Live The Zebra Life To Avoid Stress
Live The Zebra Life To Avoid Stress from Nutrition News at Mye Calorie Counts. Stress can cause more damage than we can predict. Read about why living the lifestyle of a Zebra, could save us from this vicious cycle of ill health.
Why The Zebra Life?
Zebras know that they are going to be chased and live in great danger, but they do not spend all their time worrying about it. The ‘Zebra Life’ is a good analogy for humans, as we live each day worrying about issues immediate to your circumstances and environment.
Robert M. Sapolsky’s in his book ‘Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers’ , talks about how stress affects sleep and addiction. Today, it is difficult to determine the health of a person by just looking at them. Many of us lie awake in bed thinking about day to day scenarios such as earning money, improving our lifestyle, being good at what we do, providing for the family and meeting all the socio-economic demands we are faced with.
Slowly, this results in accumulation of damage, which eventually leads to non-communicable diseases such as obesity, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
Whats the real difference between a human and a zebra you ask?
Diet and exercise seem to be the solution for all health problems , and unfortunately mental health is 
completely forgotten about.Medicine has tremendously evolved as time has gone by to help us fight diseases that now afflict us. However, it involves acknowledgement of the interaction between our mind and body, and not just the body alone.
Your emotional status plays a crucial role on your functioning and health of every cell in your body. The level of stress we endure, deeply affects how some people are become more susceptible to disease than others.
Do our thoughts have calories?
Cortisol is a steroid hormone. The adrenal glands release the hormone, which then circulates throughout the body. In a normal scenario ( where a person sleeps at night and wakes up early in the morning); the cortisol levels are the highest in the morning and then dip throughout the day. However, there is reversal of cortisol production levels in those who work during the night. As a result, the production of cortisol is directly proportional to the activity pattern.
Since, many people live a stressful life – their cortisol levels are generally on the higher side. Receptors for cortisol are present in almost every cell of the body, so depending on our need – the cells of the body can accept the cortisol. During a stressful situation – where the ‘flight or fight’ response kicks in, the body produces excess cortisol to help coop with the situation. While this response is vital, the levels of cortisol need to return to normal. Unfortunately, so many of us are leading such busy, hectic lives that this level of stress has almost become the norm.
Prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. During the stressful situations, many people succumb to eating higher amounts of comfort foods, leading to obesity and diabetes.
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