WHY ZEBRAS DON'T GET ULCERS --- A GUIDE TO STRESS, STRESS-RELATED DISEASES,
AND COPING by Robert M. Sapolsky. An Owl Book/Henry, Holt and Company, 3rd ed., 2004
    PREFACE (xi-xiv)

        Everyone can benefit from the ideas in this book and the science it is based upon. Science is meant to reinvent and reinvigorate the mystery of life and to make us awed by the arts and nature.

        Some of the news in this book is grim, such as the fact that sustained stress or repeated stress can disrupt our bodies in seemingly endless ways. However, there is much to be optimistic about, such as the "principles" of stress-management which describe the way many people can cope both physiologically and psychologically with dangerous chronic stress. (pxi)

        There has been a revolution in medicine concerning how we think about the modern diseases that afflict us, such as the amount of emotional stress experienced over the years. It involves recognizing the interaction between the body and the mind. Your emotions and personality can have a tremendous impact on the functioning and health of virtually every cell in your body! (pxi-xii)

        Also, the revolution in medicine is about the role of stress in making many of us more vulnerable to disease, the ways in which we cope with stressors, and the critical idea that you cannot really understand a disease in a vacuum, but rather only in the context of the particular person who is suffering from that disease. (pxii)

        This book clarifies the meaning of the nebulous concept of stress, and teaches how various hormones and parts of your brain are mobilized in response to stress. There is a focus on the links between stress and increased risk for certain types of diseases, which affect your circulatory system, your energy storage, your growth, your reproduction potential, your immune system and other disorders. Also, the book describes how the aging process and major depression are influenced by a lifetime of chronic stress and how stress and sleep interact and how stress influences addictions. (pxii)

        The book simplifies complex medical and psychological ideas and counterbalances this attempt to make the subject interesting and accessible to more readers by including many annotated references dealing with controversial and subtle issues. (pxii)

      1) Why don't zebras get ulcers? (p1-18)

      2) Glands, gooseflesh, and hormones (p19-36)

      3) Stroke, heart attacks, and voodoo death (p31-36)

      4) Stress, metabolism, and liquidating your assets (p57-70)

      5) Ulcers, the runs, and hot fudge sundaes (p71-91)

      6) Dwarfism and the importance of mothers (p92-119)

      7) Sex and reproduction (p120-143)

      8) Immunity, stress, and disease (p144-185)

      9) Stress and pain (p186-201)

      10) Stress and memory (p202-225)

      11) Stress and a good night's sleep (p226-238)

      12) Aging and death (p239-259)

      13) Why is "psychological stress" stressful? (p252-270)

      14) Stress and depression (p271-308)

      15) Personality, temperament, and their stress-related consequences (p309-334)

      16) Junkies, adrenaline junkies, and pleasure (p335-352)

        (1) The Neurochemistry of Pleasure

          Issues:

            [1] Why do people who get the right amount of stress and get "allostatically" challenged just right, feel great instead of just less awful?

            [2] Why do some people find stress and risk-taking to feel so great that they get addicted?

            [3] How does stress interact with the pleasures and addictive qualities of various substances of abuse?

        Your brain contains a "pleasure pathway" that makes heavy use of the neurotransmitter dopamine. If that pathway becomes depleted of dopamine, anhedonia or dysphoria can be an outcome. This "dopaminergic" projection begins in a region deep in the brain called the "ventral tegmentum." It then projects to the "nucleus accumbens" and then, in turn, goes on to many other parts of your brain, including your frontal lobes ("frontal cortex").

      17) The view from the bottom (p353-383)

      18) Managing stress (p384-418)

    NOTES (p419-516)

    ILLUSTRATION CREDITS (p517-520)

    INDEX (p521-539)

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR (p541)

        Robert M. Sapolsky is a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University and a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research, National Museum of Kenya. Also, he is the author of A Primate's Memoir and The Trouble with testosterone. He contributes to science TV shows and was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant.
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