“We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.”
- Robert M. Sapolosky, A Primate’s Memoir: A Neuroscientist’s Unconventional Life Among the Baboons
As Stanford neurology professor Robert Sapolsky explains in Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases that plague us are those brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal’s does, but we do not resolve conflict by fighting or fleeing in the way that animals do. What’s more, humans—unlike primates Sapolosky studied on the Serengeti—“can get stressed simply with thought, turning on the same stress response as does [a] zebra” when faced with a lion attacker. When that stress response is turned on chronically, “We get sick,” he shares.
The good news is that healthy outlets help us cope and can minimize the effects of daily stress—be that a journal in which to unload ruminating thoughts, a loved one’s shoulder to cry on, an outing with dear friends, an after-work run, or other channels that help us keep stress “in perspective so that we’re not done in by it.” Each Saturday after yoga class, I enjoy green tea and conversation with treasured friends at a local coffee house, an opportunity for us to unload stress, offer support, and help each other keep life’s dramas in perspective.
What are some healthy outlets that help you keep everyday stressors in perspective?
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