad academic focused and blah,blah,blah... but still interesting.

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.

I only read 25% of it so far and I learnt that I’m prone to cancer and some of my brain cells died due to glucocorticoid usage. This book is my worst nightmare already. This is a book I can only suggest to the people who doesn’t have auto-immune diseases and/or who have nerves to handle it.

While it can get a bit boring due to the science-focused explanations, it is very informative and anyone who has taken a physiological psychology class, or anyone who wants to know how stress can affect you physically, will appreciate this book.

PLEASE NOTE: Part of physiological psychology and stress is talking about sex. This walks the line between blunt and graphic but does it due to how the body works together, so it is for a purpose.

Recommended 16+ for all of the science, the adult part in chapter 2, discussions of sex, and topics that younger readers may not understand.

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.