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

by Robert M. Sapolsky

most studies are retrospective. Moreover, people are usually assessing their own level of religiosity (including objective measures like how often they attend religious services), and folks are notoriously inaccurate at this sort of recall.

an endless source of tension in heterosexual relationships is that women, on average, tend toward emotion- or relationship-based coping styles, whereas men tend toward problem-solving approaches.

But regardless of which is your most natural coping style, a key point is that different styles tend to work better in different circumstances.

problem-solving approaches work better in the illness scenario; emotion- and relationship-based coping works better in the case of a death.

Physical stressor, you want to activate a stress-response; psychological stressor, you don’t. Basal conditions, as little glucocorticoid secretion as possible; real stressor, as much as possible. Onset of stress, rapid activation; end of stress, rapid recovery.

Consider a schematic version of this, based on those Norwegian soldiers learning to parachute: the first time they jumped, their blood pressure was through the roof at the time of the jump (Part B). But in addition it was up for hours before with anticipatory terror (Part A), and for hours after—still weak-kneed (Part C). By the zillionth time they jumped, what was the profile like? The same massive stress-response during the jump (Part B), but two seconds before and after, nothing—the parachuters are just thinking about what they’re going to have for lunch.

when someone has gotten a zillion jumps’ worth of experience, they turn on the stress-response only during the actual stressor. As discussed earlier, what have been winnowed away by that experience are parts A and C—the psychological stress-response.

In the face of terrible news beyond control, beyond prevention, beyond healing, those who are able to find the means to deny tend to cope best. Such denial is not only permitted, it may be the only means of sanity;

Hope for the best and let that dominate most of your emotions, but at the same time let one small piece of you prepare for the worst.

It is generally helpful to seek predictable, accurate information. However, such information is not useful if it comes too soon or too late, if it is unnecessary, if there is so much information that it is stressful in and of itself, or if the information is about news far worse than one wants to know.

It is true that the real world is full of bad things that we can finesse away by altering our outlook and psychological makeup, but it is also full of awful things that cannot be eliminated by a change in attitude, no matter how heroically, fervently, complexly, or ritualistically we may wish.

Once we have that cardiac arrest, once a tumor has metastasized, once our brain has been badly deprived of oxygen, little about our psychological outlook is likely to help. We have entered the realm where someone else—a highly trained physician—must use the most high-tech of appropriate medical interventions.

But amid this caution, there remains a whole realm of health and disease that is sensitive to the quality of our minds—our thoughts and emotions and behaviors.

But change the way even a rat perceives its world, and you dramatically alter the likelihood of its getting a disease.