Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers | Summarized Books
Why Zebra's Don't Get Ulcers
Emotions can directly influence our physical well-being
Our bodies and the way they react to the most random factors are wonderfully unpredictable. Robert M. Sapolsky is convinced that there is some beauty to not knowing. We, humans, are bound to a life full of questions and very few answers. Thankfully, science always comes to save the day and answer the most pressing of queries. It is endlessly exciting, and Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers is a testament to that.
Science provides us with some of the most elegant, stimulating puzzles that life has to offer. It throws some of the most provocative ideas into our arenas of moral debate.
Not so long ago, we used to think of bodily and heart matters as separate, never correlating the two. Our grandparents’ doctors would never have attributed a heart attack to stress or other emotional difficulties—everything was explained by biological factors only. A revolution in medicine completely changed the approaches toward diagnostics of the illnesses and diseases that bother us. Modern medicine considers the physical characteristics and various test results, and the workings of our very complex and only partially studied minds. Doctors and scientists now recognize the inextricable connections between the body, mind, emotions, and well-being.
Taking care of your body is not enough; you must also take care of your mind and emotional needs to stay healthy.
This summary explains how different animals and humans perceive stress, and yes, we, two-footed rulers of nature, have a bid to learn from all creatures, great and small. You will also brush up your knowledge on triggers and mechanisms of stress and how your body reacts to it. Having spent time with this summary, you should be empowered to realize that you can control the stress in your life. In a nutshell, experiencing stress does not make you condemned, and you even can make use of it.
Zebras know how to live in the moment, not anticipating future stress
Stress is one factor that has the most significant influence on the body; it can make us sick. This fact is probably not of the utmost surprise to you, but have you ever thought about what the notion of stress encompasses? What we define as stress or stressful is different from what a zebra would if one were to ask its opinion. When we think of stress, we think of deadlines, conflicts at work, financial worries, and other solely human grievances. To a zebra, stress is all about survival, starvation, predators, and grave injuries. This difference is why zebras are less prone to getting ulcers than humans are.
Animals are only concerned about immediate crises. They do not worry ahead of time or spend the nights without so much as closing an eye because they've got an important meeting coming up. This phenomenon is called psychological stress, and it is characteristic solely of humans and several other social primates. Psychological stress is a phenomenon that is yet to be thoroughly studied and researched, but, as you'll discover in further chapters, it opens up a lot of exciting insights about the workings of our bodies. This kind of stress is a relatively recent innovation in the grand picture of evolution—zebras or hippos would find it difficult to understand that humans can have physical and emotional responses to mere thoughts.
Our bodies can react not only to physical or psychological stressors but also in anticipation of them.
The lasting psychological stress that we experience because of our constant worries about doing well at work or paying off our mortgage is significantly more harmful than the short-term stress in physical emergencies, like running away from a lion you’ve stumbled upon. The following chapters will uncover why that is the case and how our bodies adapt to different stressors.
Understanding how our bodies react to stress can help us take better care of ourselves
Before we jump into the biological intricacies of various stress responses, it is essential to understand two concepts and their differences—homeostasis and allostasis.
Homeostasis is a relatively simple idea that our bodies can be in an ideal state—a perfect level of oxygen, temperature, blood pressure, and so on. This concept, though promising at first, turned out to be rather impractical. Our bodies have different ideal states for different occasions. For example, perfect blood pressure when sleeping is different from ideal blood pressure while giving a presentation.
This fallacy of homeostasis brings us to a more refined concept—allostasis. Allostasis is all about “constancy through change.” This concept reveals that ideal balance is constantly changing depending on the situation and level of stress.
There is no standard body state. Our bodies and their ideal characteristics are unique and differ in every meaningful way.
When something stressful happens and throws off the allostatic balance, the body tries to restore it. This reaction is called stress-response, and it is always the same no matter what kind of stressor is being experienced, be it financial worries or running away from a lion.
