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288 reviews for:
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping
Robert M. Sapolsky
4.05 AVERAGE
288 reviews for:
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping
Robert M. Sapolsky
4.05 AVERAGE
funny
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
funny
informative
This was a very informative and very thorough book about how stress affects our bodies/our nervous system. I listened to the audiobook so some of the more scientific explanations went over my head, but that’s only because I wasn’t giving it my full attention. The author does a good job at breaking complex topics into more understandable ideas.
informative
medium-paced
A lot to get through, but super informative and easier to understand than most information on these topics!
informative
This book was assigned to me in social work school and it's stood out in my mind as one of the few books that really helped me to understand how our bodies and brains work.
Sapolsky writes simply and even humorously about the nervous system and how it is effected by its environment which ultimately affects behavior. He cites plenty of studies and presents evidence throughout.
Sapolsky writes simply and even humorously about the nervous system and how it is effected by its environment which ultimately affects behavior. He cites plenty of studies and presents evidence throughout.
In the recent yoga therapy training I took with Jillian Pransky she referenced this book multiple times. Before sitting down to read Robert Sapolsky's book I watched this 90 minute talk he gave at The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science at the University of Illinois in June 2017. Sapolsky is an entertaining speaker and makes his points with a wonderful blend of humor, anecdotes and science.
His book is written in that same voice, making it immensely easy to read, absorb and digest. Sapolsky starts off by explaining what stress is and how the body responds to stress. With the physiology as a foundation, he then tackles a multitude of diseases, each receiving their own chapter. Some of these I skimmed, some I skipped and others I devoured. He concludes by culling from previous chapters some of the strategies that can be useful for managing stress, along the way reminding us that even the strategies require a balance between too much and not enough.
Science has found many connections between stress and illness, both biological and psychological, and perhaps the most daunting are the causes related to what Sapolsky calls in the apt named chapter 17: "The View from the Bottom." The place a person has in society, the education of a person's parents, the level of wealth or poverty, socioeconomic status…these all impact the role that stress can have on a child as the child grows and develops, and on the ensuing adult that child becomes.
There is much in this book that could be construed as daunting, yet Sapolsky presents a balance in almost all of his teaching (for that's what this book is, a teaching.) I was intrigued by the biology of stress and now understand what is happening in my body when it produces a cold sore. It was interesting to learn why some people eat when stressed and others have a loss of appetite.
Ultimately, everything boils down to understanding our autonomic nervous system, which is composed of the sympathetic nervous system – those parts of our system over which we have little to no control – and our parasympathetic nervous system – those parts over which we do have some control. The biggie here is that the sympathetic nervous system is what activates our stress response, what is commonly referred to as fight, flight or feint, while our parasympathetic nervous system, when activated via the vagus nerve, is known for rest and digest.
For more on any of this, however, read Sapolsky's book! Take in the early chapters to create a base line of understanding about stress and the body, then read those chapters that have a connection to you, and finish up with the final chapter.
His book is written in that same voice, making it immensely easy to read, absorb and digest. Sapolsky starts off by explaining what stress is and how the body responds to stress. With the physiology as a foundation, he then tackles a multitude of diseases, each receiving their own chapter. Some of these I skimmed, some I skipped and others I devoured. He concludes by culling from previous chapters some of the strategies that can be useful for managing stress, along the way reminding us that even the strategies require a balance between too much and not enough.
Science has found many connections between stress and illness, both biological and psychological, and perhaps the most daunting are the causes related to what Sapolsky calls in the apt named chapter 17: "The View from the Bottom." The place a person has in society, the education of a person's parents, the level of wealth or poverty, socioeconomic status…these all impact the role that stress can have on a child as the child grows and develops, and on the ensuing adult that child becomes.
There is much in this book that could be construed as daunting, yet Sapolsky presents a balance in almost all of his teaching (for that's what this book is, a teaching.) I was intrigued by the biology of stress and now understand what is happening in my body when it produces a cold sore. It was interesting to learn why some people eat when stressed and others have a loss of appetite.
Ultimately, everything boils down to understanding our autonomic nervous system, which is composed of the sympathetic nervous system – those parts of our system over which we have little to no control – and our parasympathetic nervous system – those parts over which we do have some control. The biggie here is that the sympathetic nervous system is what activates our stress response, what is commonly referred to as fight, flight or feint, while our parasympathetic nervous system, when activated via the vagus nerve, is known for rest and digest.
For more on any of this, however, read Sapolsky's book! Take in the early chapters to create a base line of understanding about stress and the body, then read those chapters that have a connection to you, and finish up with the final chapter.
"Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers" by Robert M. Sapolsky not only made me smarter, but also made me laugh out loud in places, which I didn't expect at all from a non-fiction book about the effects of stress on your health.
The text succeeds in being very easy to understand without feeling "dumbed down": the author just has incredible communication skills and a gift for clear, approachable language.
