Anthony Carter - Young Boys Need Self-Esteem to Survive

Over at the Good Men Project this morning, Anthony Carter has an article entitled, "Young Boys Need Self-Esteem to Survive," an idea that seems pretty obvious and useful on the surface. However, I have long agreed with Kristin Neff, PhD (University of Texas) and clinical psychologist Christopher Germer, PhD, who both argue that self-compassion is more important than self-esteem. After the article from Carter, I will offer some information on why self-compassion is not only better, but more important than self-esteem.

Young Boys Need Self-Esteem to Survive

FEBRUARY 1, 2013 BY ANTHONY CARTER

Anthony Carter knows how hard it is to survive a childhood that was critical of who he was. He wants that to change for the boys of today.

To all the boys who may or may not be queer. The boys picked last in sports but first for the latest in fashion, entertaining, and tasteful decorating. The boys who couldn’t catch a football but instead could clean a bathroom until it sparkles and offer serious, heartfelt care to a sick sibling.

I salute you.

I salute us. In this culture, our gifts go unrecognized or at worse, get criticized and mocked. I salute all the boys like me who were different. Yes, we are here to stay and more importantly will be leading the revolution when the time comes.

Did I mention the time is now?

We are through waiting patiently for the all powerful “they,” whoever the they happens to be this week, to allow us the privilege to “be.” We have been quietly watching from the sidelines learning to survive a very hostile world that is not ready for us.

However, no one is ever fully ready for change. It pretty much sneaks up on you.

♦◊♦

As a young boy and now older adult, I have spent my life seeking kindness. I witness so much cruelty, domination, and coercion in the world.

What are boys and men like me to do if there is no urge to dominate or be dominated? What to do when we would rather a great conversation and a cup of coffee than an opportunity to one up a friend or colleague?

In this world, the thinking man is a problem man. As a person seeking kindness, it becomes difficult to hold out for this seemingly unattainable entity. It seems almost an impossibility trying to survive amidst a world that seems so set on destroying everything that you are.

Almost impossible is not the same as impossible.

Those of us who have survived childhood and didn’t give into the self-hatred that is so seductive when you don’t toe the line, know a thing or two about not only surviving but thriving. Within the harshest of circumstances, human beings hunger for and create beauty.

As a man/boy learns to thrive beyond a prescribed masculinity, we totally thrive by repeatedly creating beauty.

Our refusal to stop being, doing, and developing the things that sustain us is the most important step in revolutionizing our thinking, our relationships and our planet.

Hurray for the assholes that bullied us and bravo to all the young males who survived it, didn’t recreate it, and learned how to not stop simply because a wall of shit fell on their heads.

One key line above is important in my opinion: "Our refusal to stop being, doing, and developing the things that sustain us is the most important step in revolutionizing our thinking, our relationships and our planet." Being who we are and doing the things that sustain us has little to do with self-esteem and everything to do with self-compassion.

Here is a short video from Dr. Neff on the important differences between self-esteem and self-compassion:


And this brief section, from Kristin Neff's article, Self-Compassion: An Alternative Conceptualization of a Healthy Attitude Toward Oneself (Self and Identity, 2: 85–101, 2003), offers an useful working definition of self-esteem:

Self-esteem, which stems from evaluations of self-worth, is constituted by judgments and comparisons (Coopersmith, 1967; Harter, 1999). As William James (1890) proposed over a century ago, self-esteem involves evaluating personal performances (how good am I?) in comparison to set standards (what counts as good enough?) in domains of perceived importance (it’s important to be good at this). Self-esteem also involves looking to others’ evaluations of the self (how much do others like me, approve of me?), in order to determine how much one likes the self (Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1934). Social comparison is an additional determinant of self-esteem (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1993; Beach & Tesser, 1995; Buunk, 1998; Deci & Ryan, 1995; Suls & Wills, 1991), so that the self is evaluated in relation to the performances of others.

There are also sub-types of self-esteem, such as domain specific self-esteem, contingent self-esteem, and stable self-esteem, among others.

In opposition to the self-esteem model, which can result in less than desirable behaviors in order to maintain social approval, to measure up to others, or an "over-emphasis on evaluating and liking the self may lead to narcissism, self-absorption, self-centeredness, and a lack of concern for others" (Neff, 2003), Neff (2009) has proposed an alternate model based in self-compassion, one that does not involve evaluations of self-worth:

Drawing upon ideas discussed in the Insight tradition of Buddhism (e.g., Brach, 2003; Kornfield, 1993; Salzberg, 1997), self-compassion is defined in terms of three main components: self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness when considering personal weakness or hardships (see Neff, 2003a, 2003b, for a more complete discussion of the theoretical underpinnings of self-compassion). Research on self-compassion is part of a larger movement by Western psychologists to investigate the validity of Buddhist ideas concerning the causes and amelioration of suffering and to examine the usefulness of techniques such as mindfulness for adaptive functioning (see Wallace & Shapiro, 2006, for review).

Although people typically value being kind and compassionate to others, they are often harsh and uncaring toward themselves. The intense self-focus that occurs when people confront their own limitations can sometimes lead to a type of tunnel vision in which people become over-identified with and carried away by negative thoughts and feelings about themselves. Feelings of isolation can also occur when people temporarily forget that failure and imperfection are part of the shared human experience, serving to amplify and exacerbate suffering. Self-compassion, on the other hand, involves being kind toward oneself when considering weaknesses, remembering that being human means being flawed and imperfect, and learning from one’s mistakes. Self-compassion also involves taking a mindful approach to negative thoughts and emotions that acknowledges the reality of personal failings while keeping them in balanced perspective. Mindfulness shifts one’s attention away from elaborative cognitive processing—especially those thoughts creating stories about the self (Martin, 1997)—toward the nonjudgmental acceptance of present-moment experience (Bishop et al., 2004). Thus, self-compassion tends to soften rather than reinforce egoprotective boundaries between self and others. (For an alternative conceptualization of self-compassion, see Gilbert & Irons, 2005 or Gilbert & Procter, 2006.)

In this same article, Neff argues that people who rate higher in self-compassion likely are not as defensive of their egos (compared to people who are working to maintain their self-esteem) because their feelings of inadequacy are experienced with acceptance rather than evaluation and judgment.

One of the huge criticisms of the "self-esteem movement" in this country is the need for everyone to feel special (to the point that score is not kept in games or everyone gets a trophy for showing up). After all, who wants to be average? Few people describe themselves as average and many would consider it an insult.

In contrast, self-compassion is predicated on the acknowledgment of shared and universal aspects of life experience and therefore tends to highlight similarities rather than differences with others. Also, whereas self-esteem is often contingent on the successful attainment of goals, self-compassion is felt precisely when life is not going so well, allowing for greater resilience and stability regardless of particular outcomes. (Neff, 2009)

So, rather than arguing that young boys need self-esteem to survive, I would argue that our boys (and teens and men) need self-compassion to survive . . . or even better, to thrive.

For more information on the psychological benefits of self-compassion, see Self-compassion and adaptive psychological functioning (Neff, Kirkpatrick, and Rude; Journal of Research in Personality 41: 139–154, 2007).

Boys Adrift: Dr. Leonard Sax on the Secret Lives of Men Podcast

On the Secret Lives of Men podcast, Dr. Chris Blazina speaks with Dr. Leonard Sax, author of Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (2009 edition), about the struggles young men face in this culture during this particular moment of history.

Sax is a controversial figure in gender studies. He advocates single sex schools, believes there are some serious physiological gender differences beyond the sex hormones (hearing, vision, and connections between emotions and language), and has been criticized for frequent use of stereotypes and over-generalizations.

Below is his own bio statement from Amazon - Wikipedia has a slightly different take.

Leonard Sax MD PhD graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and then went on to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned both a PhD in psychology, and an MD. He completed a 3-year residency in family practice at Lancaster General Hospital in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From 1989 through 2008, he was a practicing family physician in Maryland, just outside Washington DC. In 2005, Doubleday published his first book Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know about the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. His second book, Boys Adrift, was published in 2007; an expanded softcover edition was published in 2009. His most recent book Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls--Sexual Identity, the Cyberbubble, Obsessions, Environmental Toxins was published in 2010; an extensively-updated softcover edition was released in July 2011. Dr. Sax has spoken on issues of child and adolescent development not only in the United States but also in Australia, Bermuda, Canada, England, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Scotland, and Spain. He has appeared on the TODAY Show, CNN, National Public Radio, PBS, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, New Zealand Television, and many other national and international media.

The books linked to above are the most current, updated editions. Read an excerpt from Boys Adrift.

Boys Adrift: Dr. Leonard Sax

Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men

Listen to internet radio with Secret Lives of Men on Blog Talk Radio

Something scary is happening to boys today. From kindergarten to college, American boys are, on average, less resilient and less ambitious than they were a mere twenty years ago. The gender gap in college attendance and graduation rates has widened dramatically. While Emily is working hard at school and getting A’s, her brother Justin is goofing off. He’s more concerned about getting to the next level in his videogame than about finishing his homework. Now, Dr. Leonard Sax delves into the scientific literature and draws on more than twenty years of clinical experience to explain why boys and young men are failing in school and disengaged at home. He shows how social, cultural, and biological factors have created an environment that is literally toxic to boys. He also presents practical solutions, sharing strategies which educators have found effective in re-engaging these boys at school, as well as handy tips for parents about everything from homework, to videogames, to medication.

Shrink Rap Radio #322 – Mastering Resilience with Dennis Charney MD

On this week's Shrink Rap Radio, Dr. David Van Nuys interviews Dr. Dennis Charney, a specialist in the psychobiological mechanisms of human resilience to stress. His most recent book is Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges.

Resilience is a special issue for men, we tend to be less resilient than our female peers. Overall, more males are conceived, fewer males are born (but still slightly more than females), and by age 45 or 50, females are more plentiful. In the U.S., there are five million more women than men in the 65 and older age group.

A little more on male fragility:

Boys in the U.S. have a 29 percent higher prenatal death rate² and are 20 percent more vulnerable to infant mortality up to age one.³   Boys tend to be more at risk than girls of being born with birth defects, perhaps because boys tend to develop at a slower pace, leaving more time for potential problems to arise.⁴ 

As of 2005, the average life expectancy in the U.S. is 80.4 for women and 75.2 for men.  That means men, on average, die 5.2 years earlier than women.⁵.  This phenomenon is world-wide.  Women outlive men almost everywhere in the world.

The article goes on to list a variety of factors, some biological (chromosomes, hormones, immune system, iron overload, and natural selection), as well as several socio-cultural factors (cultural conditioning, social standing).

One of the cultural conditioning factors is what we might call "traditional masculinity."

Differences in what is expected of men and women contribute to variations in mortality. Certain behaviors that are discouraged in women are condoned or even rewarded in men.  Men's higher rates of cigarette smoking, heavy drinking, gun use, and risk taking in recreation and driving are partially responsible for their higher death rate.¹⁰   Also,men tend to work in more dangerous settings than women and account for 90 percent of on-the-job fatalities.¹¹   Throughout life,men are conditioned to hide feelings of sadness or pain and not to reach out for help.  They are less likely to seek medical attention, less likely to seek psychological treatment and more likely to commit suicide.  Men take their own lives at nearly four times the rate of females and represent 79.4% of all U.S. suicides.¹²

Men have a series of biological hurdles to get over, but there is still a lot we can do to improve our resilience.

#322 – Mastering Resilience with Dennis Charney MD

A psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

copyright 2012: David Van Nuys, Ph.D.

Dennis S. Charney, MD is Dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs of The Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Dr. Charney is a world expert in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders. He has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of neural circuits and neurochemistry related to human anxiety, fear, mood as well AS THE discovery of new treatment for mood and anxiety disorders. He later expanded this area into pioneering research related to the psychobiological mechanisms of human resilience to stress.

Early in his career, Dr. Charney led a team that determined that the biology of human anxiety disorders were characterized by excessive noradrenergic activity and dysfunction in specific neural circuits including the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. His work in depression led to new hypotheses regarding the mechanisms of antidepressant drugs and discovery of new and novel therapies for treatment resistant depression including Lithium and Ketamine, which works within hours.

After decades of work on the biology of anxiety, depression, and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Dr. Charney and colleagues have turned their attention toward investigating the psychobiological mechanisms of human resilience to stress. They have found specific hormones and peptides which contribute to resilience and identified a prescription for enhancing human resilience.

A prolific author, Dr. Charney has written more than 700 publications, including groundbreaking scientific papers, chapters, and books. Dr. Charney’s most recent book is Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges.
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Check out the following Psychology CE Courses based on listening to Shrink Rap Radio interviews:

• Jungian Psychotherapy Part 1 (6 CEUs)
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• Wisdom of The Dream (4 CEUs)
• Positive Psychology (6 CEUs)
• Pros and Cons of Positive Psychology (5 CEUs)
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• Body-Mind: Goodbye to Dualism (6 CEUs)
• Meditation & Psychotherapy (8 CEUs)
• Get our iPhone/Android app!Get 25% discount on all lectures at The JungPlatform using our discount code: DRDAVE

 

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Posted on October 19, 2012

Stressed Out Men Prefer Full-Bodied Women

Not sure what the significance of this study is, but it's interesting. If I had to make an evolutionary guess, I'd wager that slightly larger women signify health and resilience while skinny, model types seem rather frail and not adaptable to stress. 

You can read the whole paper at the link below - it's from the open source PLOS ONE.

The Impact of Psychological Stress on Men's Judgements of Female Body Size

Viren Swami, Martin J. Tovée

Abstract

Background

Previous work has suggested that the experience of psychological stress may influence physical attractiveness ideals, but most evidence in favour of this hypothesis remains archival. The objective of this study was to experimentally investigate the impact of stress on men's judgements of female body size.

Methods

Men were randomly assigned to either an experimental group, in which they took part in a task that heightened stress (experimental group, n = 41) or in which they did not take part in such a task (control group, n = 40). Both groups rated the attractiveness of female bodies varying in size from emaciated to obese, completed a measure of appetite sensation, and had their body mass indices (BMIs) measured.

Results

Between-groups analyses showed that the experimental group was matched with the control group in terms of mean age, BMI, and appetite sensation. Further analyses showed that men in the experimental group rated a significantly heavier female body size as maximally attractive than the control group. Men in the experimental group also rated heavier female bodies as more attractive and idealised a wider range of female figures than did the control group.

Conclusion

This study found that the experience of stress was associated with a preference among men for heavier female body sizes. These results indicate that human attractiveness judgements are sensitive to variations in local ecologies and reflect adaptive strategies for dealing with changing environmental conditions.

Citation: Swami V, Tovée MJ. (2012). The Impact of Psychological Stress on Men's Judgements of Female Body Size. PLoS ONE 7(8): e42593. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042593

How Resilient Are You? A Short Assessment

Lifehack posted a simple self-test to assess our resilience.The topic of resilience has become very relevant in recent years as a result of the constant stress so many of us deal with in our lives. Wikipedia offers a nice description of psychological resilience - and it's important to understand that psychological resilience supports physical resilience and likewise, physical health and resilience supports psychological resilience.

Resilience in psychology refers to the idea of an individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual "bouncing back" to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to produce a "steeling effect" and function better than expected (much like an inoculation gives one the capacity to cope well with future exposure to disease).[1] Resilience is most commonly understood as a process, and not a trait of an individual.

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[R]esilience is best understood as a process. It is often mistakenly assumed to be a trait of the individual, an idea more typically referred to as "resiliency".[12] Most research now shows that resilience is the result of individuals being able to interact with their environments and the processes that either promote well-being or protect them against the overwhelming influence of risk factors.[13] These processes can be individual coping strategies, or may be helped along by good families, schools, communities, and social policies that make resilience more likely to occur.[14] In this sense "resilience" occurs when there are cumulative "protective factors". These factors are likely to play a more and more important role the greater the individual’s exposure to cumulative "risk factors". The phrase "risk and resilience"' in this area of study is quite common.

Commonly used terms, which are closely related within psychology, are "psychological resilience", "emotional resilience", "hardiness", "resourcefulness", and "mental toughness". The earlier focus on individual capacity which Anthony[15] described as the "invulnerable child" has evolved into a more multilevel ecological perspective that builds on theory developed by Uri Bronfenbrenner (1979), and more recently discussed in the work of Michael Ungar (2004, 2008), Ann Masten (2001), and Michael Rutter (1987, 2008). The focus in research has shifted from "protective factors" toward protective "processes"; trying to understand how different factors are involved in both promoting well-being and protecting against risk.

With that background, here is the quiz.

How Resilient Are You? Take the Test!

July 8 by Bobbi Emel
When faced with a crisis, some of us bounce back just like a fully inflated ball while others of us hit the ground with a thud and stay there, totally deflated.

How good are you at bouncing back? Just how resilient are you?

Take this test* to get your answer!

To get a good idea of how resilient you are, be as honest as possible when taking the test!

For each item, fill in the blank at the end of the item using the following scale:

1 = Absolutely disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = Neutral
4 = Agree
5 = Absolutely agree

1. When confronted with a crisis, I usually start working on a solution right away rather than first just hoping it will go away. _____
2. I don’t worry too much about the future. _____
3. I am not embarrassed to tell my friends and family when something bad has happened to me. _____
4. Every time a crisis occurs, I can easily remember that I’ve made it through bad things before. _____
5. When something bad happens in my life, I don’t spend a lot of time wishing I had done something differently or thinking constantly about the bad thing. ____
6. I often think about what I’ve learned from a crisis after it’s passed. _____
7. When I get stuck in traffic and am going to be late for an appointment, I am very calm rather than frustrated and stressed. _____
8. I write a gratitude list at least once a week about the things I’m grateful for. _____
9. When something bad happens, I prefer to be around others rather than withdrawing and being by myself. _____
10. I’m not very hard on myself most of the time. _____
11.  I think it’s okay to occasionally smile and laugh when something really bad has happened. _____
12. I have a go-to person – like a mentor – when a crisis occurs in my life. _____
13. I don’t tend to get stuck in the past. _____
14. It’s easy for me to believe that a crisis or catastrophe in my life can be a good thing. _____
15. When a crisis happens, I come up with a lot of different solutions rather than just freezing. _____

Now total up your score!

Scoring:

60-75     You’re a superball! You have very good resiliency skills and habits and you can bounce back from just about anything.
45-59     You are bouncing right along  . . . most of the time. You have good resiliency skills, although sometimes it’s hard to engage them right away when faced with a crisis.
30-44     Meh. Your ball has gone a little flat. You need to pump more air into that ball. Crises tend to throw you a bit. Add some flexibility to your life and be open to handling problems differently in the future.
15-29     Uh-oh. Your ball is completely flat. Looks like you need to really work on your resiliency skills. Check out the section below for more ideas. And don’t worry: learning to bounce back in life is like learning anything else – you just need to practice. Be open to responding to setbacks in a different way than you have in the past.

Detailed breakout:

Here are the components of resiliency that made up your scores. If you were low in one particular area, try to increase that particular skill.

Acceptance: the art of non-resistance
Items 1, 5, 7, 11

If you scored yourself a 1, 2, or even a 3 on these items, realize that denial is a common response to adversity and is actually a protective mechanism. Just don’t stay in it too long or you won’t bounce back at all! Teach yourself to see the reality of your situation and act on that.

Also consider how much energy you are expending when you fight or resist your problem. You can give in without giving up. The difference is that giving in allows you to keep trying to solve the problem without using up precious energy resisting the fact that the problem is here. It’s here in front of you. Don’t resist it – accept its presence and work on it!

Remember that it’s okay to experience positive emotions and laugh even when in the midst of a crisis. This kind of emotional experience will help release oxytocin and endorphins that you need to help you through the storm.

Perspective: see things clearly and from different angles
Items 4, 15

The key to this component is to remember that you have had difficult times before and made it through. Remember your past experience!

Also, keep in mind that there are many angles to a problem and therefore many solutions. Break out of your old mold and try something new! A great way to prep yourself for future difficulties is to develop your creativity. Try Roger von Oech’s A Whack on the Side of the Head for some fun, mind-expanding activities and ideas.

Social Support: ya gotta have friends
Items 3, 9, and 12

There is a lot of research showing that social support is a main component of resiliency. Even if you’re an introvert, having just one person you trust to talk with about your situation can be extremely helpful.

It’s also really good to have a more experienced, wiser person or mentor you can turn to when trouble hits. This can be a parent, friend, or anyone you look up to and respect.

Positive Actions: creating positive emotions during times of crisis
Items 2, 8, 10, 13

As mentioned above, it’s important to experience positive emotions in your life, even in times of crisis. Researcher Barbara Fredrickson’s work shows that positive emotions not only help you feel good, but they expand your ability to problem-solve well.

Rather than worrying about the past or future, try to stay in the present as much as possible. Listen to some mindfulness meditations to help you remain centered in the current moment.

Be kind to yourself! Even if you got yourself into a mess, remember that everyone else has at some time in their lives, too. Treat yourself as you would your best friend who is having problems.

Finding the gifts/Learning the lessons
Items 6, 14

Adversity frequently brings opportunities for self-growth and new experiences. Even though you would rather not have problems, remember the old saying: The sand that irritates the oyster often becomes a pearl.

Well? How resilient are you? Let’s hear about it in the comments below!

*This is a non-scientific test used for informational purposes only.

Robert Sapolsky on Stress - How Stress Hurts Men’s Sex Lives

Greater Good has featured clips from a talk by Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., this month, and an essay (abridged) that originally appeared in Foreign Affairs. Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and a professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University. His most recent book is Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals.

Here is the segment on male sexual issues brought on by stress. See the article below for a lot more information on stress, a serious issue for a lot of men.

Robert M. Sapolsky

The best-selling author and Stanford University professor explains why the stress response, which evolved for short-term physical crises, can become a long-term, chronic problem for human beings—and how we can reduce the impact of stress on our lives. More about Robert M. Sapolsky.

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Featured Clip

How Stress Hurts Men’s Sex Lives

March 2012 | TRT 3:03

Combining wit with deep knowledge, the researcher and best-selling author explains why stress interferes with male sexual response.

 This clip is from a much longer talk only available to members. Here is the abridged article the talk is based on - with a lot of good material on stress.

How to Relieve Stress

By Robert M. Sapolsky | March 22, 2012

Robert M. Sapolsky explains why stress can become a chronic problem—and how we can reduce the toll it takes on our lives.

This month, we feature videos of a Greater Good presentation by Robert M. Sapolsky, one the country’s foremost experts on stress. In this excerpt from his talk, the best-selling author and Stanford University professor explains the difference between bad stress and good stress, and how we can manage the effects of chronic stress on our lives.

In 1900, what do you think were the leading causes of death in this country? 

If you were 20 to 40 years old and a woman, the single riskiest thing you could do was try to give birth. TB, Pneumonia, influenza killed a lot of other people. But few people under the age of 100 die of the flu anymore. Relatively few women die in childbirth. Instead, we die of these utterly bizarre diseases that have never existed before on the planet in any sort of numbers—diseases like heart disease, cancer, adult-onset diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.

Now, some of this has to do with nuts and bolts biology. But some of it has to do with issues that nobody ever had to think about before in medicine—totally bizarre questions like, “What’s your psychological makeup?” or “What’s your social status?” or “How do people with your social status get treated in your society?”

And this one: “Why is it that when we’re feeling unloved, we eat more starch?” Figure that out, and you’ve cured half the cases of diabetes in this country

Indeed, when you look at the diseases that do us in, they are predominantly diseases that can be caused, or made worse, by stress. As a result, most of us in this room will have the profound Westernized luxury of dropping dead someday of a stress-related disease. That’s why it’s so urgent that we understand stress—and how to better manage it.

How stress kills

Do you remember “homeostasis,” a term I guarantee you heard in ninth grade biology? Homeostasis is having an ideal body temperature, an ideal level of glucose in the bloodstream, an ideal everything. That’s being in homeostatic balance.

A stressor is anything in the outside world that knocks you out of homeostatic balance. If you’re some zebra and a lion has ripped your stomach open and your innards are dragging in the dust and you still need to get out of there—well, that counts as being out of homeostatic balance.

So to reestablish that balance, you secrete adrenaline and other hormones. You mobilize energy and you deliver it where it’s needed, you shut off the inessentials like the sex drive and digestion, you enhance immune defenses, and you think more clearly. You’re facing a short-term physical crisis, and the stress response is what you do with your body. For 99 percent of the species on this planet, stress is three minutes of screaming terror in the savannah, after which either it’s over with or you’re over with. That’s all you need to know about the subject if you’re a zebra or a lion. 

If you’re a human, though, you’ve got to expand the definition of a stressor in a very critical way. If you’re running from a lion, your blood pressure is 180 over 120. But you’re not suffering from high blood pressure—you’re saving your life. Have this same thing happen when you’re stuck in traffic, and you’re not saving your life. Instead you are suffering from stress-induced hypertension.

We humans turn on the stress response with memories, with emotions, with thoughts, and the whole punch line is: That’s not what it evolved for. Do it regularly enough, and you’re going to damage your cardiovascular system. Increased blood flow hammers on the walls of your blood vessels, causing inflammation. Fat and glucose and cholesterol glom on and begin to clog your arteries. That’s bad news. You are more at risk for chronic fatigue, sleep disruption, muscle atrophy, and probably most importantly, adult-onset diabetes, this once obscure disease that’s just on the edge of being the number one killer in this country.

Chronic stress also does bad things to the nervous system. Stress kills neurons in the part of the brain called the hippocampus and weakens the cables between neurons, so they can’t talk to each other. This impairs the formation and retrieval of long-term memory. The opposite thing happens in the amygdala, which is where we see fear in a brain scanner. In the hippocampus, stress causes stuff to shrivel up. But stress feeds the amygdala. It actually gets bigger. Chronic stress creates a hyper-reactive, hysterical amygdala, and this tells us tons about what stress has to do with anxiety disorders.

Another domain: the mesolimbic dopamine system. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is about reward and pleasure. Cocaine works on the dopamine system. All the euphorians do. What are the effects of chronic stress on this part of the brain? Those pathways get depleted of dopamine, and this takes away your ability to feel pleasure. So if stress depletes your dopamine, what have you just set yourself up for? Major depression.

What about the frontal cortex? It’s the most human part of the brain; we’ve proportionally got more of it than any other species does. And what does the frontal cortex do? It does gratification postponement, self-discipline, long-term planning, emotional regulation. It’s the last part of the brain to fully mature—that doesn’t happen until you’re 25 years old, which explains a lot about the freshmen year of college.

This has a very interesting implication. If this is the last part of the brain to fully develop, by definition, then, it is the part of the brain least constrained by genes and most sculpted by experience. What does chronic stress do to the frontal cortex? Atrophy of neurons, disconnecting circuits. As a result, you make the most idiotic decisions, which are going to haunt you for the rest of your life, and yet you think they’re brilliant at the time. That’s another effect of chronic stress: Your judgment goes down the tubes.

How to manage stress

We’ve just gone on a quick tour of all the things that can go wrong from chronic stress. If you study the subject for a living, it’s amazing to you that anybody is still alive, that we haven’t just collapsed into puddles of stress-related disease.

Despite that, most of us do decent jobs at coping, and a subset of us is spectacular at coping. And thus from day one, stress researchers have wondered why some bodies and some psyches deal better with stress than others. In making sense of individual differences, what we’re essentially asking is, “What is it that makes psychological stress stressful”? And a huge elegant literature by now has shown precisely what the building blocks are.

The literature is built on experiments like this one: You have a lab rat in a cage, and every now and then, you give it a shock. Nothing major, but nonetheless, the rat’s blood pressure goes up and so do stress hormone levels. Up goes the risk of an ulcer. You are giving this rat a stress-related disease.

Now, in the second cage, there’s another rat. Every time the first rat gets a shock, so does the second. Same intensity, same duration, both of their bodies are being thrown out of homeostatic balance to exactly the same extent. 

But there’s a critical difference: Every time the second rat gets a shock, it can go over to the other side of its cage, where there’s another rat that it can bite the crap out of. And you know what? This guy’s not going to get an ulcer, because he has an outlet for his frustrations. He has a hobby.

