The thing about stress is that it is similar to your immune response in one extremely important aspect: When it works as it is intended to, stress is a great mechanism that helps solve an immediate problem and then shuts itself off afterwards. But the nature of the stressors we encounter in the modern world is different than the ones we evolved with. In the past the lion either got you or you escaped—either way, your stress stopped. It rarely followed you around for weeks or months, like exam season or a large project for a demanding client. And so a mechanism that was meant to support short
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