Sublime

I begin by trying to clarify the meaning of the nebulous concept of stress and to teach, with a minimum of pain, how various hormones and parts of the brain are mobilized in response to stress.

sustained psychological stress is a recent invention, mostly limited to humans and other social primates.

The body has a surprisingly similar set of responses (which he called the general adaptation syndrome, but which we now call the stress-response) to a broad array of stressors. If stressors go on for too long, they can make you sick.

One half of this system is activated in response to stress, one half is suppressed.

The need for that prompting illustrates something critical—you and I are more likely to get an ulcer than a zebra is.

If evolution chanced upon a way to bind people together into large groups, the most obvious glue is oxytocin, a hormone and neurotransmitter produced by the hypothalamus. Oxytocin is widely used among vertebrates to prepare females for motherhood. In mammals it causes uterine contractions and milk letdown, as well as a powerful motivation to touch