Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers
The reason why zebras do not develop ulcers when stressed. An individual’s body reacts to a stressful situation by releasing an energy surge known as the “stress response”.
“Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads…if you are a zebra running for your life…your body’s physiological response mechanisms are superbly adapted for dealing with such short-term physical emergencies… When we sit around and worry about stressful things, we turn on the same physiological response…stress-related disease emerges, predominantly, out of the fact that we so often activate a physiological system that has evolved for responding to acute physical emergencies, but we turn it on for months on end, worrying about mortgages, relationships and promotions.”1
What is stress?
Stress is not the actual events in your life. Stress is your body’s reaction to those events. When you are faced with a stressful situation, your body produces a “stress response” to give you the extra energy you need to deal with that situation. Hormones that are produced by the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal glands mediate this stress response.
The stress response is essential to life because it allows you to handle challenges posed by your environment. It can be a problem, however, when the stress response is triggered too frequently. In this case, your body continuously pumps out stress hormones, which can put you out of balance and deplete your body’s reserves. It is this chronic stress that makes you feel “stressed out” and can lead to numerous health problems, chronic disease and even shorten lifespan.
To read more on this and to see which nutrients will help your body adapt, please follow the link below to see my article as it appears on the Fresh Earth website: