Came across this presentation by Robert Sapolsky. I’m sure he’s given this talk a zillion times, but this one was at the JCC in San Francisco April, 2011. He has been a pioneer in the study of stress, professor at Stanford, a primatologist, and author. He wrote “Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers,” for the lay public. He also wrote “Stress, the Aging Brain, and the Mechanisms of Neuron Death.” This book was written in 1992, (way before any talk of telomeres, stress and aging) and was pivotal in how I approach acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. For more on Stress and Acupuncture please click here, for anti-aging information, please click here, or for my research please click here.
I just love his summary here of how chronic stress affects the body. Simple and concise. For the full presentation, please go to the website at Greater Good here.http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/resources/slide_presentations
• Mobilization of energy………………………Fatigue, diabetes, muscle loss
• Increased cardiovascular tone…………….Hypertension, heart disease
• Suppression of digestion…………………..Stress ulcers
•
• Suppression of growth……………………..Stress dwarfism
• Suppression of reproduction………………Anovulation, erectile dysfunction
• Enhancement of immune system…………Immune suppression, accelerated
chromosomal aging of immune
cells
• Sharpening of cognition……………………Impaired memory and judgment
