A Quote by Robert Sapolsky

The stress response is incredibly ancient evolutionarily. Fish, birds and reptiles secrete the same stress hormones we do, yet their metabolism doesn't get messed up the way it does in people and other primates.
There is a lot of new research about how stress hormones affect your body and how you can work on giving your body as much of the good hormones as possible, because that heals your body. I am quite a rational person - so when someone could show me that there was a rational way of seeing fear in terms of stress hormones, it was easier for me to understand. I think all autoimmune diseases are very sensitive to stress. It is typical that the flares come after a period of emotional stress. The connection is quite clear.
It is important to understand that while oxytocin may be the hub of the evolution of the social brain in mammals, it is part of a very complex system. Part of what it does is act in opposition to stress hormones, and in that sense release of oxytocin feels good - as stress hormones and anxiety do not feel good.
My lab looks at the ability of stress hormones to kill brain cells, and basically we are trying to understand on a molecular level how a neuron dies after a stroke, a seizure, Alzheimer's, brain aging, and what these stress hormones do to make it worse.
Basically, my problem was attributed to stress more than anything. I don't know what that does and I guess doctors can tell you that there's chemicals that build up in your system when you go through a lot of stress and constant stress.
Many companies have long contended that stress in the home causes productivity loss in the market place.. and it does. But research now reveals that stress on the job causes stress at home. In other words, they feed off each other
As I became more interested in behavior from the standpoint of neurobiology, the stress-response became really interesting. What stress physiology is about is - when there is a new environmental challenge, how does an individual adapt? It seemed like a natural transition.
Stress is never a given. There are people who get divorced amicably. There are people who pack up and move with no emotional toll. There is no stressor 'out there' in the world. We experience stress - or we don't - depending on what we believe.
Girls and boys respond to stress differently - not just in our species, but in every mammal scientists have studied. Stress enhances learning in males. The same stress impairs learning in females.
I tune it all out because if I let other people's stress get to me, then I stress myself out more than I need to.
I think that a lot of people are in love with stress. It's the dirty little secret of Western civilization. People often mistake stress for fuel.... to me, stress is just another bad drug that I don't want to do.
We have this amazing ability to turn on the exactly same stress response worrying about a mortgage that a zebra does when it's sprinting away from a lion.
What basically happens is your hormones get out of whack. Because of the stress in your life your body says, 'I need more hormones.' So, your hormones are trying to produce and produce and produce, and it's even more stressful and it is this wicked cycle.
The American way of stress is comparable to Freud's 'beloved symptom', his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest of orchids and does not want to be cured of. Stress makes Americans feel busy, important, and in demand, and simultaneously deprived, ignored, and victimized. Stress makes them feel interesting and complex instead of boring and simple, and carries an assumption of sensitivity not unlike the Old World assumption that aristocrats were high-strung. In short, stress has become a status symbol.
There's such a thing as good stress and bad stress. Bad stress is when somebody else stresses you out, and good stress is when you stress yourself out over something you want to accomplish, which makes you want to perfect it.
One thing that stress does is make us ungenerous, so we constrict, we look after our own. We get solipsistic and go into our own narcissistic spiral. What this taught me is that there is a way of dealing with stress that is much more welcoming and open and hospitable to the world.
People associate hard work and overload with stress. But, like suffering, stress is complicated. Bad stress is stress that a system can't endure without suffering damage. It is unplanned, uncontrolled, allows no time for rest and recovery, and exceeds the capacity of the system to adjust to it. As the popular phrase suggests, it burns people out and, over time, it can decimate an entire workforce.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!