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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
informative
fast-paced
informative
reflective
informative
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
The science is incredible but I found myself wanting more action items for then how to handle the natural stress that is part of every mammals life. I guess I wanted more tips, more coping skills to be included. But the information is well worth the read.
Lots of great information on the stress response and the health issues associated with it.
Major props to Sapolsky for taking such a complex, technical issue and simultaneously making it readable and not painful. He keeps a light tone throughout, cracking some not unfunny jokes along the way (and multiple references to The Onion - what else could you ask for?). And this man knows his stuff - the notes alone take up almost 100 pages and are definitely worth a skim for some extra tidbits he throws in there.
Sapolsky thoroughly and methodically walks the reader through how stress affects every aspect of your body from memory to reproduction to illness. Replete with examples, diagrams, and easy-to-follow (honest!) explanations I learned so much from this book. The main theorem is two-fold: A) wild animals are only stressed when they're about to be eaten. Humans, have the "luxury" of psychological stress. That is, we spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about traffic, money, relationships, work, etc. We're smart enough to bring these stressors upon ourselves, but not quite smart enough to keep them from threatening to overake us. Hence the title of the book. B) Stress is not, in and of itself bad. There's an ideal amount of stress that will balance a person between complete boredom and frantic scrambling.
However, the effects of stress on the body read like a laundry list of WebMD ailments and are, frankly, scary. Fortunately, after scaring the pants off the reader (albeit in a very nice and humorous way - seriously, his writing style was amazing) - Sapolsky begins to talk about the upside. Coping strategies (denial vs. acceptance and how they can be alternately wonderful and horrible depending on the situation), outlets, social support, etc. The physiological explanations behind how the body reacts in a nanosecond by nanosecond play-by-play were my favorite parts. Stress is a common enough occurence that you know the obvious physical signs; that Sapolsky was able to explain what my body is actually doing when under stress was fascinating. The interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the release of CRH by the hypothalmus that cause the release of ACTH by the pituitary, and the way ACTH signals the the adrenals to dump glucocorticoids (this word is ALL over this book, so I hope you like it as much as I do - they are the key to everything stress-related). Amazing.
And now for a few random factoids that I just had to mark:
* Your circulatory is so well bifurcated (blood vessels branching out to capillaries) that no cell in your body is more than 5 cells away from a blood vessel, yet the circulatory system takes up only 3% of your body mass.
* Birth weights in the lowest 25% (adjusted for length, I believe) vs. the highest 25% - the former have a 50% higher rate of death from heart disease due to metabolic imprinting on the fetus (this whole section on fetal imprinting was craaaazy)
* Throughout hominid history, if you're running 26 miles a day, you're either very intent on eating someone or someone's very intent on eating you. (Sapolosky warning against the pitfalls of extreme exercising; though regular, moderate exercise is definitely a good thing as it helps your body prepare for stressful situations by reducing the novelty and lessening the harmful effects)
* Conflicting reports on stress and the course of cancer (stress CANNOT cause you to get cancer, for the record). However some of this attributed to the changing culture of cancer. In 1961, 90% of American physicians said they did not typically reveal a cancer diagnosis to their patients (!!!). By 1981, it was down to 3%.
* Stress-induced analgesia - during times of stress, the perception of pain is lower. The extremes range from a badly wounded soldier in battle not realizing he's been shot until several minutes later to the positive benefits of moderate exercise. With regards to stress-induced analgesia, for men it is activated in competitive situations (from sports to video game playing. Seriously.). For women, exercise induces the same effect.
* Endorphins is science slang for endogenous morphine
* Neurogenesis (the formation of new cells) is especially active in the olfactory area of the brain during pregnancy and is perhaps the cause of extreme sensitivity to smells and frequent nausea.
* Glucocorticoids like steroids in clinical use is bad news for neurological diseases that involve a precarious hippocampus (ie a stroke) as GCs are known to kill hippocampal cells if there is too much GCs in the body.
* Some species (ie mallards) sleep with one eye and the half of the brain that responds to it awake to watch for predators. Dolphins can swim while sleeping and some birds can fly.
* There is LOTS of brain activity during REM sleep; some regions are even more metabolically active than when you're awake.
* During REM sleep, metabolism in the frontal cortex plummets, disinhibiting the limbic system (the limbic system is also the part of the brain to mature last and is one reason childreen and teens have tend to not make the wisest decisions). This is why dreams have such a strange quality and why random stuff sometimes happens.
* The brain is 3% of your body weight but uses 25% of the energy. Sleep allows these energy stores to be built up.
* The Type A personality type was discovered when an upholsterer absent-mindedly commented that he replaced the upholstery on the chairs of cardiologists' waiting room chairs far more often than any other setting. The patients were literally sitting on the edge of their seats and wearing down the upholstery in that spot and on the arms really quickly. Type As, especially those with hostile personalities, are very prone to all sorts of illnesses, especially heart-related ones.
* The technical term (per Sapolsky) for an adrenaline junkie is a transiently and moderately increased levels of GCs junkies
* Socioeconomic status (SES) accounts for a very large portion of your health outlook. Unsurprisingly, the poor have the worst outlook while the affluent have the best. There is a 5 - 10 year difference in life expectancy in some countries when comparing the poorest and the wealthiest.
* 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. In more recent studies, your perceived SES influenced the quality of care after a stroke (liklihood of receiving add'l therapies such as speech, physical, etc. and length of time to undergo surgery to repair the damaged blood vessel that caused the stroke.
