I just studied an amazing National Geographic special called “Killer Stress: Why Zebras Do Not Get Ulcers”. It’s worth watching if you can find it. The show deals with they physical consequences of stress on the body by looking at how animals handle stress. The program is founded on the work of Dr. Robert Sapolsky who is a Professor and researcher at Stanford University. He explains that in nature, stress occurs for a very good reason: to save an animal’s life.
Zebras and Stress
Doctor. Sapolsky first takes us thru zebras and how they cope with stress. In natural settings, zebras get stressed basically for one reason: a predator,eg a lion, is chasing them because it wants to kill them and eat them. In this case, stress is a nice thing, a good thing. It causes all of the zebra’s resources to be channeled into one thing: keeping the zebra alive. What’s taking place internally is that the zebra is briefly knocked out of homeostatic balance. The meaning of homeostasis is: balance or equilibrium, often between the chemical environment of the body and the external environment. This means that the normal everyday functioning of the body stops, and anything that's not immediately pertinent to keeping the zebra alive is suddenly halted. When a lion is chasing you, it’s no time to ovulate! It is a time to run like hell and get away. So that the body is flooded by adrenaline and noradrenaline to help the zebra run quicker and harder.
But the extraordinary thing about the zebra is what occurs after the chase (if it's not eaten that is). It is going back to basics. All of its systems return to a homeostatic balance as if nothing has occurred. Now it can ovulate and do all the things that it has to do for the bulk of the time it’s alive. Only for a minute proportion of a zebra’s life is it really being chased by a lion. And when it is not being hunted, it just lets it all go. It doesn't sit there and dwell on the proven fact that a lion just chased it to make zebra beef of it. He does not keep speaking to his buddies about “what a close call” that was and how “he just can’t get over it.” And so the zebra isn't living in a state of chronic stress. It is aware of it’s environment, but it isn't in a state of stress unless an instant threat exists. There are no “perceived” or future threats it's stressed over. Seems like a wonderfully healthy and natural way to live.
Humans and Stress
It appears that humans have a lot to digest from zebras when it comes to stress control. Unfortunately many individuals today live in a state of chronic stress, regardless of the relatively safe environments that many of us live in. We don't have to run from lions or stress about being crushed by a mammoth. And in the absence of real life-threatening circumstances, we have created paths to stress ourselves. The body can't differentiate between different sorts of tensions, so whether our lives are in peril or we are just pissed off because someone cut us off on the freeway and we are seething and yelling, the body translates these things the same. And unfortunately for humans, we are not good at letting the strain go and returning to a typical state. We dwell on things. In reality we dwell on things that have already happened, and we dwell on things that will occur. Dwelling on things is some people's steady job.
That suggests that often human beings are in a state of repeated stress. And as we’ve learned, when we are stressed, our bodies ‘ chemical systems are off balance. One of the major systems that suffers is the immune system. And when the immune system is down, we become sick. Tomorrow we will rap more on the physical aftermath of stress on the human body and what can be done to help us lower stress.
Latisha Ronner has discovered that by reducing her stress and using organic skin care, she has gotten her clear skin back.
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