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Robert Sapolsky's Stress: Portrait Of A Killer

959 Words4 Pages

Stress. It is one of the worlds biggest battles everyday, as we try to avoid it. Stress is a humans natural response but unlike animals, we humans are unable to turn it off. This keeps us swimming in a corrosive bath of hormones. As time goes on, the stress response is more damaging than the actual stressor itself. In the video, “Stress: Portrait of a Killer” Sapolsky hits many different subcategories all connected to stress on the flowchart of life. Control, ulcers, a hunch, body fat, aging, survival, ranking, and a remedy. Scientist Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University had a hunch that the stress levels in humans were based on hierarchy. He traveled to Africa to study the stress levels of baboons to compare them to humans. “The hunch” is the starting point of all investigations. The main idea of this video was to inform humans of something that goes unnoticed and overlooked: Stress can be lethal.
Faced with a predator versus prey situation, animals react with either a fight or flight response. The stress caused by this situation is called eustress, which is positive for your body. It is intense stress, but short-term. …show more content…

Many people have scars of war. “Scars” symbolize the after effect of a traumatic event in a persons life that they have most likely overcome. Even if so, it can still effect them later on in their life. Studies have shown that when you have been through a highly traumatic event during your lifetime, it can lead to high levels of stress. It is possible to occur even when your parents have gone through a traumatic experience. In the documentary, they showed that the children that were born during Holland's “hunger winter” were exposed to their parents stress while in their mothers womb. These children are now at a higher risk of getting a cardiovascular disease and are more responsive to stress than children who were born either before or after the famine of

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613 Words | 3 Pages

Worried Sick Reflection As I watched the “Worried Sick” video, I found many pieces of the research to be really interesting. By taking blood samples and testing it for the stress hormones, I think the scientists were able to get a great sense of what the different animals and people were truly feeling; all of the data collected was very reliable. As a whole, three concepts stuck out to me including the study conducted about the primate vs. the antelope, the effects stress has on the body, and the high impact of personalities on dealing with stress.

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420 Words | 2 Pages

In the novels “Ambush” by Tim O'Brien and “The Morally Injured” by Tyler Boudreau discuss both the consequences of war being a curse by having effects on the soldiers by being morally injured on what they experience in war. Furthermore when solider go to war they develope invisible wounds that affect the way the soldiers think when they return home. In the essay “The Morally Injured” by Tyler Boudreau shows that memories of war affect the way soldiers think by saying,”Thousands of veterans have come home in state of near mental collapse, harried by their memories of the battlefield”(P1) This affects the soldiers by having to carry the horrid memories of the war with them for the rest of their life. When coming home they have the experiences

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234 Words | 1 Pages

For there is many things in a war that can leave scars both inside, and outside of the body. Symptoms that Robert experienced with having PTSD is nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, or depression. These symptoms can take a toll both on your

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671 Words | 3 Pages

As claimed by the articles “How will PTSD affect my kids?” by Brooke King, “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa, and “Spin” by Tim O’Brien all develop the idea that in addition to the actual fighting and devastation on the battlefield, war also has a lasting effect on the collective memory and consciousness of the people and civilizations involved. In the article "How will PTSD affect my kids?" by Brooke King provides evidence of the long-lasting and transgenerational effects of trauma and conflict on people and families, supporting the quote that all battles are fought twice—once on the field of battle and again in the memory.

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905 Words | 4 Pages

For many years the only injury soldiers were believed to have could be seen with the naked eye; however, the real injuries are within the soldier’s mind. Most soldiers and victims of war suffer from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), their own minds become danger zones as they recall horrific experiences when they dream, think, or merely close their eyes. The emotional pain stays with the victim years after the war is over. The physical pain that a soldier or victim endures can be healed with time and care, the emotional trauma they deal with stays with them for a lifetime. The psychological pain that the victims endure usually goes unnoticed until after the traumatic event.

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302 Words | 2 Pages

All of our scars reveal part of our life story. Inner wounds, inner hurts, inner scars. We all carry them in some form or another. Most of them you’ll never see, only some of them you’ll notice. Chronicles of wounds suffered.

