Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers is a truly exhaustive scientific look at stress from every possible angle. Unless you’re an absolute nut in love with the scientific process, it can also exhausting to read. This is a book about stress, and although it has a cute title, it can be daunting to having every possible stressor examined in detail for nearly 20 chapters. They should have added one more chapter about how stressful it is reading this book. Hah!
Nevertheless, I did learn an awful lot about stress, exactly how those scientific discoveries were sussed out, and how the mystical “voodoo” topic that stress had been known as has successfully transitioned into the science of the tangible and biochemical.
If I was recommending this book to someone who was in a hurry, I would advise them to simply read the last chapter, and definitely skip the first chapter.
So here is an ironically stressful book. The whole thing is bleak and about rat studies and doom and gloom and it was freaking long. It had a couple of cool things in it that makes you say “ah, now that’s interesting” but mostly it was somewhere between stressful and boring.
It really could have used a chapter that took all the info and then turned it around into a 12-step program for stress-proofing your life. To the authors credit, I think he tried to do that, but then couldn’t help diving back into reiterating previous chapters instead of being focused on actionable steps. He just freaking loves science and he’s good at it but I wouldn’t call the book a practical guide. All facts and few conclusions.
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, is by far a much better book for dealing with stress. The Zebra book was just all the ins-and-outs of what stress is, with very few suggestions on what to do.
My Synopsis on Dealing with Stress (the missing chapter)
After reading, I had to develop my own synopsis which is: How you feel and perceive your life and social standing very important. Make your day-to-day life as predictable as possible. Trust your gut. If you have to experience pain, do it on your terms and maintain a sense of control and make it something that you chose, rather than something random that is happening to you.
Being subject to the whims of others is no way to live your life. Don’t find yourself in a situation where you’re constantly worried about where food reward is gonna come from, or if you’re gonna get an electric shock on an unpredictable schedule. That’s not cool.
If you have to endure that kind of situation, practice finding ways to prove to yourself that you chose this, and the situation is happening for a reason, and that it’s desirable, so in the end you can get what you want. Make it a choice rather than “omg this is happening to me my life is terrible why does bad things always happen to me.”
Why don’t zebras get ulcers? Cause they followed my advice and read Spark instead. 😉