Stress

Summary

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Radiolab: "Stress" (April 9, 2007)

Podcast: Radiolab (WNYC Studios)
Hosts: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich
Guests: Dr. Robert Sapolsky, Linda Thompson, Colby Hall
Main Theme: An exploration of stress—its evolutionary roots, how it affects the human body and mind, compelling stories of stress in action, and the science behind why some stress helps and some harms.

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1. Introduction: Measuring and Hearing Stress (Start – 06:05)

• Setting the Stage

  • Host Jad Abumrad visits Cameron Falimbor, a neuropsychologist, to experience a stress test using finger sensors.
  • Discussion of how anxiety creates measurable physiological changes (flow of electrons, "sparks" between fingers).
  • Notable moment: Even minor disruptions, like a phone ring, make stress spike, underlining the unpredictable reality of modern life.
  • Quote:
    • Jad Abumrad:
      “While you’re trying to de-stress, make your life a little better, the phone rings, ruins it all. One fell swoop, like life really.” [04:59]
    • Theme established: Stress is omnipresent and often uncontrollable, but understanding its science is possible.

• Good Stress vs. Bad Stress

  • Robert Krulwich introduces the idea that some stress is necessary and even positive (“Stress is your friend. We need it in midterms… Sometimes you want it to kick you in the butt.” [06:21])

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2. Stress in a Crisis: Colby Hall’s Story (06:11 – 14:16)

• A Life-and-Death Situation

  • Colby Hall recounts a traumatic water-skiing accident, where a boat propeller severely injures his legs just weeks before his wedding.
  • The story highlights the surge of thoughts and decisions made in a split second—the mind negotiating survival, pain, and future hopes.
  • Memorable Details:
    • Even in crisis, Colby thinks about protecting children from the scene's trauma.
    • His pain is blunted, and he remains oddly calm and organized.
    • Afterward, previous stressors (like wedding tablecloths) seemed insignificant.
  • Quote:
    • Colby Hall:
      “It was amazing to me how many complex thoughts you have in a split second... I don't want to die, so I'll just, you know, be in a wheelchair, or maybe I'll just be really, really injured...” [09:19]
    • On pain:
      “It doesn’t really hurt. Like you would think that was the weird thing. Like, it didn’t hurt.” [15:22]

• Science Interlude – What Happens in the Body?

  • Dr. Robert Sapolsky explains “tunnel vision” in traumas, how stress hormones (adrenaline) alter time perception and pain.
  • Quote:
    • “You shut down pain perception… Pain is a very subjective state, and if it’s the right setting, you blunt it.” [15:17]

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3. The Evolution of Stress: From Savannah to Supermarkets (16:18 – 21:43)

• The Impala Metaphor

  • Sapolsky uses the example of an impala fleeing a predator: stress system floods the body for immediate survival—adrenaline releases energy, boosts heart rate, halts non-essentials like digestion and reproduction.
  • Quote:
    • “Your adrenaline, other hormones go to your fat cells, pour out all the stored energy, feed it to your thigh muscles…” [16:55]

• Modern Stress vs. Ancient Stress—A Mismatch

  • Today’s stressors aren’t life-threatening—they’re psychological (job anxiety, endless errands), but the body reacts identically to ancient threats.
  • Quote:
    • Robert Sapolsky: "What we're doing is turning on the stress response in anticipation of a stressor." [19:20]
    • “If you constantly mobilize energy, you don’t store it… you’re more at risk for this disease, adult onset diabetes.” [20:58]

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4. The Link Between Stress and Disease (23:02 – 27:51)

• How the Stress-Sickness Connection Was Made

  • Dr. Paul Rosch’s rodent experiments: No matter the type of stressor (physical discomfort, noise, deprivation), all made the rats physically sick.
  • Not all individuals respond the same; some adapt, others fall ill—mirroring human variation.

• Toxic Hostility: The Peril of Type A Behavior

  • Robert Sapolsky details ‘toxic hostility’—a stress response pattern where the world is perceived as antagonistic. This "type A" personality is linked to higher risk of heart disease.
  • Origin Story
    • Discovery of the “type A” personality came from an upholsterer noticing chairs worn out in a peculiar way by fidgety, impatient patients at a cardiologist’s office.
  • Quote:
    • “There's a kind of anger and style that is so bad for your nervous system. That’s, like, worse than smoking, literally.” [26:46]

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5. How Chronic Stress Stunts Growth: The Peter Pan Syndrome (33:48 – 37:32)

• Extreme Effects: Children Who Stop Growing
  • Severe psychological stress in children can halt physical growth—documented in medical literature and the real-life story of J.M. Barrie, the author of "Peter Pan."
  • Quote:
    • "He'll always be my perfect little boy because he didn’t grow up. He didn’t grow up. He didn’t grow up. This kid hears this with a vengeance and stops growing." [36:07]
  • Illustrates the profound ability of stress to affect physiology beyond the obvious.

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6. When Body and Mind Are At Odds: Linda Thompson’s Story (38:35 – 47:51)

• Stage Fright and Hysterical Dysphonia
  • British folk singer Linda Thompson describes losing her voice amidst marital and emotional turmoil (“It feels like somebody’s, you know, strangling you from the inside.” [40:09]), only to find it return—temporarily—when anger overtook heartbreak on tour.
  • Memorable Moments:
    • “My dysphonia… for whatever reason, I didn’t have it. I sang really well.” [43:47]
    • Describes wild coping strategies on tour— smashing dressing rooms, substance use, “worse than the Sex Pistols.”
    • Despite therapy and time, her voice remained capricious—sometimes present, often not.
  • Quote:
    • “It’s just so boring not to be able to sing. It’s boring. It really is boring having this kind of tight throat.” [45:18]
    • Records a new album after 17 years, learning to “let go a little.” [47:15]

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7. Coping with Stress: Lessons from Rats and Baboons (48:23 – 57:37)

• Rat Studies: Four Paths to Alleviate Stress

  • Dr. Sapolsky’s experiments:

    1. Aggression: Rat can bite another to release tension.
    2. Distraction: Rat gnaws on wood for relief.
    3. Predictability: Rat can see a warning light before shock—knowledge reduces stress.
    4. Control: Rat presses a lever, thinking it controls shocks—even if it’s false, the sense of agency helps.

  • Quotes:

    • “Make sure your outlets are not abusive ones because they feel great. They're very effective.” [50:15]
    • “Control makes stressors less stress.” [51:43]

• Baboons: The Importance of Social Bonds

  • In his fieldwork, Sapolsky observes that former alpha male baboons fare better if they’ve formed friendships, not just dominated others.
  • Baboons with affiliative relationships enjoy better social support, even increased reproductive success.
  • Quote:
    • “Nice guys do not finish last.” [57:37]
  • Life lesson: Empathy, support, and flexible friendships can be as critical in stress resilience as any physiological mechanism.

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8. Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Stress is your friend... Sometimes you want it to kick you in the butt.” — Robert Krulwich [06:25]
• “It didn’t really hurt. That was the weird thing.” — Colby Hall [15:22]
• “Every elevator door that closes before you get there is proof the person inside ... is out to stop you in the back.” — Robert Sapolsky [26:09]
• “He’ll always be my perfect little boy because he didn’t grow up.” — Robert Sapolsky, on J.M. Barrie and Peter Pan [36:07]
• “Control makes stressors less stress.” — Robert Sapolsky [51:43]
• “Nice guys do not finish last.” — Robert Sapolsky [57:37]

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9. Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:41 – Introduction, Jad’s stress test
• 06:11 – Colby Hall’s boat accident and crisis response
• 14:30 – Dr. Robert Sapolsky on stress hormones and traumatic clarity
• 16:34 – Origins of stress response (impala metaphor)
• 19:34 – Modern stress versus ancient stress
• 23:59 – Dr. Rosch’s experiments linking stress and disease
• 26:59 – Type A behavior and the upholstery story
• 33:48 – Chronic stress stunts growth (Peter Pan syndrome)
• 39:22 – Linda Thompson’s experience of psychological and physical stress
• 48:23 – Sapolsky’s rat studies: coping strategies
• 52:33 – Baboons: affiliative relationships and stress
• 57:37 – “Nice guys” and evolutionary success

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Key Takeaways

• Stress is both friend and foe: Necessary for survival and achievement, devastating when chronic or misplaced.
• Our bodies have evolved for acute, not chronic, stress—and modern life’s constant psychological stress takes a toll.
• Social connection and positive coping strategies (friendship, predictability, even illusions of control) can greatly buffer the harms of stress.
• Understanding, not just managing, our stress roots can open the door to healthier living.

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For more: Visit radiolab.org

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Summary by an expert podcast summarizer. Each segment captures the spirit, tone, and science-driven storytelling style that makes Radiolab distinctive.

Transcript

[Robert Krulwich]

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[Linda Thompson]

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[Robert Sapolsky]

Now that's pretty good.

[Robert Krulwich]

Learn [e-mail] baskets Investing involves risks, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC Member NYSE SIPC.

[Jad Abumrad]

Member.

[Colby Hall]

When it comes to gifting, everyone.

[Linda Thompson]

On your list deserves something special.

[Colby Hall]

Luckily, Marshall's buyers travel far and wide.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Hustling for great deals on amazing gifts.

[Robert Krulwich]

So you don't have to.

[Colby Hall]

That means your mom gets that cashmere sweater, your best friend that Italian leather bag.

[Linda Thompson]

Your co workers unwrap their favorite beauty.

[Colby Hall]

Brands, and your nephews the coolest new toys.

[Linda Thompson]

Go ahead. At prices this good, you can grab.

[Colby Hall]

Something for yourself too. Marshalls we get the deals.

[Linda Thompson]

You gift the good stuff.

[Colby Hall]

Shop [e-mail] or find a store near you.

[Jad Abumrad]

It's never too early for Lowe's Black Friday deals.

[Robert Krulwich]

Snag some of our biggest savings of.

[Robert Sapolsky]

The season right now, like 25% off.

[Jad Abumrad]

Select pre lit artificial Christmas trees. And get yourself free select dewalt cobalt.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Or Craftsman tools when you buy a.

[Jad Abumrad]

Select battery or combo kit before the Black Friday rush.

[Robert Krulwich]

Because everyone loves free stuff, right?

[Jad Abumrad]

Lowe's we help you save valid through.

[Robert Sapolsky]

123 while supplies last. Selection varies by location. You are listening to 222-2222 to Radiolab.

[Jad Abumrad]

This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad. We're gonna start today's program with a brief diversion to midt at the office of a neuropsychologist.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Good morning.

[Jad Abumrad]

Good morning. How are you?

[Robert Krulwich]

Good. Cameron Falapour.

