Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Dr. Robert Sapolsky
Audiobook
Self help book
A landmark book to say the least!
The biological differences in how humans and wild animals experience and process stress determine why humans suffer from stress-related illnesses like stomach ulcers, while zebras generally do not.
A zebra only experiences short-term physical emergencies. When a lion attacks, the zebra’s fight-or-flight response activates immediately. This floods its body with glucose and raises its blood pressure to help it run away. Once the danger is gone, the zebra immediately calms down and returns to eating grass. Its stress response shuts off completely.
Humans can activate the exact same physiological stress response simply by thinking or worrying. Psychological stressors—like job insecurity, paying bills, traffic, or relationship conflicts—persist for months or years. Humans live with sustained, low-to-mid-level panic that rarely shuts off completely
When the fight-or-flight system is constantly activated by psychological worries, the human body suffers severe physical wear and tear!
During emergency stress, the body stops digesting food to conserve energy for running or fighting. If you are constantly stressed, your stomach’s natural defense mechanisms and tissue repair functions remain paused.
The stomach lining continuously defends itself against corrosive gastric acids. Prolonged stress diminishes the stomach’s ability to secrete protective mucus and maintain healthy blood flow, making the lining vulnerable to eroding and forming an ulcer.
Chronic stress releases hormones like glucocorticoids (cortisol) that suppress the immune system over time. This makes it incredibly difficult for the human body to fight off Helicobacter pylori, the primary ulcer-causing bacteria!
Ultimately, the evolutionary stress response was designed to save an animal’s life during a 5-minute chase on the savanna. Humans make themselves sick by keeping that emergency system running continuously for purely psychological reason!
This is the short summary!
Then if you have follwed or listened or read his ealier books or rather later books like Behave or heard his lecture you would know the effect of stress!
The Robert takes about control which is more important than the stress itself!
Now imagine this situation;
You are placed in a room and presented with a sound at a particular loudness which is supposed to induce stress!
By default it would induce stress!
Then you are given a Lever or a shown a button and informed that you can press the button and the sound will get better or less loud!
As expected the presence of the button reduced the stress levels!
The more interesting thing here is what is revealed next!
The button does nothing!
Even if the button does nothing; the mere thought that you have some control over your stress is ENOUGH to reduce your stress!
That is the crux of the matter!
We get stressed on things which we do not have control on or cannot control! But the moment we believe that we can control the situation; the stress reduces or goes away!
There has been similar experiments on rodents with similar results!
This reminds me of the famous flow chart of stress or problem where it was advised that if you CANNOT do anything about it then just let it go and STOP worrying about it!
Robert Sapolsky argues that the core driver of psychological stress is not the stressor itself, but the loss of control!
When we face difficult circumstances, the lack of predictability, outlets for frustration, and social support turns acute biological reactions into chronic, health-damaging stress.
Of course the most easiest non stressful job is to give advice to others! While the most difficult stressful task is to follow your own advice!
It is all in the control!
If you want to win in elections then you can use an aerosol version of this drug and people may be incined to vote for you!
Of course they have to like you in the first place!
The drug only gently NUDGES them in your direction!
The ‘drug’ is VASOPRESSIN!
He also mentions how this drug is responsible for Monogamy and also how it is oxytocin which is reponsible for stress!
Then he tells about the role of stress in the causation of Ulcer!
This story is famous among the GE of the world!
GE here stands for Gastroenterologists and not Genius though many may be!
Anytime you have an ulcer you know even your mother would tell you that you have STRESS!
That was the primary hypothesis till this bacteria came along!
No scientist would ever think an infection would cause ulcer! They would immediately tell how the strong acid would kill all the bacteria and no bacterium would ever survive that! Till there occured an accidental mistake!
So from the land down under you had Dr Barry Marshall successfully culturing this bacteria over an Easter weekend after ‘mistakenly’ leaving plates in the incubator, a fortuitous mistake that revealed the bacteria’s need for longer, specific growth conditions!
While pathologists had observed spiral bacteria in gastric tissues as early as 1893, it was thought to be contamination!
In 1982, Robin Warren observed the bacteria in gastric biopsies!
Officially then both Barry Marshall and Robin Warren speculated that Helicobacter pylori is the primary cause of stomach ulcers and gastritis!
Of course the GE community was not impressed! They dismissed the whole idea till Marshall made another BRAVE MISTAKE!
Due to skepticism from the medical community, Marshall drank a broth containing H. pylori to prove it caused illness! Many called it a STUPID MIstake! It could have been a GRAVE one for sure!
Then again LUCKILY he developed severe gastritis (vomiting, bad breath) within days!
This confirmed his hypothesis and validating the infectious cause of ulcers
Of course even this was not accepted soon by the GE community till many such reports got reported and an eradication of this Bacteria caused a cessation of ulcers!
It was a victory of persistence!
Now research shows H. pylori has existed in humans for at least 100,000 years, migrating out of Africa with its host, and is present in nearly half the human population, though not always causing disease.H. pylori is now understood to live in the harsh, acidic environment of the stomach by producing the enzyme urease, which neutralizes acid and allows it to colonize the mucus layer!
Their discovery overturned the long-held medical belief that ONLY stress and diet caused ulcers, proving instead they were also infections treatable with antibiotics which earned them the Nobel Prize in 2005.
This is ONE of the SEVERAL cause for your ulcers!
So even if it present it may not cause ulcers since like all infections it is an interplay of agent host and environment!
So he tells about the role of stress in the causation of ulcers, heart conditions, reduced immunity and in general a short life span!
Even in the case of diseases like cancer he tells how more stress is worse! The he tells about the famous Dutch winter in which the starvation among pregnant women produced children who were like sponge!
In the end he also tells how you can reduce stress! Medication and meditation being on the top of things!
An extensive analysis of stress and the glucocorticoids and also how the whole system was developed to protect you in the short term! But if it persists then you are in a world of strain or stress!
All in all a very non stressful book to handle stress!
Cannot stress that enough!
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