Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

In Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert Sapolsky examines the impact that stress has on people. As motivation for the book’s title, Sapolsky first considers a zebra’s stress response to the presence of a predator, which effectively improves the zebra’s chances of surviving that short-term crisis. Humans in modern society deal with different kinds of long-term chronic stress, which in turn causes a variety of consequences.

Much of the book describes the functioning of major aspects of human physiology – digestion, circulation, sexuality, sleeping, etc. – and explores how stress affects that functioning. Sapolsky works his way up from hormones triggered by stress to the impact on daily life and long-term health. I learned a lot of physiology along the way, since I haven’t studied biology since high school.

Though the book’s subtitle mentions coping, only a single chapter discusses “Managing stress”. You should read the book to satisfy your intellectual curiosity, not as a self-help guide. The book has several amusing asides, but the biology exposition and the analysis of scientific research make it more challenging than the author’s The Trouble with Testosterone. Still, it’s worth reading if you're willing to put in the effort.