Stress experienced by humans is generally psychological or social
Stress experienced by animals usually only involves immediate short-term crises, but other ways to get upset are psychological or by social disruptions. Regardless of how poorly we are getting along with a family member or how incensed we are about losing a parking spot, we rarely settle that sort of thing with a fistfight. Likewise, it is a rare event when we have to stalk and personally wrestle down our dinner. Essentially, we humans live well enough and long enough, and are smart enough, to generate all sorts of stressful events purely in our heads. How many hippos worry about whether Social Security is going to last as long as they will, or what they are going to say on a first date? People generally live ruminating the past or anticipating the future rather than enjoying the present moment.
Viewed from the perspective of the evolution of the animal kingdom, sustained psychological stress is a recent invention, mostly limited to humans and other social primates. We can experience wildly strong emotions (provoking our bodies into an accompanying uproar) linked to mere thoughts. Two people can sit facing each other, doing nothing more physically strenuous than moving little pieces of wood now and then, yet this can be an emotionally taxing event: chess grand masters, during their tournaments, can place metabolic demands on their bodies that begin to approach those of athletes during the peak of a competitive event. Or a person can do nothing more exciting than sign a piece of paper: if she has just signed the order to fire a hated rival after months of plotting and maneuvering, her physiological responses might be shockingly similar to those of a savanna baboon who has just lunged and slashed the face of a competitor. And if someone spends months on end twisting their innards in anxiety, anger, and tension over some emotional problem, this might very well lead to illness.
References
- Sapolsky, Robert. (2004). Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers Chapter 1. Why Don’t Zebras Get Ulcers? (p. 16). New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company.
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Type:🔴 Tags: Biology / Psychology Status:☀️