So what exactly happens to our bodies when we’re experiencing stress? Well, quite a few things do:
• Mobilization of pre-stored energy
• Increase in blood pressure, breathing, and heart rate
• Halt of the long-term processes like digestion, reproduction, and growth
• Inhibition of immunity
• Dulling of pain perception
• Improvement of cognitive and sensory skills
This reaction creates perfect conditions for a zebra running away from a lion. Everything in the body mobilizes to make the escape possible—blood rushes to muscles, reactions become sharper, hearing is better, and no background process in the body distracts from the matter at hand—survival. Such extreme reactions are slightly less appropriate when we stress about every tiny detail in our lives—how to pay off credit cards, what to wear to a job interview, and so on. Our bodies keep going into emergency mode without a particular need, thus bringing us into a state of constant exhaustion and making us more vulnerable to different disorders.
Be mindful of the ways in which your heart is influenced by stress
Among the most notable stress-related maladies are cardiovascular ones, heart attacks, and strokes in particular. As it was already briefly mentioned, our hearts begin to beat faster and more forcefully under the influence of stress. A variety of complex processes lead to veins becoming more rigid, causing the blood to rush through them with more force. The blood then is distributed through your body to where it is needed most. Usually, it rushes to your limbs to enable a standard fight or flight response—your arms become stronger if you need to punch someone, and so do your feet if you need to get away from danger quickly.
If this cardiovascular mobilization happens regularly, the risk of you getting heart disease increases significantly. Think of your heart and blood vessels as a pump and hoses to understand why this happens. When overused, they wear out and cease to function correctly.
The damage done by stress tends to pile up. Therefore, each new stressor is more damaging than the previous.
Once damaged, your cardiovascular system will be sensitive to any stressors, both physical and psychological. Another surprising pitfall is that triumph, extreme happiness, or joy can also trigger heart problems or even sudden cardiac arrest. This is, of course, extremely unfair, but nature rarely is. Extreme negative and positive emotions share many similar features and similarly influence the cardiovascular system. Be it heartbreak or the joy of mutual love, the heart does not care why it is being mobilized into a stress-response state. Surprisingly, contrasting emotions elicit very similar physical responses. There is indeed a very fine line between love and hate.
When it comes to scientific knowledge, always keep an open mind
The negative influence of stress is not limited to the cardiovascular system alone. It can also have a lasting impact on the reproduction processes and your immunity. Among the obvious reproductive malfunctions are irregular menstruation cycles, erectile dysfunctions, and disinterest in sex.
The male reproductive system reacts to the onset of stress by lowering testosterone concentration in the body. Its production is blocked by the endorphins that are produced in stressful situations. Endorphins are helpful because they blunt painful sensations. A similar process happens while exercising; therefore, it can be said that exercise can suppress male reproduction as well. But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t exercise at all; it means that everything should be done in moderation.
Hormones released as stress responses can disrupt the menstrual cycle in the female reproductive system, especially during ovulation. In some cases, continuous stress can even lead to premature menopause. For example, up to 54% of women in the Third Reich’s concentration camps stopped menstruating after only a month of incarceration.
Though inevitably influenced by stress in a variety of subtle ways, overall reproduction is one of the most robust biological reflexes and cannot be easily “turned off.”
It is advisable to monitor your reproductive health regularly, especially when you are often exposed to stress.
As the scientific community continues to evolve, new professions arise. A psychoneuroimmunologist, one such novelty, is a scientist specializing in researching correlations between what’s in our head and the changes in our immune system. It is no surprise that stress is one of the central study subjects.
The immune system’s primary function is to defend your body against various bacteria, viruses, and other infectious agents. Any malfunction can lead to terrible consequences. Stress suppresses the formation of lymphocytes—blood cells that act as guardians attacking every single particle inside your blood that is identified as “non-self.” Lack of lymphocytes inhibits the production of antibodies and generally weakens immunity leaving you defenseless in the face of various infectious diseases.
