Robert M. Sapolsky Quotes about Stress

Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch.

Stress is not a state of mind... it's measurable and dangerous, and humans can't seem to find their off-switch.

Stress, Mind, States

If you live in a baboon troop in the Serengeti, you only have to work three hours a day for your calories, and predators don't mess with you much. What that means is you've got nine hours of free time every day to devote to generating psychological stress toward other animals in your troop. So the baboon is a wonderful model for living well enough and long enough to pay the price for all the social-stressor nonsense that they create for each other. They're just like us: They're not getting done in by predators and famines, they're getting done in by each other.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Stress, Mean, Animal

We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Good Life, Stress, Luxury

Robert M. Sapolsky (2007). “A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons”, p.15, Simon and Schuster

We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Stress, Hate, Scary

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Digestion is quickly shut down during stress…The parasympathetic nervous system, perfect for all that calm, vegetative physiology, normally mediates the actions of digestion. Along comes stress: turn off parasympathetic, turn on the sympathetic, and forget about digestion.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Stress, Perfect, Digestion

"Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping - Now Revised and Updated".

The gigantic challenge is the magnitude of the individual differences in the optimal set point for "good stress." For one person, it's doing something risky with your bishop in a chess game; for someone else, it's becoming a mercenary in Yemen.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Stress, Individual Differences, Games

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

As long as experiencing your optimal level of good stress doesn't damage others, it's hard to objectively define where normal enjoyment of stimulation becomes adrenaline junkiehood.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Stress, Long, Levels

Source: www.psychologytoday.com

Most of us don't collapse into puddles of stress-related disease.

Robert M. Sapolsky

Stress, Puddles, Disease

"Stress, Neurodegeneration and Individual Differences". Robert M. Sapolsky's lecture at Washington State University, October 10, 2001.