[Jad Abumrad]

Cameron Falimbor, a well dressed man with a calm voice, calming presence and uncanny ability to calm others. Which is why we're here.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Are you going to be the volunteer?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah, I should. Yeah. He walks me over to a small machine and asks for my left hand.

[Robert Krulwich]

Your left hand. Okay. What we're doing right now, we're just.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Putting a couple of sensors that measure.

[Jad Abumrad]

Basically the flow of electrons between the two fingers here. That would be my index and middle fingers. And there are electrons going between my fingers?

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, absolutely. There are salts and minerals that are.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Going to enable a very tiny electrical.

[Robert Krulwich]

Charge to travel from one finger to the other one.

[Jad Abumrad]

And he explains the more anxious I am, the more sparks fly between my fingers. In other words, this is a stress test.

[Robert Sapolsky]

So I'm going to start it.

[Jad Abumrad]

Am I gonna feel something? No, you're not gonna feel anything. But I will hear something that whine in the background.

[Robert Sapolsky]

So if this goes up it means.

[Jad Abumrad]

That you are more stressed.

[Robert Krulwich]

So let me just make a couple of sounds here.

[Jad Abumrad]

You're stressing me out, man.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Okay. Did you see that?

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, only with couple of snaps near your ear.

[Jad Abumrad]

I got all the way to the top. Yes. That's not good.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, that means that you need to relax and you need to bring it down.

[Jad Abumrad]

Techniques to bring stress down, that is what Cameron Falimpour has promised us. His theory is if you can hear your stress, you can control it.

[Robert Krulwich]

Okay, so what I'd like you to.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Do is just to sit back.

[Robert Krulwich]

And.

[Jad Abumrad]

When you're ready, just go ahead and close your eyes.

[Colby Hall]

And for now I'm going to actually.

[Jad Abumrad]

Get rid of the tone here for you.

[Colby Hall]

You can monitor from here and I.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Want you to just get as comfortable.

[Jad Abumrad]

As you can get right now.

[Robert Krulwich]

And gradually start to take deep slow breaths through your abdomen.

[Jad Abumrad]

Continue to breathe slowly.

[Robert Sapolsky]

And perhaps make.

[Jad Abumrad]

Your exhalations a little bit longer.

[Robert Sapolsky]

And more sustained. And perhaps you can notice as you continue to breathe slowly, but perhaps with.

[Robert Krulwich]

Each breath you feel a little bit.

[Robert Sapolsky]

More relaxed.

[Robert Krulwich]

A little bit more comfortable.

[Robert Sapolsky]

And for now there is nothing you need to worry about.

[Jad Abumrad]

So the phone rings.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Did you see that?

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, now I'm all the way to town again. Isn't that appropriate? While you're trying to de stress, make your life a little better, the phone rings, ruins it all. One fell swoop, like life really. At any moment a dirty bomb could go off. You know this. You could get downsized, dumped, dented by a mad stroller pusher as you cross the street, a street already swimming with naked hostility and fist sized avian flu bugs. The point is the phone could ring at any. Already getting more stressed.

[Robert Sapolsky]

It's like I can't stop.

[Jad Abumrad]

We can't control stress, but what we can do is understand it. Now if we lower the lights, that's today on Radiolab. Conversations and stories about stress from many different perspectives, starting with the science. When you are stressed out, these things inside you, digestion, reproduction, growth, your heart rate change drastically. And a leading researcher will explain exactly how. And later in the program, a very famous and perplexing case of stage fright.

[Linda Thompson]

It feels like somebody's, you know, strangling you from the inside.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad Abumrad. Riding shotgun with me is Mr. Robert.

[Robert Krulwich]

Crowwitch, who by the way, that would be me, should immediately say that I think we should correct a prejudice here. You seem to be anxious about stress.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, maybe a little Bit stress is your friend.

[Robert Krulwich]

We need it in midterms. In eighth grade, if you didn't have stress, you wouldn't have gotten to ninth grade. You shouldn't like, just say, oh, God, let's have less of it. Sometimes you want it to kick you in the butt.

[Jad Abumrad]

All right, I think our first story gets at what you're saying. It comes from a guy named Colby Hall. Colby, tell me what you had for breakfast so I can set the levels.

[Colby Hall]

All right. This morning I had two hard boiled eggs.

[Jad Abumrad]

I met Colby hall at a party. Actually overheard him telling the story you're about to hear. It's amazing story. So I asked him to come in and tell to us in the studio. Now, if you are squeamish, you may want to consider turning the radio down for about seven minutes.

[Colby Hall]

How's that sound?

[Jad Abumrad]

Sounds good to me. And in your headphones.

[Colby Hall]

Good.

[Jad Abumrad]

All right, cool. All right, Colby, let me start by asking you, at what point in the story did you realize you were in big trouble, that your life was changing?

