A gripping and surprisingly accessible read by neuro-endocrinologist and professor of biology Robert Sapolsky. He discusses the physiological effects of stress and why humans (and their primate cousins) have more stress related diseases than any other animal. That includes heart disease, cancer, auto-immune disease, diabetes, depression, anxiety.
He insinuates that we have evolved to become smart enough to make ourselves sick; with prolonged psychosocial stressors like 30 year mortgages, trouble shooting the WIFI, traffic, pleasing your boss, global warming etc.
When the sympathetic “fight or flight” response switches on, it makes sense that our digestion, reproduction and healing processes take a back seat. They are not pertinent to our imminent survival! But when that stress response dominates, we get sick. We take longer to heal. We experience more pain.
My one beef with this book is that there are 17 chapters on why stress is bad for us, and 1 chapter on what to do about it. To be honest, especially during this pandemic, I feel like we need something a little more uplifting than that. I’m sure you can all understand that prolonged stress is bad for you. This book does a wonderful job of taking the emotion out of the stress response and breaking the biological processes down. But what are we going to do about it?
Happiness and self esteem are important factors to reduce stress. Gratitude, empathy, mindfulness and human connection are the pillars of happiness. Seeking out these things may be our best chance of proactively seeking health and wellness. Physical isolation does not mean disconnectedness from the community. Joel and I have been doing online trivia nights, FaceTiming our family for cuppa tea time or Sunday dinner. I look after a 92 year old neighbour who zooms with her 96 year old sister every Thursday for morning tea. For the sake of our wellness, we need to get more creative with how we stay connected.
My final 2 cents here is to practice gratitude. Every day I spend 1 minute jotting down some things that I am grateful for. It’s an easy, cheap and super effective way to practice mindfulness and change our mindset when we are feeling blue or frustrated with things outside of our control.
Basically we need to learn to become more like Zebras. We need to re-connect with our ability to switch on the all important “fight or flight” in physically dangerous situations, and then re-establish balance in our autonomic nervous system.