* Private affluence vs. public squalory
Sapolsky thoroughly and methodically walks the reader through how stress affects every aspect of your body from memory to reproduction to illness. Replete with examples, diagrams, and easy-to-follow (honest!) explanations I learned so much from this book. The main theorem is two-fold: A) wild animals are only stressed when they're about to be eaten. Humans, have the "luxury" of psychological stress. That is, we spend inordinate amounts of time worrying about traffic, money, relationships, work, etc. We're smart enough to bring these stressors upon ourselves, but not quite smart enough to keep them from threatening to overake us. Hence the title of the book. B) Stress is not, in and of itself bad. There's an ideal amount of stress that will balance a person between complete boredom and frantic scrambling.
However, the effects of stress on the body read like a laundry list of WebMD ailments and are, frankly, scary. Fortunately, after scaring the pants off the reader (albeit in a very nice and humorous way - seriously, his writing style was amazing) - Sapolsky begins to talk about the upside. Coping strategies (denial vs. acceptance and how they can be alternately wonderful and horrible depending on the situation), outlets, social support, etc. The physiological explanations behind how the body reacts in a nanosecond by nanosecond play-by-play were my favorite parts. Stress is a common enough occurence that you know the obvious physical signs; that Sapolsky was able to explain what my body is actually doing when under stress was fascinating. The interplay between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the release of CRH by the hypothalmus that cause the release of ACTH by the pituitary, and the way ACTH signals the the adrenals to dump glucocorticoids (this word is ALL over this book, so I hope you like it as much as I do - they are the key to everything stress-related). Amazing.
And now for a few random factoids that I just had to mark:
* Your circulatory is so well bifurcated (blood vessels branching out to capillaries) that no cell in your body is more than 5 cells away from a blood vessel, yet the circulatory system takes up only 3% of your body mass.
* Birth weights in the lowest 25% (adjusted for length, I believe) vs. the highest 25% - the former have a 50% higher rate of death from heart disease due to metabolic imprinting on the fetus (this whole section on fetal imprinting was craaaazy)
* Throughout hominid history, if you're running 26 miles a day, you're either very intent on eating someone or someone's very intent on eating you. (Sapolosky warning against the pitfalls of extreme exercising; though regular, moderate exercise is definitely a good thing as it helps your body prepare for stressful situations by reducing the novelty and lessening the harmful effects)
* Conflicting reports on stress and the course of cancer (stress CANNOT cause you to get cancer, for the record). However some of this attributed to the changing culture of cancer. In 1961, 90% of American physicians said they did not typically reveal a cancer diagnosis to their patients (!!!). By 1981, it was down to 3%.
* Stress-induced analgesia - during times of stress, the perception of pain is lower. The extremes range from a badly wounded soldier in battle not realizing he's been shot until several minutes later to the positive benefits of moderate exercise. With regards to stress-induced analgesia, for men it is activated in competitive situations (from sports to video game playing. Seriously.). For women, exercise induces the same effect.
* Endorphins is science slang for endogenous morphine
* Neurogenesis (the formation of new cells) is especially active in the olfactory area of the brain during pregnancy and is perhaps the cause of extreme sensitivity to smells and frequent nausea.
* Glucocorticoids like steroids in clinical use is bad news for neurological diseases that involve a precarious hippocampus (ie a stroke) as GCs are known to kill hippocampal cells if there is too much GCs in the body.
* Some species (ie mallards) sleep with one eye and the half of the brain that responds to it awake to watch for predators. Dolphins can swim while sleeping and some birds can fly.
* There is LOTS of brain activity during REM sleep; some regions are even more metabolically active than when you're awake.
* During REM sleep, metabolism in the frontal cortex plummets, disinhibiting the limbic system (the limbic system is also the part of the brain to mature last and is one reason childreen and teens have tend to not make the wisest decisions). This is why dreams have such a strange quality and why random stuff sometimes happens.
* The brain is 3% of your body weight but uses 25% of the energy. Sleep allows these energy stores to be built up.
* The Type A personality type was discovered when an upholsterer absent-mindedly commented that he replaced the upholstery on the chairs of cardiologists' waiting room chairs far more often than any other setting. The patients were literally sitting on the edge of their seats and wearing down the upholstery in that spot and on the arms really quickly. Type As, especially those with hostile personalities, are very prone to all sorts of illnesses, especially heart-related ones.
* The technical term (per Sapolsky) for an adrenaline junkie is a transiently and moderately increased levels of GCs junkies
* Socioeconomic status (SES) accounts for a very large portion of your health outlook. Unsurprisingly, the poor have the worst outlook while the affluent have the best. There is a 5 - 10 year difference in life expectancy in some countries when comparing the poorest and the wealthiest.
* 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. In more recent studies, your perceived SES influenced the quality of care after a stroke (liklihood of receiving add'l therapies such as speech, physical, etc. and length of time to undergo surgery to repair the damaged blood vessel that caused the stroke.
* Private affluence vs. public squalory
I liked the writing in this book but I will need to read it again at some point for the information to consolidate a bit more. Cool premise, great info, just science heavy.
In the face of strong winds, let me be a blade of grass.
In the face of strong walls, let me be a gale of wind.
Enjoyed reading this book. Appreciate the way information in the book is presented with various arguments explaining different points of view. Somehow I feel like this book made me a bit less anxious about stress. Also, I highlighted really a lot of information and I like that there is special part in the book addressing to the ways of reducing stress. Although those are probably quite common knowledge, it is still good to know that this is indeed a right way to cope.
In the face of strong walls, let me be a gale of wind.
Enjoyed reading this book. Appreciate the way information in the book is presented with various arguments explaining different points of view. Somehow I feel like this book made me a bit less anxious about stress. Also, I highlighted really a lot of information and I like that there is special part in the book addressing to the ways of reducing stress. Although those are probably quite common knowledge, it is still good to know that this is indeed a right way to cope.
informative
slow-paced