[Colby Hall]

Well, when someone said, get a tourniquet. Fourth of July weekend up in Vermont, doubles, tennis, foothills of the Green Mountains, barbecues, beer, lake. It was perfect in every single way. And we just said, let's go water skiing. So we load up the boat with towels and, you know, we all get on there sort of excited to, you know, kill an hour and a half on a beautiful lake on just a gorgeous, gorgeous day. And just as we're sort of loading up the boat, a canoe comes up to the dock. And in the canoe is this family, this mother and father and their two little children, and they were staying in the house. And so we said, well, do you guys want to join us? Sure. So the two little kids get in the boat and the father gets in the boat and we pull out from the dock and we get about 30 yards away from the dock, and the boat driver stops. I have my little water ski safety devices belt on, and it's kind of old school type, and I jump off the side of the boat and the force of me getting in the water, the. The water ski belt falls off of me. No big deal. I'm just going to swim over. And I look up and the boat is closer to me than I had thought and was actually moving towards me. I guess what the driver had done is he may have thought he put it in neutral, but in fact he put it in very slight reverse and he didn't know that I was behind it. He was dealing with the rope. And so I'm in the water, buckling the water belt. And I look up and I notice, and it's about 10ft away from me. So I yell, hey, stop the boat. But it's a big boat, and, you know, the wind is blowing, and, you know, your head is, like, sort of level of the water. So no one really heard me. I couldn't move out of the way, and it literally just came right up to me. So I put my hands out to, you know, protect myself, and immediately, like, I feel like these punches on my legs, which was the boat propeller. People say, living in the moment like you. It's amazing to me how many complex thoughts you have in a split second. Wait, is this happening? Oh, my God, it's happening. Wow. This is cutting my legs. I'm trapped. I need to get out of this situation. I'm going to push up. I'm going to go under the boat and let it go over me. Like, that all happened in a split second. And at the same time, you're thinking, like, maybe this will just be a bad injury, or maybe I'll lose the use of one leg. There's all these sort of weird deals that you make in your head. Like, I don't want to die, so I'll just, you know, be in a wheelchair, or maybe I'll just be really, really injured, or maybe I'll never be able to play basketball again. Maybe I'll just always walk with a limp. You know, the other side to this. This all happened one month to the day of my wedding. He had planned this, really. I mean, it was small, but beautiful wedding upstate. And, you know, I wanted to walk down the aisle. I wanted to have the first dance. And it sounds odd to explain that you're having all those thoughts in that time, but you are. So I come up on the other side of the boat and sort of gasped for air, and I say, I'm hurt. It doesn't really hurt. Like you would think that was the weird thing. Like, it didn't hurt. It just. I mean, I feel it treading water, and my legs are kind of numb. I look up and my fiance is on the boat. And she gets up and she sees me, and she can see the ring of blood surrounding me. And the water up there is so clear that she could see through the water. She could see deep red tissue on my legs and big flaps of skin sort of hanging off my legs, floating with the motion of the water. And it was at that point that she. You know, the look on her face. And it's funny, like, Sometimes you don't recognize, like, how bad something is until you see it in the eyes of someone next to you. And so when she freaked out and had the look of absolute terror in her eyes, I kind of just took over the situation because I was 10 seconds ahead of everyone else. So I yelled to the wife of the boat operator, whose name is Maureen. I said in a very stern, serious, calm voice like, maureen, turn off the boat. She turned the boat off. And I realized that there were two little kids on the boat. And the first thought that came to my mind was, this is something that those kids shouldn't see. Before I came up, I said, maureen, these kids should not see this. You should hide their eyes. You should distract them. So she took the kids to the front of the boat. And I'm not a real strong person. I don't know how I got, like, sudden upper body strength, but I was able to just pull my full body weight. I weigh, like, 210, 15 pounds. And I just pulled myself up into the back of the boat, and there were my legs, layers of fat. I see muscle tissue. I mean, it's hard to sort of describe. Like, my legs were wide open. There were big hunks of sort of hanging off my leg, and the muscles just sort of there exposed to the air. The cuts went down to my bone. It's like you're at a fish market, and you see someone cut into a fish. You just see the insides, like, very, very clearly. And that's when John says, like, get a tourniquet. Because the injuries on my legs really looked like it warranted a tourniquet. And, you know, if I were to ask you to make a tourniquet right now, what would you do?

[Jad Abumrad]

I have no idea.

[Colby Hall]

Who knows how to make a tourniquet, right? There's no Boy Scouts on the boat. So someone had taken their shirt off and wrapped it around my leg. And I said, no, get those towels. And so they wrapped the towels around my leg.

[Jad Abumrad]

And what's happening between you and your fiance? At that point.

[Colby Hall]

My fiance thought that I was about to die, and she was, you know, doing all that she could to kind of keep it together. And I remember looking to her and rubbing her arm and saying, this is gonna be okay. Now is the time for us to be really brave. This will be okay. If for nothing else, I just wanted to pretend that that was the case, because I didn't really know. My name is Colby hall, and I survived a fight with a boat propeller.

[Robert Krulwich]

So he survived.

[Jad Abumrad]

Mm. Turns out the cuts he got were so clean and so deep that it allowed him to heal more quickly.

[Colby Hall]

And as an aside, driving up to Vermont that weekend, we had stopped at the florist and had this big debate, my wife and I, she was my fiance at the time, about the color of tablecloths. You would have thought on the drive up that the single biggest issue in our lives was the color of tablecloths at the wedding. It was that significant, the drive back from Vermont after this accident, you know, we felt so lucky.

[Jad Abumrad]

Kobi hall is a video producer for mtv, and this is Radiolab. Today's topic is stress.

[Robert Krulwich]

My, oh my, what a story. Yeah, it happens that inside that story, you've got a classic example of what always happens in a traumatic situation. I learned this from one of the leading experts on stress, Robert supplied.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Do you want me to incorporate your question into my answer, or does this run.

[Robert Krulwich]

It's a regular conversation, so you can do whatever you want. Who teaches at Stanford University, who pointed out to me that in these situations your body is taken over really by.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Stress hormones, and that's that sort of alert tunnel vision. Time passage feels different. The eight seconds feel like it took for hours afterward.

[Robert Krulwich]

Is that what that's about?

[Robert Sapolsky]

That's the stress hormones, and that's mostly adrenaline doing that.

[Robert Krulwich]

So if you're, you know, flailing in the water and hit by a propeller from the boat and your leg is severed, in my imagination, there's two people in the dock. Oh, my God.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, my God.

[Robert Krulwich]

But you say, all right, let's call the police. You somehow are the calm one. Is that part of this thing?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Often that's the case, and that's another piece of the stress response. You shut down pain perception.

[Colby Hall]

It doesn't really hurt. Like you would think that was the weird thing. Like it didn't hurt.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Pain is a very subjective state, and if it's the right setting, you blunt it. And it's not just guys in battle who've been grievously injured and they think the blood has been spattered on them from the guy and the stump is just kind of tingling, and then they suddenly discover it. But that's exactly what you do with pain perception. When you twist your ankle in the company softball game and you hardly even notice it. So in the face of a major physical stressor, not only is there this tunnel clarity and sensory whatever, there's also blocking of pain. This in the moment ness and, you know, we all experience at some point or other. Where were you when you heard that? Gwyneth Paltrow had named her child Apple. That sort of thing. You know, those moments that just define our lives and there's a physiology of it.

[Jad Abumrad]

I know exactly where I was.

[Robert Krulwich]

Where were you?

[Linda Thompson]

I don't know.

[Jad Abumrad]

Does he have any idea where that physiology came from?

[Robert Krulwich]

I think he does, yeah. He thinks all mammals have these things in us that we got from evolution. So imagine, say, oh, you're an impala.

[Jad Abumrad]

What's an impala?

[Robert Krulwich]

It's an antelope, kind of. So you're bounding across the savanna and you're being chased by a tiger. Now, you don't want this tiger to get anywhere near you, so your insides have to work hard to keep your outsides alive.

[Robert Sapolsky]

You're running for your life. The predator's coming after you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Certain stuff happens.

[Robert Sapolsky]

First thing, you need energy, not energy tucked away in your fat cells for some building project next spring. Energy right now to go to whichever muscles are going to save your life. Your adrenaline, other hormones go to your fat cells, pour out all the stored energy, feed it to your thigh muscles. In addition, you want to deliver the stuff as fast as possible, so you increase your heart rate. Another thing you do is you shut down everything that's not essential right now. This is no time to worry about ovulating. This is no time to worry about growing antlers. This is no time to digest breakfast. You shut down digestion, you shut down growth. You shut down reproduction. We all know, for example, at the digestive end, the first step of that, you get nervous, your mouth gets dry.

[Robert Krulwich]

Everyone has this experience. You go to. You have to make a presentation in front of a large number of people. And you're standing there and you're going, does this work? Ladies and gentlemen, in the moment, you know, this is. You can't. If you say the word dog, your tongue would get stuck at the top of your mouth because you. You got nothing going on. Wet in your mouth. Your digestive system is shutting down. And the first step is those fluids that would help you digest up string bean aren't there anymore. This is like the antelope.

[Robert Sapolsky]

In addition, you void your bowels, you void your bladder as well. Get rid of the dead weight. That's why people are executed in diapers. Typically, you shut down all these unessentials.

[Robert Krulwich]

So if you add up all this stuff, if you say, okay, I'm not growing and I'm thinking faster and my heart is pacing so I can get all this stuff, and all these things are going on simultaneously, this is not a bad thing at all.

[Robert Sapolsky]

This is a great Thing, It's a great thing if you're stressed like a normal mammal.

[Robert Krulwich]

So when people talk about stress or stress diseases or being overstressed or the stressfulness of modern life, what does that mean?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Well, almost certainly it means it's got absolutely nothing to do with an impala running for its life. Very few parking spot fights are settled with axes. We don't have to, you know, wrestle people for canned food items and bombed out supermarkets. Our boss.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, you haven't been to certain sections of New York lately. I know.

[Robert Sapolsky]

I love New York. Well, anyway, when you're actually getting straight in the way that we talk about an everyday sense, we're not being physically menaced, what we're doing is turning on the stress response in anticipation of a stressor.

[Robert Krulwich]

You mean this literally. Like you're sitting there in the bed thinking, oh God, oh God, oh God, I have this sales meeting tomorrow. And flushing through your body are the same stress hormones and everything else that would be flushing through the impala. Dashing. Being chased by a lion or. You mean sort of like that?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Yeah, actually, you know, here's one of these try it at home exercises. Lie in bed when you're nice and sleepy and relaxed and your heart's beating nice and slow, very carefully think, you know that heart isn't going to beat forever. And most likely you're going to turn on the exact same stress responses if you were running for your life. Same hormones, same physiological changes, same all.

[Robert Krulwich]

Of that just for the thought, oh my God, one day I'm going to die.

[Robert Sapolsky]

If it really has the right impact on you. And the punchline of the entire field is that's not what the system evolved for.

[Robert Krulwich]

So if you're a human being and you're a nervous one and you get scared in the nights in your body, what's going on that will eventually make you sick.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Exactly the same thing. And all you have to do is that sprint across the savanna kind of writ large, and out of it pops a whole bunch of diseases. If you're constantly mobilizing energy for those thigh muscles that are preparing to run you across the savannah. As you wonder, is Social Security going to be there in 30 years? If you're constantly doing that, you've got.

[Robert Krulwich]

A really nervous prison in your head.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Yes, well, I study this subject. It's not by chance what you think is coin toss. I worry about being ethnically cleansed by, by Serbian Croats, that sort of thing. And I'm sitting here in Palo Alto, you know, if you constantly mobilize energy, you don't store it. And for really complex reasons, you're more at risk for this disease. Adult onset diabetes. This is one of those great diseases that our great great grandparents never heard of. A much more accessible version is, you know, increase your blood pressure out the wazoo to run for your life. This is not a big deal for three minutes. Increase it chronically every time you come to work. And stress induced hypertension, you're gonna damage the walls of your blood vessels.

[Robert Krulwich]

Now, not everybody in the world reacts to everything as though they were an antelope being chased across the savannah. I mean, some people can handle all kinds of stress and get through the day, and other people succumb. And that's where we ought to go next.

[Jad Abumrad]

Coming up, a particular piece of furniture and its remarkable impact on public health. And a heartwarming tale of a baboon who changed his ways and in the process discovered the secret to longer life and lower stress. This is Radiolab. I'm Jad Abumrad. Robert Kruwicz and I will continue in a moment.

[Producer/Announcer]

You're listening to Radiolab.

[Robert Sapolsky]

On New York Public Radio unyc.

[Linda Thompson]

Wait, what? What?

[Colby Hall]

Keep listening.

[Producer/Announcer]

Hi, this is Laura Reddell from Charleston, South Carolina. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about sloan@w www.sloan.org.

[Jad Abumrad]

Chad here. This is WNYC's radio lab. Prior to the station ID, we were listening to a conversation between two Roberts. Robert number one is right here with me, Mr. Grwich. And Robert two is. Well, we'll hear from him more in a moment. Robert Sapolsky, Stanford University Professor. The topic of that conversation and of our show is stress. Stress then and stress now. As we heard, stress then would count as something like being chased across the savannah by a saber toothed tiger. Stress now standing in the wrong line at the supermarket. Very different kinds of stress separated by thousands of years of human experience. But to the body they are the same. And too many false tiger alerts will make you sick. Now that right there, the connection between stress and sickness. How that connection was made is an interesting story, which involves lots of people. But let's start with one.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Dr. Paul J. Rosch. I'm president of the American Institute of Stress and I've been involved in stress research for well over 50 years.

[Jad Abumrad]

And it was around 50 years ago that Dr. Rasch and a few colleagues made an interesting discovery. They took a bunch of rodents and did some, well, not so nice Things.

[Robert Sapolsky]

To them like sewing back the eyelids of mice and shining lights in their eyes and deafening noises.

[Robert Krulwich]

We put them on treadmills.

[Robert Sapolsky]

We left them out on the roof of the medical school in the cold, wintry Canadian blizzards. We throw the animals into water so they would have to constantly swim. You would do that for hours or days until they were too weak and then measure their hormonal secretion. Anything that would be a severely noxious threat or challenge.

[Robert Krulwich]

If there's any justice in the world, this guy's going to rat hell. There's going to be some rodent named Alice stitching his eyeballs back. But let's go on.

[Jad Abumrad]

But in the name of science. What Rush and company noticed is that every different type of cruel torture technique they did to these poor rodents resulted in the same outcome. They got sick and sick in the same way. Sort of flu like symptoms.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Furthermore, we quickly learned that it wasn't necessary to do these horrible things to get almost the same effect.

[Jad Abumrad]

No, they could get the same effect by merely frustrating the rats. Put their food out and then before the rats get it, take it away, then put it out again. Then, ooh, thought you had it, take it away again. Just by doing that over and over. That would make some of the rats sick.

[Robert Krulwich]

And some of them could cope.

[Jad Abumrad]

And some could cope. Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, this is Robert Sapolsky. The professor who's been helping us along says that human beings break down in pretty much the same categories. There are some people who can be challenged by all the daily experiences and they just kind of glide through it. And there are other people like you who get furious, just furious.

[Robert Sapolsky]

The key thing really is the hostility. It's the hostility and it's a perpetual particular style that may seem very familiar to our New York metropolitan area listening ship. And I say this as a native New Yorker, but it's the style called toxic hostility where just everything in the world around you confirms they're out to get you. They're out to get you preferentially. Every elevator door that closes before you get there is proof the person inside who could have stopped it but chose not to is out to stop you in the back. And this is a really, really hostile world out there.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is a way of life.

[Robert Sapolsky]

This is to which everyone says it is. It's true. That is how the world is.

[Robert Krulwich]

But some people have this in a dire sort of way.

[Robert Sapolsky]

In a dire sort of way.

[Jad Abumrad]

And I suppose his point is that the people who do have it in a dire sort of way get sick.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah, there's A kind of anger and style that is so bad for your nervous system. That's, like, worse than smoking, literally. This is what is famously called type A behavior.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Type A was first described by these two cardiologists, Friedman and Rosenman.

[Robert Krulwich]

That's Meyer Friedman, Ray Rosenman. And they came up with this idea in the 1950s.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Their original version was, you're hostile, time pressured, impatient, low self esteem, joyless striving. All you live for is to check things off your to do list. And, you know, this is what they were originally saying, greatly increases your risk of heart disease. And cardiologists hated these guys for the simple reason you're some, like, Ozzie and Harriet, Eisenhower era cardiologist. And all you think about is, like, heart valves and blood lipids. And here's these guys saying, no, you got to sit down your patients and talk to them and find out if they've picked the wrong line in the supermarket. Do they go berserk at that point? And it took decades for it to become clear that this really is for real.

[Robert Krulwich]

Here are two cardiologists proposing that you are more likely to get a heart attack not based on the size of your veins or whatever's passing through your, but on the kind of guy or kind of gal you are. Exactly how did they come to this peculiar insight?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Okay, this is where this great story comes from. And I wouldn't have believed it, except it was told to me by Friedman himself, and appropriately, sheepishly so. This was back in the 50s, and they've got this cardiology practice and everything's going great, except apparently they had this one problem, which they were having to spend a fortune reupholstering the armchairs in their office. In the office in their waiting room. What's this about? They had no idea. They paid no attention to. It's part of the overhead. They had this upholstery who comes every month, got to fix a couple of chairs.

[Robert Krulwich]

Every month?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Every month, yeah. So one month, the upholsterer is out on vacation. Replacement upholsterer comes in, takes one look at the chairs and discovers type A personality.

[Robert Krulwich]

Presenting Great moments in American upholstery.

[Robert Sapolsky]

He says, what the hell is wrong with your patients? Nobody wears our chairs this way. And the guy's absolutely right. They still have one chair, which I hope they're gonna give to the Smithsonian. And what it is, is the front 2 inches of the seat cushion and the front 2 inches of the armrests are totally shredded, and the rest of the chair is fine.

[Robert Krulwich]

What do you mean?

[Robert Sapolsky]

By shredded, it's like ripped. That's where the tears are. It's not evenly distorted.

[Robert Krulwich]

They're sticking their nails into it or something.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Well, basically what you've got there is the type A profile. The person literally sitting on the edge of their seat and square, squirming and fussing with the armchairs and clawing. And none of this wear on the chair distributed over the entire butt range of weight displacement. People are sitting there on the edge of their seats.

[Robert Krulwich]

So the upholsterer says to the cardiologist, there's something wrong with the people in your waiting room.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Exactly. And what's supposed to happen at this point? This is supposed to be this epiphany moment. And one of these winds up in the textbook of like midnight conferences between upholsterers and cardiologists. Or like they do these huge surveys and young, idealistic upholsterers sweep across America and discover, you know, you don't see chairs like these in a podiatrist's office, only in the cardio. That's what's supposed to happen. Here's where Friedman says, get this guy out of my face. I need to see patients. I'm this important guy. Give him his damn check. He was too type A to listen to the guy.

[Robert Krulwich]

So he threw the upholsterer out.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Rosie would give him his check, get him out of here. And five years later they're doing these studies with these psychologists and out pops the type A profile. And they say, oh my God, the upholsterer. He was right. To this day they have no idea who the man was. And I'm willing to bet that like there's this 95 year old upholstery guy in some bar in San Francisco right now who's droning on about how he discovered type A personality. And it's absolutely true.

[Robert Krulwich]

An intense nationwide search has yet to reveal the identity of that replacement upholsterer. This story has been brought to you by the American Upholstery association, dedicated to fine cloth, fine furniture, and a healthier America. My name is Charles Young and I do upholstery.

[Producer/Announcer]

Tell me what you're working on here.

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, I'm doing a rocker. It's a nice chair, actually. It just. They wore the seat all the way down to the wood. Sometimes the things are so bad that they said, oh, please cover it before you take it because I don't want people in the building know how bad my furniture is. But I'm saying, how could you live like this in your own house? That's a mess. It's a mess.

[Jad Abumrad]

We couldn't find the guy, the type a guy. But in the process of looking, we ran across Charles Young. And in this messy, stressful world, his Lower east side studio is a window onto calmer times.

[Robert Krulwich]

A long time ago, there was straw inside of the old stuff. Hold on, let me see if it's in. Let me see if stuff is in that chair. This is a photograph of an old chair. Looked like was made about 100 years ago. I don't know if you can see that, but there's straw inside there. The old stuff is such class to it, and you don't mind working on it. The new stuff is not that way. The new stuff is all badly put together, stapled together, so we can't fix.

[Robert Sapolsky]

It.

[Robert Krulwich]

Because everything we do, we throw away and go buy new. It's not the glamorous job in the world, but it's a job. People don't want to learn how to do upholstery. It's a dying art. So I don't know what they're gonna do.

[Jad Abumrad]

You want to know about upholstery, Visit Charles young, owner of CY Upholstery Co. On the lower east side. He's been doing it for decades.

[Robert Krulwich]

My best customers are dogs and cats. They chew up people's furniture, which is absolutely wonderful.

[Jad Abumrad]

Charlie spoke with producer Ellen Horn.

[Robert Krulwich]

You got a dog.

[Jad Abumrad]

Chad? Here with Robert Crowicz. Today on Radiolab, we are looking at stress, the effects of stress on chairs and on us to get back to.

[Robert Krulwich]

Our bodies for just a second. Remember before we said that when you get scared and you're going to make a presentation, your mouth goes dry because your digestive system is beginning to shut down. It's also true that, that if you're very, very nervous, though you wouldn't know this, you stop growing. And this is, even for a very little bit of time, a short spurt of panic will create a short spurt of non growth that's on one end. But says Professor Robert Sapolsky, suppose we expose someone to a lot of continuing stress.

[Robert Sapolsky]

And at an extreme, you get one of the truly bizarre outposts in medicine, this disease of kids who stop growing for reasons of psychological stress, meaning they're.

[Robert Krulwich]

So nervous about whatever it is that their system doesn't spends all the time pumping and palpitating and doing all this.

