I watched the most interesting show last night on PBS on stress. Killer Stress by National Geographic examines why we can’t seem to turn off stress hormones in our society, and the very corrosive, life threatening effects.
The research presented reveals how stress can shorten your life, kill brain cells, cause heart disease and belly fat.
Now, scientists are showing just how measurable — and dangerous — prolonged exposure to stress can be.
Stanford University neurobiologist, MacArthur "genius" grant recipient, and renowned author Robert Sapolsky reveals new answers to why and how chronic stress is threatening our lives in Killer Stress, a National Geographic Special. The hour-long co-production of National Geographic Television and Stanford University was produced exclusively for public television.
The film is based partly on Sapolsky's best-selling book Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: Stress, Disease and Coping. In addition to his professorship at Stanford, Sapolsky is a research associate with the Institute of Primate Research at the National Museum of Kenya. He is also the author of Monkeyluv, A Primate's Memoir and The Trouble with Testosterone, a Los Angeles Times Book Award finalist.
http://www.pbs.org/...
There were several studies examined in the show, but the main ones were Sapolsky’s studies of a troop of baboons in East Africa and a government study of bureaucrats in London, England.
Here were some of the most interesting findings of these studies and the implications for your individual health and the values and health of our society.
They found stress is directly connected to:
your position (social standing) in the hierarchy of your society
loss of brain cells and memory
Your body's immune system and ability to fight disease
whether you will have high blood pressure
weight gain, especially around the middle (even the monkeys got it), which is the most dangerous
hardening of the arteries, heart disease and early death (even included, smoking did not make a difference, stress mattered more)
that when everyone was included in decisions and valued at work (and were paid accordingly), stress levels went down, along with illness and doctor visits
Stress had more of an effect on your health than any other factor, even smoking, and whether you will live a long life.
In the baboon group in Africa, alpha males had the lowest stress levels in the group, lower males the highest. This was true for the London study also, lower government employees had higher stress levels than higher employees in the government. So, there is direct correlation to your position in society and stress hormone levels in the blood which can be measured.
There is a piece of your chromosome that when under stress shortens, which is connected to the shortening of your life. Women who were under extra stress from having a disabled child were studied, and they found that one year of stress can shorten your life six years.
Now here's the good part:
After ten years, the baboon monkeys got into a garbage dump left from humans and caught tuberculosis. Half the population died. It turned out every single alpha male died, and all the lower males lived. This instantly transformed the dynamics of the baboon society, the way Sapolsky put it is “the good guys survived”. No longer were females in the troop mistreated, there was more care and grooming in the group, and no baboons were abusing others. The new alpha males were no longer picking on everyone and stressing them out. When new outside baboons joined the group, they brought their aggressive traits, but by six months in the group no longer displayed them. They adopted the value system of the group around them.
The lesson according to Sapolsky from this was: If your group decides to value caring for others highly, it can reduce stress in the whole society.
You have to decide what you value and make that your hierarchy for measuring yourself and those around you, and your stress will go down. If we could change our society into caring about each other, instead of valuing money and power, our whole society would be healthier, live longer and be happier. You can’t change the world, but you can change where you put your energy and what you value in yourself and others. It will lower your stress, giving you a healthier, happier life, as well as lower the stress levels and improve the lives of those around you. Wouldn’t it be nice if our whole society could learn this. Good people can come out on top and change the world for the better.
For more information about stress and Robert Sapolsky — including clips from the documentary, a video Q+A, links to podcasts, books and more experts on stress — visit the film's Web site at http://killerstress.stanford.edu/...
Find out how much you know about stress. Take the National Geographic Stress Quiz
http://science.nationalgeographic.co...