I was not really interested in stress

I was not really interested in stress, but I have so enjoyed Sapolsky's other books (and also his teaching company course on the biological basis of behavior), I bought this book for enjoyment. And he has got me fascinated by stress. But more than that, by the time you have finished this book you will also understand a lot more about the human condition, how we work, and where we came from. If you do do not have a biology background (I don't) you may need to read it more than once to remember most of it. But it is so entertaining and full of fun, this is no hardship. This book is a wonderful example of why science is so much more fun than woo.


Rating:


Sit back. Let yourself be entertained and informed.

Imagine yourself at your favorite watering hole in an African savannah. You spot a lion. Your body hops up. Your stress response shifts into high gear. And all just as it was designed to do. Now imagine yourself sitting in front of a new mortgage, worrying about if your boss likes you, or if you look too fat, or your hair is just not falling the way it did after its fresh new cut. Your body hops up, and your stress response shifts into high gear. Only difference, no lion. And this lionless stress, day after day after day will take its toll. Depression, ulcers, heart disease, colitis, irritable bowl syndrome, and more.

Sapolsky's hard-hitting and entertaining book will inform you exactly why too much stress will make you sick. He lives half of his life in a neuroendocrine lab in Stanford, the other half camped out with stressed out baboons in Africa. He draws both on personal experience and solid research to lead you through a detailed understanding of how stress affects our bodies as well as our psyches. You'll get no mantras, no workbook exercises, and no easy step-by-step guides to follow. Nor does he fool around with feel good proclamations. What you will get is a lot of scientifically based facts based on solid research.

Sapolsky is a scientist, and comes to the subject with a scientist's critical eyes. He is also a brilliant and entertaining writer, who knows how to give his message a personal touch. You'll sit through page after page feeling as though he's talking just to you. (Did you know that Type A personality was first discovered by an upholsterer? Or that graves used to be robbed by medical schools to provide it with fresh bodies, and how this is connected to why SIDS was erroneously thought to be caused by abnormally large thyroids?) His scathing attack on Bernie "all-you-need-is-love" Siegel's "Love, Medicine and Miracles" in itself is worth the price of admission. Sapolsky is to stress science, neuroendocrinology and primatology what Springsteen is to rock-n-roll. If you ever get a chance to hear him lecture, camp out to buy your tickets well ahead of time.

Rating:


Terrible

This item was described as new, but came with copious highlighting and notes. When I contacted the seller about this, I got no response. I'm very dissatisfied and would not recommend this seller.

Rating: