Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is a book about the physiology of stress. It gets into great detail about what exactly is going on inside the body during periods of high stress, and also what short and long term affects are caused by that stress. The first chapter give a brief description of each chapter in the rest of the book. Each subsequent chapter explains different stressors, levels of stress, and hormonal responses to stress. Many of the chapters also include research and discoveries on how stress affects the human body, many of which are somewhat recent discoveries, only occurring in the last one hundred years or so. Robert Sapolsky is able to explain to his readers much about the physiology of stress and how endocrinology plays the most
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky, gives a description of the inner workings of the human, and animal, stress response. He talks about what physiologically happens to people when they remain in a state of stress of a long period of time. The immune response, depression, aging and death, and sexual reproduction are just some of the topics Sapolsky discusses and how stress affects each of these.
Most studies of the relationship between stress and the immune system have focussed on acute(i.e. short lived) stressors and have found a decrease in immune cell function.
I decided to read the book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers chapter 8 a chapter we didn’t cover in class. The chapter is named Immunity, stress, and disease which made me interested in the chapter. The reason is because, in the past, I have been sick many times and want to see how stress may impact from someone getting sick. Reading the chapter first thing that caught my attention was how the body’s immune system works. The system is very complex and has many ways to which it protects us from infectious agents. I also learned how stress may inhibit the immune functions, but also there may be other factors that contribute as well. The human immune system fascinates me and I want to learn more about it. The fact is killing bacteria, makes antibodies
The nervous, endocrine, and immune systems share a close relationship critical to maintaining homeostasis during psychological and immune stress (Carlsson, Anneli, Ludvigsson, & Faresjö, 2014). Chronic stress, primarily mediated by the glucocorticoid cortisol, is associated with deleterious health outcomes and immune deficiency. However, acute stress is associated with protective health effects and immune enhancement. Stress has generally been regarded as adaptive when acute and short-term but maladaptive when chronic (Dhabhar, 2006; Carlsson, Anneli, Ludvigsson, & Faresjö, 2014; Johnson, Riley, Douglas, & Riis, 2013; Flinn and England, 2003; Wiegers, Reul, Holsboer, & de Kloet, 1994).
Like most college students, I could not run away from stress and I was especially stressed out this week. As it is the first week of a new quarter, I was still trying to get used to my new schedule and classes. Some of the classes I am taking seem to be challenging and it is worrying me. I am also in the honors program and I am very anxious as the deadline to submit my research proposal is coming soon. In Why Don’t Zebras Get Ulcers, the author wrote that the perception of things worsening can cause a person to be hypertensive. Hence, I think my stressors revolve mostly around the fact that I believe that the quarter will get busier and things will only get worse.
Stress has been defined by Selye as a non-specific organic response to situations that are stressful to the organism. Its presence in a moderated form signifies a normal adaptation to day-to-day demands. When it is excessive, it is a manifestation of psychological distress with physical and emotional reactions, and the symptoms vary depending on the phase in which it is found. In her
Although a range of previous findings on stress physiology suggest that stress may have ameliorating or detrimental capacities, the possible connections between stress and diseases remain hotly debated despite its wide acceptability (Esch, 2002). Based on this premise, researchers have in recent years intensified investigation on the role of stress in various diseases such as neurological, mental, epidemiological, and cardiac diseases to mention but a few. Particularly, researchers in the field of stress research have been more concerned about the underlying mechanisms and pathophysiological pathways by which the onset of diseases are potentially influenced by stress, this domain however continues to be widely studied. For instance, it is believed that stress represents a major complicating factor in neurological illness and
1.) Summary: Kelly McGonigal who is a health psychologist gives a thought-provoking lecture called “How to Make Stress Your Friend” at an official TED conference in June 2013. During the first part of the presentation, Ms. McGonigal confesses to the crowd that she been teaching about stress completely wrong, “Basically, I’ve turned stress into the enemy. But I have changed my mind about stress…” Ms. McGonigal emphasizes the point that people who view stress as not harmful (not their enemy), were less likely to die to people who view stress as their enemy; therefore, when people change their mind about stress, they can change their body response to stress to make them healthier. As the presentation gets further along, Kelly McGonigal states how oxytocin plays a huge role in controlling stress. This neuro-hormone, which is released during stress, motivates you to seek support, which is the reason why stress makes you social. At the same time, oxytocin acts
This module resonated a lot with me because I’ve had strong feelings of anxiety in the past before which is actually part of the reason why I chose Why Zebras don’t get alcers.
Firdaus Dhabhar gave a short lecture on August 19th, 2015 about the good effects that stress can have on our lives. I read two papers published by Dr. Dhabhar in the last five years, both concerning his research on the biological response of stress and how this can impact our daily lives as well as how it can be both detrimental and essential to good health. Each paper explored stress, one was more focused on the physical and the other focused on both the physical and the mental. Given my own project this summer, I was especially interested in the paper published by Aschbacher and colleagues in 2013 because they also explored cortisol reactivity to stress. While their project and my project looked at very different things in very different populations it was exciting to read more about cortisol and how people are exploring this hormone’s role in our stress
Meyer et al 2014 In vertebrates the stress response is an evolutionary conservative process mediated by the HPA access and allows organisms to respond rapidly to unpredictable changes in their environment. It is initiated when higher brain centers perceived and endogenous or exogenous noxious stimuli that are in homeostasis and how many it’s release of good corticoids from the adrenal cortex. Elevated levels of circulating clinical records exert a variety of catabolic and Terry productive anti-gross and immunosuppressive effects that mobilize and repartition under detailed organisms restore homeostatic balance. Other than physiological response to short-term stress is adaptive long-term stress occurring over weeks to months may lead to pathological syndrome of distress characterized by amino suppressive decreased reproduction and diminish growth. According Lee measures of population performance such as survival for productive output and abundance may be reduced as a proportion of distress individuals it a population increases. . (MacBeth et al. 2010) The hypothalamus pituitary digital access to respond rapidly and specifically to wide range of environmental and internal demand half deferred to her stress. Is believed to HP a response to stress plays a pivotal role in our in his
[Griffin n.d.] Physiological scientist Hans Seyle studied stress in rats and found that no matter what kind of stress they endured they suffered the same physiological change as if they had suffered prolonged stress. Seyle named the stages that the rats went through the General Adaptation Syndrome. [Kalat,2017] The three phases of the physiological change that occurs in response to long term stress are alarm, resistance, and exhaustion. Alarm is the first reaction to stress where your body releases hormones including cortisol. This is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands. A person wont immediate recognize the cortisol working because it is a multi-step process involving two minor hormones. The brain has two pathways that process stimuli. The first is the amygdala that has to recognize the threat and send a message to the hypothalamus part of the brain which releases a hormone that then tells the pituitary gland to release cortisol. In event of a life emergency, the high amounts of cortisol will help save your life. It helps to maintain fluid balance and blood pressure, while slowing down some body functions that aren’t crucial in the moment, like reproductive drive, immunity, digestion
Stress can be broadly defined as any external and internal events that affects an organism’s well being. In attempt to maintain homeostasis, the body will respond to the psychological stress by modifying physiological processes (Nargund, 2015). Psychological stress is a number of emotional events that interrupts homeostasis. The disruption of homeostasis can affect many biological systems, such as metabolism, vascular function, tissue repair, nervous system and reproductive system. Both emotional and physical stress can have a negative impact on human reproductive function (Cousineau, 2007; Jakobovits et al, 2002). Therefore, it is very important to know how to cope with stress when experiencing life events that are very stressful. My presentation
I learned from this documentary that stress is everyone’s inferno, deviling our minds. Stress at one point helped us survive however, it is now the scrooge of our lives. Stress is not a state of mind but something measurable and dangerous. Stress can kill brain cells and even unravel our chromosomes. I found this information frightening because although I knew stress can cause health detriments, I never knew it was to this extent. Stress was once believed to be linked to ulcers however a discovery of immune bacteria rejected that hypothesis. As technology and science advanced, scientists discovered that when an individual is stressed, the body shuts down all non-essential systems including the immune system. When the body shuts down the immune
Stress is like a fever boiling in the human system, as it rises, the body weakens. What