Recently, an important detail was discovered about the influence of stress-response on the immune system. It turns out, during the first few minutes of a stressful experience, the immunity is being mobilized and enforced to protect the body. After the peak of immune protection, the levels go down again, and it is this recovery process that impacts our immunity in the most negative ways. This knowledge that contradicts what was previously considered an infallible fact proves that even scientists are liable to error. So, we should always keep looking for answers without settling for the most convenient ones.
Pain is a vital part of human experience
Pain receptors that make us aware of unpleasant sensations are highly complicated and are yet to be fully understood and explained by scientists. For example, some pain receptors carry information not only about pain but also about other regular sensations. The brain differentiates between the two by judging the intensity of the feeling.
Stress can influence the intensity of painful feelings because the brain’s interpretation is often very subjective and contextual. For example, soldiers injured on the battlefield tend to feel less potent pain than civilians with the same injuries; athletes can continue competing even when hurt.
In some situations, stress makes pain worse; in others, it completely numbs it. Though confusing at first, these opposing responses feel absolutely logical in context. Imagine two different situations: 1. You have just gotten badly hurt in an accident, and you are trying to save your loved one from a burning car. 2. You woke up and found a weird growth on your shoulder that caused slight discomfort.
In the first scenario, pain receptors are likely to be blunted by stress giving you the strength to deal with a dangerous situation. In the second scenario, you will most definitely overreact, and the stress will heighten the sensitivity of pain receptors, making you wonder whether you are about to die. This illustrates how wonderfully complex and well-thought-out our bodies are.
Emotional pain can be as heartbreakingly terrible as physical pain. It can be manifested in a mental disorder widely referred to as clinical depression. Clinical depression is a major psychological disorder that alters the brain's biochemistry, leaving a person without the hormones necessary to function properly. Depression can take away jobs, families, social contacts, and, in the most terrible cases, lives; it can be as tragic as cancer or immobilizing injuries. According to Sapolsky's data, up to 20% of us will suffer from clinical depression, the number of sufferers increasing each year. Though not central, stress is among the causes of such depression—they tend to go together. People that are undergoing significant stressors are more likely to be diagnosed with depression.
Experiment and find what helps you best to cope with stress
Stress bleeds into every facet of our lives, influencing our bodies and minds rather negatively. Sometimes it feels as if there’s no hope and no getting away from it, but there are those who learned to coexist with stress, befriending this implacable enemy. Stress management is possible but not easy to implement in everyday life. Sadly, there is no easy fix, and any recommendations for coping with stress are strictly personal—what works for one person won’t necessarily work for you. Nevertheless, some general approaches can set you on the path of finding what works for you. These approaches are:
• Exercise
• Meditation
• Control
• Social support
• Spirituality
Exercise is probably the most reliable approach and something that you should start with. It can successfully counter stress and stress-induced diseases, making you stronger and overall healthier. Exercise makes you feel good mentally and physically while also preparing your body for future stress responses. It is also important to remember that overdoing exercise can worsen the situation.
Meditation can also be helpful if that’s your cup of tea. When done correctly and regularly, it will improve your health and mitigate stress responses on your body.
Getting more control over your life is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you can deal with the stressors and alleviate their influence. But on the other hand, too much self-control may lead to perfectionism, rigidness, and the inability to see the big picture, to name a few. Trying to control everything can bring about even more additional stress, as can an overabundance of information about future stressors. Still, some find solace in knowing what to expect from life. If that feels right for you, go for it!
A close intimate relationship and a shoulder to cry on can serve as major stress-reducers. It works the opposite way as well; the feeling of being needed by another person can help reduce the impact of stress.
Humans are profoundly social beings that draw strength from the feeling of closeness and community.
Spirituality and religion are highly controversial approaches to dealing with stress, having very little scientific proof. Faith, though, is a potent tool. Your faith being strong enough can help you deal with the most acute stressors if you genuinely believe in it. The greatest source of support for some—religion and spirituality—can also become a significant cause of stress for others.
We can also apply the famous 80/20 principle to stress management. Robert Sapolsky suggests that 80% of stress reduction is accomplished with the first 20% of the effort. You simply need to make the first step, and the rest of the journey will be much easier.
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