There are other stress experiments that involve torturing rats, which suggest ways for humans to manage stress. We can give the rat a warning 10 seconds before each shock, and we find it doesn’t get an ulcer. That tells us that you are less vulnerable to a stress-related disease if you get predictive information.

Another experiment: If we give the rat a lever to press, and that rat thinks he’s in control of the shocks, that helps—a sense of control decreases the stress response.

Yet another experiment tells us it helps to have friends: If a rat getting shocks has a friend it likes in the cage, and they are able to groom each other, the rat doesn’t get the ulcer. So social affiliation helps control stress.

In short, you are more likely to get a stress response—more likely to subjectively feel stressed, more likely to get a stress-related disease—if you feel like you have no outlets for what’s going on, no control, no predictability, you interpret things as getting worse, and if you have nobody’s shoulder to cry on.

Okay, these are very powerful observations. They’re helpful. But please don’t assume that if you get as much control in your life and as much predictive information in your life as possible, you will be protected from stress. To understand why, let me share some of the subtleties of this field.

Look at the rat that got a warning. Timing is everything. He didn’t get an ulcer when he got a 10-second warning. But if the warning light goes on one second before the shock occurs, it has no positive effect whatsoever, because there isn’t time for the rat to adjust anything. Or suppose, instead, the warning light comes two minutes before. That will make the ulcers worse, because the rat is sitting there, ulcerating away, thinking, “Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.” When it comes to predictive information, there’s only a narrow window where it works.

When does a sense of control work? When you’re dealing with a mild to moderate stressor, because in those circumstances you know how much worse it could have been and can imagine, rightly or wrongly, that you had control over that improvement. But if it’s a major disastrous stressor, the last thing you want is an inflated sense of control, because that sets you up to think that the disaster is all your fault. In the case of a major disaster, we tend to minimize people’s sense of control—by saying, for example, “It wouldn’t have mattered if you had gotten him to the doctor a month ago, it wouldn’t have made a difference.” And one of the worst things we do, societally, is attribute more control to victims: “Well, what’s she going to expect if she dresses that way?” or “Well, what are they going to expect if they choose not to assimilate?”

In short, a sense of control is protective for mild to moderate stressors, but it’s a disaster for major ones. In that domain, the most humane thing you can do is foster denial and rationalization rather than a sense of responsibility.

When is stress good?

Just as not all stress management techniques work, not all stress is bad. In fact, we love stress. We pay good money for it in a scary movie or on a roller coaster ride. We love stress when it’s the right amount of stress.

When is it optimal? When it’s only moderately stressful, at the most. And good stress is transient—it’s not for nothing that you don’t have roller coaster rides going for three weeks! The stress also has to be happening in a context that feels safe overall. Moderately stressful at most, transient, safe—what does that define? 

That defines stimulation. That defines what play is. What is play about? 

It’s when a higher rank dog says to a lower ranking dog: “I am willing to suspend our dominance relations right now and allow all sorts of unpredictable interactions. To show how much I’m doing that, I’m going to give you access to my throat or my genitals, and we’re just having a great time here playing.” In play, you feel safe, and as a result, you are willing to give up some control and predictability. We say, “Surprise me!” That’s good stress.

There’s another lesson we can learn from dogs and other hierarchical mammals, like baboons: Social rank can cause stress, especially where rankings are unstable and people are jockeying for position. But social rank is not as important as social context. What patterns of social affiliation do you have? How often do you groom, how often does somebody groom you? How often do you sit in contact and play with kids?

What’s clear by now is if you have a choice between being a high-ranking baboon or a socially affiliated one, the latter is definitely the one that is going to lead to a healthier, longer life. That’s the baboon we want to be—not the one with power, but the one with friends, neighbors, and family.

More on Stress

Take this quiz to learn how stressed you are.
Watch Dr. Sapolsky's presentation on stress and how to overcome it.
Discover Dr. Sapolsky's books Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and Monkeyluv.
Check out this essay on men, stress, and sex, which draws on Sapolsky's research.
Christine Carter provides tips on "How Not to Have a Nervous Breakdown."

Are you an educator? You might be interested in "Stopping Teacher Burnout" and "A Training to Make Teachers Less Stressed."