“Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers” by Robert M. Sapolsky is a fascinating book that talks about the affects of stress on the human body and all the stress related diseases that harm our health. Sapolsky points out that humans are not meant to live in cities but instead in the wild where our stress responses would be detrimental to our survival. Instead, our bodies have to consistently recover back to the homeostatic balance after a stress response, which tends to harm the body. Before reading this book I knew that studies show that stress has a good deal to do with ulcers but I did not know it contributed to so many other diseases.
Sapolsky has gained a great deal of his knowledge on the effects of stress by studying wild animals in Africa. One quote from the book that I found interesting was that humans “can get stressed simply with thought, turning on the same stress response as does the zebra.” He further states that no other primate can get stressed by thought. How we were able to develop the ability to get stressed out by thought is the first time I heard of a bad side effect from our increase in intelligence throughout the centuries. He does state that maybe if humans were smart enough to develop it maybe we will be able to find a way to get rid of it. However, I believe that even though stress may hinder our body, it is also something that motivates us and helps us complete our responsibilities. Of course I do not believe stress on a large-scale basis is good because I do know of many people that suffer from anxiety. But, when controlled, I believe that stress can be a good thing that helps our efficiency and keeps us on track.
I also agree that stress in small amounts can be motivational; it can keep us working to complete our goals. However, I think that Sapolsky focuses on stress of the human invention that does us more harm than good. Stress can be detrimental to our health and our bodies may be penalized by activating the stress response too often (62). In our minds we created anxiety over non-life threatening problems and the response to this anxiety lasts long periods of time, rather than the fleeting response to stress (like zebras running from lions). The response to stress that is in our human DNA should only have this reaction every so often. If a Wall Street trader has extreme cases of anxiety due to his field of work, yes this anxiety may encourage him to work harder, but the monetary reward of this stress doesn’t prevent him from possibly being at risk for ulcers, or elevated glucocorticoid levels. Stress is fine but our biological response to stress wasn’t intended for such strong long term anxiety as we can see from the negative physical outcomes of long term stress.
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