Chapter 16: Stress and the Hijacked Alarm
Your stress response was engineered for lions: short, intense, physical, resolved in minutes. The modern version never turns off -- and your body is paying the compounding price.
◆ Key Insights
Ancestral stress was acute and physical; modern stress is chronic, psychological, and has no resolution point
Chronic cortisol exposure shrinks the hippocampus, impairs memory, suppresses immunity, and promotes visceral fat storage
Allostatic load -- the cumulative cost of chronic stress activation -- predicts cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and early death
The stress response was designed to be discharged through physical action; sitting with your anxiety leaves cortisol circulating indefinitely
Robert Sapolsky's research shows that social rank and perceived control determine stress damage more than the stressor itself
Read the full chapter to understand why your stress system is destroying you -- and the ancient mechanism for discharging it.
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