Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers : The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping {Third Edition}

Sapolsky gives you a rundown of the basics of the biology of the stress response, then explains the multifarious impacts of chronic stress on humans (and mice, rats, baboons, macaques, rhesus monkeys, etc.) Most of the facts presented in this book are pretty painful. Little is said without a reference to a specific study, its methods and findings. Sapolsky goes to good effort to note which findings are fairly conclusive, where more research is needed, where studies disagree or where he suspects they are not comprehensive. The sum of my understanding of the endocrine system (today) is basically what I was able to glean from this book. I haven't done a lot of other reading to validate the claims made, but for the most part they don't seem show more too bold and are mostly cautious suppositions based on available research.

For a book that could be really dry, it's actually _fun_ to read. Sapolsky balances sober explanation with wit and irony throughout. The footnotes are great.

The last four chapters (prior to the final chapter on managing stress) were particularly relevant to me, but I think also the hardest hitting. (14 is stress and depression, 15 is temperament/personality and anxiety, 16 is dopamine, the nature of pleasure and addiction, 17 is socioeconomic status and health outcomes)

The last chapter did not have any magic wands like I was hoping. I will have to resign myself to better understanding the physiology of stress and how I experience it, avoid pushing what buttons I can and learn/develop coping techniques. This is a great book and it has already done a lot for me. show less

Finally finished this book, audiobook format. Well- (if not over-) written but with humour and lots of life analogies to help cut through the enormous amount of medical-ese. This unabridged audiobook was long - 15 discs - and the reader (Peter Berkrot) was excellent. But I think Sapolsky could have made a case for a good book in half the amount of pages (discs) than he did. I did find myself skipping ahead so as not to have to listen to yet another study because after awhile, it became overkill.

Bottom line, stress can cause all sorts of nasty problems to a human body. Different personality types, the way a person was raised, and the way a person responds to stress can influence health. Certain personality types can also be more prone show more to the adverse effects of stress. In other words, no easy answers. show less

In this humorous and informative book, Robert Sapolsky explains how and why stress affects our bodies. The premise is that prey animals like zebras use a stress response in an evolutionary sensible way by upping certain hormones while they are being hunted, but then the zebras' stress levels drop again when they escape. Humans (and at some level baboons) have the same bodily changes, only our stress tends to be small amounts for long periods of time, meaning the effects on the nervous system (lower digestion, higher blood pressure, reduced growth, etc.) remain continuously activated. Therefore, human stress is not sensible from an evolutionary standpoint. Each chapter in Sapolsky's book covers a different bodily system and explains in show more detail how and why stress affects it. He ends with a rather lengthy description of how lower socio-economic status affects our bodies. Although this section was interesting, it seemed a bit lengthy and out of place from the rest of the book. The subject could be a book all on its own.

One thing I loved about this book is it's approachability. It was easy to read and made me laugh several times each chapter. Sapolsky has an excellent dry sense of humor. He also included a picture of baboons smack in the middle of his book for seemingly no reason. That made me laugh.

I was listening to his companion set of lectures Stress and Your Body concurrently, though I dropped behind and still have several lectures yet to finish of the course. You can see some details of the information covered in the book and lectures if you check out the above link. In hindsight, although both were enjoyable, only one or the other was necessary as most of the material was exactly the same - even to the wording.

This is a very stressful book to read, so watch out if you are prone to stress. show less

An in-depth look at the nature of stress and the effects that it has on our bodies. The main idea here is that our reaction to stress evolved to be useful in a particular kind of acute, fight-or-flight situation, but the biological responses that are very helpful when you're spending ten minutes running away from a lion can be anything but helpful when you're sitting around all day fretting about how you're going to pay your mortgage. Actually, just reading this book can be pretty stressful, with its endless litany of horrible things that your worrying is probably doing to your body right this minute, although the author does at least try to end things on a comforting and hopeful note.

This is definitely for people who are interested in show more the biological details of what happens in our bodies under stress: which hormones are released when, what they do, how they interact with each other, and how they have the effects they have. It was, perhaps, sometimes a little more detail than I really wanted, but Sapolsky leavens it all with humor and a pleasantly informal style, and does a good job of not insulting the reader's intelligence while being entertainingly sympathetic about how confusing some of it is.

The version I have is the third edition, published in 2004, which apparently is significantly revised and contains a couple of new chapters, including one on sleep and stress, a topic that is particularly relevant to me as a shift-worker. show less

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 show more in the late 90s, so I'm wondering what more current thinking is. show less

Incredible book. Thought provoking and thought changing in every page. It gives you the facts and mesmerize and wonders you with great, humorous writing. There are other books that start marveling at you (Homo Sapiens or Guns, Germs, and Steel) and then giving you sprinkles of facts just to be called nonfiction. This book is never dull, never difficult, sometimes dense if you don't know about the topic, but it just make you want to read more every time, because you don't know which direction any subject or conclusion is gonna jump to, and it is always extraordinary. Everybody should read it.

No one else has got me wanting to understand more about any kind of biology since I left school. Robert sapolsky has a very engaging way of dealing with what, to a layman, is quite technical in parts.

He explains how and why different people respond to stress, both in terms of physiology and psychology. If you are constantly stressed and planning to live a long time this could be an alarming read. There are no easy fixes of the kind you might find in a self-help book, the guidance is much more considered and nuanced.

If you want to be much better informed and are prepared to put a bit of effort in (if you are new to neurobiology) both in reading and in thinking about what this might mean for you, then I would strongly recommend this book.