Why Zebras Dont get ulcers - Sapolsky - latest edition - Summary
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Stress & Health
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Tilburg University (UVT)
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Why Zebras Don\'t Get Ulcers
ENGLISH language summary of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Extensive, capturing details of
the book where possible without losing the summary. Covers all 18 chapters of the book.
Grade: 8.7
Author: Robert Sapolsky
Edition: Revised, 3rd, 2004
ISBN 3690
Summary Stress, Health and Disease (Sapolsky + 4 chapters from reader) (ISBN: 978080507369) 2021-2022
91 practice questions - Stress and Health
Summary Stress & Health (422094-B-6); Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers -Revised Edition, ISBN: 9780805073690
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Psychology [EN]
Stress & Health
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Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping (Revised Third
Edition)
ENGLISH language summary of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. Extensive, capturing details of
the book where possible without losing the summary. Covers all 18 chapters of the book.
Grade: 8.7
Author: Robert Sapolsky
Edition: Revised, 3rd, 2004
ISBN 9780805073690
Chapter 1 Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers? 1
Chapter 2 Glands, Gooseflesh, and Hormones 19
Chapter 3 Stroke, Heart Attacks, and Voodoo Death 37
Chapter 4 Stress, Metabolism, and Liquidating Your Assets 57
Chapter 5 Ulcers, the Runs, and Hot Fudge Sundaes 71
Chapter 6 Dwarfism and the Importance of Mothers 92
Chapter 7 Sex and Reproduction 120
Chapter 8 Immunity, Stress, and Disease 144
Chapter 9 Stress and Pain 186
Chapter 10 Stress and Memory 202
Chapter 11 Stress and a Good Night's Sleep 226
Chapter 12 Aging and Death 239
Chapter 13 Why Is Psychological Stress Stressful? 252
Chapter 14 Stress and Depression 271
Chapter 15 Personality, Temperament, and Their Stress-Related Consequences 309
Chapter 16 Junkies, Adrenaline Junkies, and Pleasure 335
Chapter 17 The View from the Bottom 353
Chapter 18 Managing Stress 384
, Chapter 1 Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers?
Change in contemporary disease patterns
In recent decades, much has changed in contemporary disease patterns. This is partly due to the progress in the
development of medicines. Today, more people are dealing with heart failure and vascular disease than with
infections and malnutrition. Associated with the change in disease patterns, diseases are also viewed differently.
Scientists discovered that there is a strong link between our emotions and the biological processes in our body.
Our thoughts, feelings and personalities influence these processes, causing two people who get the same
disease to go through different disease courses. Stress also affects our health and can even make us feel ill.
However, stress can lead to the body adapting in certain situations in order to survive.
There are also differences between humans and animals, especially in the way they experience stress. Animals
experience stress in acute physical crisis situations. The body appears to be perfectly capable of dealing with this
type of stress. People, on the other hand, often experience chronic physical stress. The body copes fairly well
with this type of stress.
In addition to acute and chronic physical stress, there is a third form: psychological and social stress. This form of
stress is characteristic of humans and actually only exists in our heads. People can experience strong emotions
that are the result of just thoughts. Human bodies can respond in the same way to psychological and social
stress as to physical stress. The human body can adapt very well to deal with acute stress that lasts for a short
time. However, this is different when the stress appears to be chronic and we activate our stress system often
and for a long time.
The body is not geared to chronic stress, because its physiological defense mechanisms are originally designed
to enable the body to respond quickly and efficiently to a sudden threat. For some time the body will resist the
psychological stress, but then exhaustion will inevitably follow. This can cause stress-related illnesses.
The body is constantly trying to reach a state of homeostasis. The body consists of different mechanisms and
each mechanism has an optimal value. Homeostasis means that the body is completely in balance, so that all
mechanisms have their optimal value. The body is always trying to achieve this balance. However, there are a
number of things that take the body out of homeostasis. We call these stress factors and are events that take
place outside the body. The body responds to this by means of a stress response, it will undertake activities to
regain homeostasis.
However, a stressor does not have to be just what is happening right now. People can trigger a stress response
by thinking about potential stressors. The stress response is therefore not only triggered by physical or
psychological threats, but also in anticipation of them. This was first discovered by Selye about sixty-five years
ago. Selye did a study in rats. His rats were injected daily with an extract from an ovary. However, being clumsy,
they often fell and he had to search for them half the morning before he could inject them. At the end of the study,
it was found that the rats had enlarged adrenal glands and stomach ulcers. To rule out that these symptoms were
the result of the injections, Selye used a control group injected with saline solution. These rats, too, regularly fell
to the ground and were chased by Selye in an attempt to get them. The control group showed the same
symptoms as the experimental group, which led Selye to conclude that these physical symptoms were caused by
the stress that arose when he chased the fallen rats.
Selye came to two conclusions:
• The body uses the same stress responses for various stress factors. Selye called this the general
adaptation syndrome, now this phenomenon is called the stress response.
• Stress factors that persist for too long can lead to illness.
Homeostasis
The original concept of homeostasis was based on two ideas:
• There is one optimal level for all measurable things in the body.
• You reach this optimal level through a local regulatory mechanism.
However, this concept turned out to be incorrect and has therefore been expanded to include the theory
of allostasis. With regard to the first idea, this implies that there are different optimal levels depending on what
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