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1566 Words | 7 Pages

The emotional and psychological burden of fighting in a war is also overwhelming. This affects not only the soldiers themselves, but also their loved ones who constantly worry about their safety and well-being. Sadly, so many families of the fallen soldiers must deal with the pain and heartache of losing someone they loved dearly. They never get the chance to see their loved ones again, and it leaves a void. The soldiers who did survive the war are often left with scars, both physical and emotional, that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

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902 Words | 4 Pages

War Prompt War always has an impact no matter who is involved. This can be a good thing to the nations and groups who win the war, or a bad thing for those on the other side, but the men involved on either end are forced to endure specific things that affect them for life. The psychological trauma on soldiers not only affects them when in war, but also afterwards when they are in society. Experiencing an event or taking part in an act leaves scars on these people who sometimes have to live with it for the rest of their lives. What a soldier experiences and sees during war leaves them with traumatic memories even though they may have not taken part in it.

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When people reach the limit of trauma they can handle they will break down and become permanently scarred. The horrors of war and the gruesome events they experienced haunt Soldiers for the rest of their life. When civilians felt like they missed out by not fighting in Vietnam O’Brien responded with “Well, you missed out on having your legs blown off and you missed out on having nightmares the rest of your life. You missed out on horror” (O’Brien “Civilians” 31). War causes soldiers to witness many horrors giving rise to nightmares when their brains try to process the trauma and horrific acts they witnessed.

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399 Words | 2 Pages

Every writer puts his or hers life into each and one of their stories. I feel like that's how they connect to their stories. She poured out her experiences and shared with her readers a lot of her joys and despairs. Mary Shelley was an english novelist, short story writer, dramatist, biographer and travel writer. She a wrote a bunch of stories during her time but her most famous story is obviously Frankenstein.

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However, the overall process of war is still imprinted upon the lives of many who remember exactly what happened and what they went through during the time of the war. People suffer from PTSD because of wars. It is a disorder caused by the extreme and acute stress faced by people in a traumatizing situation and the Vietnam War left thousands of soldiers with PTSD on both ends of the war. Soldiers were assigned tasks such as maiming, torturing and killing thousands of Vietnamese who came in their way and

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1432 Words | 6 Pages

The 2008 National Geographic documentary, Stress, Portrait of a Killer, explains stress in many different perspectives. The film discusses its history, who has the most of it, it's mental and physical damages to the body, and how we can reverse its effects. Few are aware of the lasting damages stress has on one’s body; this includes

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198 Words | 1 Pages

During the Middle Ages, the Christian Church was all-powerful, teaching that life on earth was short and sorrowful, that human beings were sinful creatures at the mercy of God’s judgment, and that this life was just preparation for life after death. In the Renaissance, these ideas were not exactly denied, but they were not believed with any real certainty. The Renaissance adopted a secular (worldly) idea of life called humanism, and emphasized individualism. Humanists studied the classics (Greece and Rome) in order to better understand man and his abilities.

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4793 Words | 20 Pages

3. Review of literature 3.1 Stress and its types: Stress is an essential mediator of human behaviour. Immediate physiological response to any type of stressor facilitates survival of the species at its maximum. Despite of normal homeostatic regulatory mechanism, the stress responses can become maladaptive. Chronic stress, for example immobilization, exposure to noise, irradiations, psychological stress can leads to a host of adverse health consequences, including cardiovascular diseases, neurodegeneration, obesity, depression and early ageing (McEwen et al, 2004).

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1005 Words | 5 Pages

Stress is a ubiquitous part of everyday life. There is no way to avoid stress but you can learn to manage it. Stress can be caused through distinct ways and distinct reasons such as personal problems, social and job issues, post-traumatic stress and so on. You may have headache, feeling anxiety and depression, and easily irritated if did not handle stress well. Reduce stress in daily life is important to keep overall health since it will let you to have better frame of mind, enhance immunity and longevity so you can be more productive.

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