Now I'm looking forward to reading Robert M. Sapolsky's other works!
The text succeeds in being very easy to understand without feeling "dumbed down": the author just has incredible communication skills and a gift for clear, approachable language.
Now I'm looking forward to reading Robert M. Sapolsky's other works!
Very lengthy (but THOROUGH!) study of stress on humans. Some wry humor throughout which makes the amount of data very "approachable" by the author. Some highpoints as usual;
- It turns out that there is a subtler but easier way of detecting a problem. Whenever you inhale, you turn on the sympathetic nervous system slightly, minutely speeding up your heart. And when you exhale, the parasympathetic half turns on, activating your vagus nerve in order to slow things down (this is why many forms of meditation are built around extended exhalations). Therefore, the length of time between heartbeats tends to be shorter when you’re inhaling than exhaling
- Somehow the individual muscles that are exercising during the emergency have a means to override this blockade and to grab all the nutrients floating around in the circulation. The net result is that you shunt energy from fat and from non-exercising muscle to the exercising ones.
- In adult-onset diabetes (type 2, non-insulin-dependent diabetes), the trouble is not too little insulin, but the failure of the cells to respond to insulin. Another name for the disorder is thus insulin-resistant diabetes.
- The official numbers are that stress makes about two-thirds of people hyperphagic (eating more) and the rest hypophagic.*
- "...fat released from abdominal fat cells more readily finds its way to the liver (in contrast to fat from gluteal fat stores, which gets dispersed more equally throughout the body)"
- Regardless of how stressful that board meeting or examination is, we’re not likely to soil our pants. Nevertheless, we are all aware of the tendency of immensely terrified people—for example, soldiers amid horrifying battle—to defecate spontaneously. (This reaction is consistent enough that in many states, prisoners are clothed in diapers before an execution.)
- This new understanding generates tricks that sexual therapists advise—if you are close to ejaculating and don’t want to yet, take a deep breath. Expanding the chest muscles briefly triggers a parasympathetic volley that defers the shift from parasympathetic to sympathetic.
-...and the most famous of them all, endorphins (a contraction for “endogenous morphines”).
- Why would great hostility (of whatever variant) be bad for your heart? Some of it is likely to be that roundabout realm of risk factors, in that hostile individuals are more likely to smoke, eat poorly, drink to excess. Moreover, there are psychosocial variables, in that hostile people lack social support because they tend to drive people away
- "...a 1967 study showed that the poorer you are judged to be (based on the neighborhood you live in, your home, your appearance), the less likely paramedics are to try to revive you on the way to the hospital. "
- "...humans with more of an internalized locus of control—the perception that they are the masters of their own destiny—are more resistant in experimental models of learned helplessness"
- It turns out that there is a subtler but easier way of detecting a problem. Whenever you inhale, you turn on the sympathetic nervous system slightly, minutely speeding up your heart. And when you exhale, the parasympathetic half turns on, activating your vagus nerve in order to slow things down (this is why many forms of meditation are built around extended exhalations). Therefore, the length of time between heartbeats tends to be shorter when you’re inhaling than exhaling
- Somehow the individual muscles that are exercising during the emergency have a means to override this blockade and to grab all the nutrients floating around in the circulation. The net result is that you shunt energy from fat and from non-exercising muscle to the exercising ones.
- In adult-onset diabetes (type 2, non-insulin-dependent diabetes), the trouble is not too little insulin, but the failure of the cells to respond to insulin. Another name for the disorder is thus insulin-resistant diabetes.
- The official numbers are that stress makes about two-thirds of people hyperphagic (eating more) and the rest hypophagic.*
- "...fat released from abdominal fat cells more readily finds its way to the liver (in contrast to fat from gluteal fat stores, which gets dispersed more equally throughout the body)"
- Regardless of how stressful that board meeting or examination is, we’re not likely to soil our pants. Nevertheless, we are all aware of the tendency of immensely terrified people—for example, soldiers amid horrifying battle—to defecate spontaneously. (This reaction is consistent enough that in many states, prisoners are clothed in diapers before an execution.)
- This new understanding generates tricks that sexual therapists advise—if you are close to ejaculating and don’t want to yet, take a deep breath. Expanding the chest muscles briefly triggers a parasympathetic volley that defers the shift from parasympathetic to sympathetic.
-...and the most famous of them all, endorphins (a contraction for “endogenous morphines”).
- Why would great hostility (of whatever variant) be bad for your heart? Some of it is likely to be that roundabout realm of risk factors, in that hostile individuals are more likely to smoke, eat poorly, drink to excess. Moreover, there are psychosocial variables, in that hostile people lack social support because they tend to drive people away
- "...a 1967 study showed that the poorer you are judged to be (based on the neighborhood you live in, your home, your appearance), the less likely paramedics are to try to revive you on the way to the hospital. "
- "...humans with more of an internalized locus of control—the perception that they are the masters of their own destiny—are more resistant in experimental models of learned helplessness"