# Stress: portrait of a killer



## susurration (Oct 22, 2009)

A must see documentary on the effects of modern life on the human body. Robert Sapolsky is the man, btw. I watched this a few months ago, and I haven't forgotten it since. It might make you think twice about the lifestyle you lead. And the society you're a part of. 
































I did this summary in a rush for a friend a while back, but it captures the basic essence of it;

Ok, basically, the first part was a run down of what developments we've made in the health sciences. It talked about the long run idea that stomach ulcers were caused by psychological states, and how that was only recently proved to be false by Australian researchers a few years ago. It was actually caused by bacteria. However, researches have found that that isn't the end of the story. What is bacteria in the stomach caused by? well numerous things, but what puts you at the most risk is stress, because it biologically suppresses the human immune system.

The second part asked the question - but what else does stress do to us?

The doco introduced an American researcher who studied Baboon colonies in the Savannah. Now if you are familiar with baboons, you know that they are very closely related to humans. Intellectually, socially. They are not very nice creatures, and they spend numerous hours of the day agitating and taking aggression out on other baboons (up to 7 hours a day, believe it or not).
The Neuroscientist hypothesised that stress has numerous biological effects on the body (which is now confirmed by many studies). He found that stress impacts on blood pressure, immune system, activation of the hippo campus lessened (area for learning and memory), dopamine receptors are less active, weight accumulates around the stomach (2 active hormones are constantly being fired off), all systems except the necessary functions for survival shut down.
However, he found something even more interesting. Even in this very stressful environment, not all baboons had the same levels of biological functioning. In fact, some baboons were functioning perfectly (not stressed).

This neuroscientist observed the baboons and found that baboon colonies are very hierarchical and stratified (just like human societies i.e. class, gender, wealth etc). He picked out the different members of the colony, and found that the a...ggressive, dominant leaders functioned better, biologically than the rest of the colony (happier, stable blood pressure etc), and the lower down in the ranks, the worse of their levels of health. Which meant that the higher up in the colony, the less stress the baboons experiences.

Psychologists used this case study to do some real life research. They looked at a company with exactly the same medical care available for all employees, and found that like the baboons, the higher up in the ranks, the less stress the people experienced (they controlled most variables and eliminated the confounding variables).

What's more, is that a freak accident happened in the Savannah. The American researcher observed that over half of the baboon colony were wiped out by tuberculosis due to infected food. But who was wiped out? the agressive males were wiped out, leaving behind the compliant and nice female and male baboons (not all male baboons are aggressive. Over many years the colony repopulated. Males have to leave as part of their coming of age process, and return aggressive. However, because the colony adopted new mores and behaviors when the aggressive males originally died out, the juvenile males had tone down their agressiveness and conform to the new colony norms. Basically their whole way of behaving was changed.

And guess what? the American researcher found that without the agressive males, and without the stratefied baboon colony, the whole colony absolutely flourished. Levels of stress were practically even between baboons, and were infact very low.

Now, there are no conclusive studies on why being in lower ranks is so stressful, because it is largely situational and environmental. However, we know that those in lower ranks end up doing more and harder work. We also know that those in lower ranks have less control, and this less results in less perceived self efficacy.

The next part of the documentary talked about the facts about stress in our society. According to findings, it seems that our society (at least in the west) is highly stressful, and biologically it is doing us a lot of harm. More than we realise. A female Australian scientist actually won a nobel prize in related research in this field recently. The psychology/neuroscience of stress was neglected until recently. But now we can see how important it is. It is not just obesity killing people. It is also stress having a substantial impact on our quality of life and health/well being. 

The links between telomeres and stress are also discussed (the most fascinating part of it all imo).


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## Mutatio NOmenis (Jun 22, 2009)

To everyone: Dude[ette?] chilax- you'll live longer and that's more time to make love and be happy.


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## susurration (Oct 22, 2009)

Mutatio NOmenis said:


> To everyone: Dude[ette?] chilax- you'll live longer and that's more time to make love and be happy.


If only it were that easy! 

meditation, exercise, positive psychology practices (and mj ) seem like our best bets to counter act stress that is an inevitable part of being a member of society, and a individual person in general. They are all just as important to wellbeing as eating 5 veg and 2 fruit it seems.


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## InevitablyKriss (Dec 23, 2010)

See children? The lesson of the story here is, if you kill all the alphas, we can live in an utopia!

On a more serious note though, I'm stressing so hard right now as it is. I'm not going to die of it or anything, I'm just very exhausted from it.


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## susurration (Oct 22, 2009)

InevitablyKriss said:


> See children? The lesson of the story here is, if you kill all the alphas, we can live in an utopia!
> 
> On a more serious note though, I'm stressing so hard right now as it is. I'm not going to die of it or anything, I'm just very exhausted from it.


The funny thing is, I actually was thinking of how I could set a trap for all the alpha males and rid the world of them! bwuahaha! not really, but it's interesting. 

The stress response is natural and very important to survival. The modern world inevitably fucks with it though. Constant stress response is not good for the body. It can be countered through various measures, but It's absurd that counterbalancing the effects of this is not seen as more important. Especially because most of the counterbalancing techniques (on an individual level) are really quite simple.


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## Darkestblue (Apr 19, 2010)

If only I could figure out how to live a comfortable life while not considering myself a member of society.


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