Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related diseases, and Coping by Robert M. Sapolsky

This book contains everything related to stress - hormones, physiology, illness, aging, psychology, and so on. It is written for the general public but contains comprehensive scientific knowledge including interesting scientific anecdotes and experiments and the author’s witty remarks. Although I was already familiar with most of its contents, I became to get a deeper understanding and organize dispersed knowledge on the stress response through this book.

Sometimes, I marvel that much scientific knowledge taken as common sense nowadays are heritages or achievements of great scientists who devoted their lives to uncover the unknowns. In the old days, scientists must have spent more time and energy to prove something like the HPA axis, as they didn’t have current advanced equipment or apparatuses. Quite a large number of such endeavors and scientific experiments are introduced in this book, as the author tried to provide supporting evidence on every his view. In this regard, this book is very thorough and logical. (Some people will be uncomfortable in its large volume and thoroughness)

Everybody, even a kid, says “stress” today, but stress is a relatively new concept and nearly everything that we know about “stress” has been discovered within one hundred years. What would our world be like one hundred years later at such an accelerating rate of change?

 

Written by Shim G.

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