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Life; Simply Too Short to Stress |
Relatively speaking, we don't have all that much time on this big, beautiful, blue planet. So why would we choose to lead such highly hectic and stressful lives? Especially now that we know how physiologically bad stress can be for your health. Dr. Robert Sapolsky is currently professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University. However, Dr. Sapolsky has spent many years studying baboons in the wilds of Africa. Why? Well one reason is that baboons (non-human primates) have a cerebral cortex similar to ours, and with the ability to experience stress in much the same way as we do. All animals have what has been called a "fight or flight" response. This is a state of hyper-arousal, an acute stress response, which serves us well when being chased by lions and tigers. Our hearts start to beat faster, blood pressure soars, and our visual system becomes acutely focused on the oncoming danger. We are in a state of readiness, with our brain acutely focused on the present danger and sending all our energy reserves to our leg muscles to hopefully, help us get away from the approaching large fanged beast. This is a fantastic system for marshalling our attention and our abilities to deal with any 30 second emergency situation. But here's where humans and primates differ from zebras and antelopes. Where zebras experience a fight or flight response for a brief moment, when it over, it's over. They're either back to munching on the high grass in the field, or else being consumed by the tiger. Humans, and other primates, have the unique ability to remember and somehow imprint these horrific experiences, often resulting in what we call long term chronic stress. As a result, we can experience accelerated heart rates, and high blood pressure, for periods of time much longer than our systems were originally designed to endure.
In acutely stressful states our normal bodily functions shut down. We are not digesting, growing and healing like we should be doing on a regular basis. Somehow we've managed to introduce the equivalent of being chased by some huge ferocious beast, into our everyday lives! Therefore, as you can well imagine, long term chronic stress is pretty bad for your health.
Dr. Sapolsky discovered through studying primates that the "number one" attributing factor to long term chronic stress, was none other than the primate's own personality. So who are these folks getting stressed out!
In Wake Forest Medical School (North Carolina) Dr. Jay Kaplan experiments with Macaque monkeys. He places 5 monkeys in close quarter cages, stripping away all room for polite social functioning, and watches as one or two of these animals quickly assert dominance over the cowering others. Dr. Kaplan studies the monkeys for extended periods of time (some over 2 years), feeding them a high fat diet (1/3 of their intake is fat). Well, high fat for monkeys. It is actually the same amount of fat content in the average American's diet. Periodically the cardio vascular systems of these animals are checked for atherosclerosis (Atherosclerosis, ath-er-o-skler-O-sis is a disease in which plaque [plak] builds up on the insides of your arteries. Arteries are blood vessels that carry oxygen-rich blood to your heart and other parts of your body). Dr. Kaplan was able to discover that maintaining this dominant aggressive behavior for the Macaque monkeys produces long term chronic stress, resulting in clogged arteries. These monkeys have constant surges of high blood pressure and accelerated heart rates which damage blood vessels and eventually provide ideal sites for artery clogging plaque to build up. Now the obvious next question is how many of these monkeys do you know, or more to the point, how similar is their high stress/high fat life style to that of your own?
A 20 year Duke University study looked at negative personality traits (hostility, anger, anxiety and depression) . "The researchers found that each negative personality trait, by itself, was significantly associated with increased risk for heart disease. However, when they analyzed all of the traits in combination, they found statistical evidence that the clustering of traits was the best predictor of a person's risk for heart disease."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061116122150.htm
It used to be we thought these were just Type A personalities, and this was considered to be a good thing. Corporations would be on the look out to hire these Type A types! (Wikipedia - Type A individuals can be described as impatient, time-conscious, concerned about their status, highly competitive, ambitious, business-like, aggressive, having difficulty relaxing; and are sometimes disliked by individuals with Type B personalities for the way that they're always rushing. They are often high-achieving workaholics who multi-task, drive themselves with deadlines, and are unhappy about delays.) But life is too short to kid ourselves any longer. We are indeed able to lead chronically stressful lives, but our bodies were not designed to do so. The consequential evidence is irrefutable, long term chronic stress will damage us, and life is, quite simply, too short. |
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