[Robert Sapolsky]

And no growing, saying, grow tomorrow, grow tomorrow, grow tomorrow. This is no time for it. And it's well documented. This is not, ooh, fourth grade teacher who is mean and yells at the kitchen. This is like no nightmare police and the social workers breaking down the door of the apartment sort of nightmare stuff. And amazingly you get the kids out of those settings and often they will start growing again. Okay, so you read up a lot about this and there's this weird pattern I had noted in a lot of these unreadable chapters, which is they would make reference to Peter Pan. They would start with a quote from Peter Pan or some snide comment about Tinkerbell. And I'd seen this for years, I had no idea what this was about. Till one day I finally found the explanation. 8 year old kid growing up in Victorian England. One day he sees his beloved 12 year old brother killed in front of him. Horrible accident, this destroys the family. This was the mother's favorite child who dies, takes to her bed in this Victorian swoon for the next 10 years, totally ignoring this child growing up in this emotionalized, these horrible scenes. The boy comes in with a tray of food for his mother and she's going on, oh, David, David, is that you? David, if you come to me, David.

[Robert Krulwich]

The dead son Joseph says, left standing in the door, think, gee, it's only.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Me, it's me, it's me. Sorry I'm not David. Sorry I'm not David. Sorry it wasn't me. Instead of him. Only thing she apparently ever spoke to him about was this crazy idea she grabbed onto, which was if David had to die, at least he was. Still, he's not one of these boys who grows up and doesn't need his mother anymore. He'll always be my perfect little boy because he didn't grow up. He didn't grow up. He didn't grow up. This kid hears this with a vengeance and stops growing. At that point he lives to be 60 years old, under 5 foot tall, unconsummated marriage, complete maturational arrest.

[Robert Krulwich]

Did he have puberty?

[Robert Sapolsky]

He did, he grew up. Facial hair. But most indications are not a whole lot of other secondary sexual characteristics. And as an adult, this was the author of the much beloved children's classic Peter Pan. This was JM Barry, the guy who wrote Peter Pan, really, who was a very, very troubled man who among other things, just endlessly turned out plays and novels and whatever is about boys who die and come back as ghosts and marry their mothers and all sorts of edible stuff like that, sadomasochistic fantasy stuff with little boys all, all through his writings, his private writings. This was a very, very troubled man who did not deal very well with the consequences of this for the rest of.

[Jad Abumrad]

The things that ever.

[Colby Hall]

Call it Grow.

[Linda Thompson]

Up now, grow up, never grow up.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Don'T serve, die naughty, I won't stop.

[Jad Abumrad]

Coming up, the therapeutic benefits of screaming, gnawing and beating the crap out of someone. This is Radiolab. I'm Chad Abumrad. Robert Krubich and I will continue in a moment.

[Producer/Announcer]

Okay, you're listening to Radiolab on New York Public Radio.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Public Radio, wnyc.

[Colby Hall]

Good morning, Radiolab.

[Producer/Announcer]

This is Chelsea Fullerton calling from Princeton, New Jersey, and I am waiting for my train. Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science foundation and by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about [e-mail]. thanks.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Jad Abumrad, here with Robert Krulwich. This is Radiolab. Today's topic is stress from your point of view and from your body's point of view. Usually you and your body are on the same side. Your stomach grumbles. That means your body wants you to eat, so you do. Your foot hurts. That means your body wants you not to step on that foot so it can heal, and so you don't. The interesting and sometimes tragic thing about stress and stress disorders is that you and your body find yourself on opposing sides. Your body's just trying to protect you, but that's not the way it works out. Consider this story about folk singer Linda Thompson. She was part of a late 60s scene that included everyone from James Taylor to Paul Simon, Nick Drake, even Bob Dylan.

[Linda Thompson]

Well, these just amazing musicians. Sometimes I think, Cor, that's part of the problem. If I had hung out with mediocre musicians, I wouldn't be half so worried about what I was going to sound like.

[Jad Abumrad]

Linda Thompson spoke with our producer, Ellen Horne.

[Producer/Announcer]

I remember the first time I heard your voice. I was in college. I was at my friend Chris's house and we're all sitting on the floor around the record player listening to I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Aww.

[Producer/Announcer]

For weeks we tried to learn to play those songs. Your voice sounds so pure and so angelic.

[Linda Thompson]

Oh, Ellen, that's my sweet.

[Producer/Announcer]

It's just hard to imagine that voice struggling in any way.

[Linda Thompson]

It's really horrible. It's just awful. But you get through it.

[Producer/Announcer]

The trouble started in the studio.

[Linda Thompson]

Feels like. It feels like somebody's, you know, strangling you from the inside. That's what it feels like.

[Producer/Announcer]

Linda would step to the mic, open her mouth to sing, and instead of.

[Linda Thompson]

It coming out, ah, you know You. You kind of go. Some kind of squeak or constriction happens.

[Producer/Announcer]

She was recording her sixth album with husband Richard Thompson. They were one of those mythic rock and roll couples. He wrote songs for her to sing with titles like Withered and Died and down where the Drunkards Roll. Dark songs about betrayal and loss. They played together for a decade.

[Linda Thompson]

By that time, there were problems in my marriage, which I'm kind of fond of saying I didn't know about. But on a subliminal level, one does know these things, you know.

[Producer/Announcer]

It was 1982, and Linda had just delivered their third child. Her throat hurt all the time.

[Linda Thompson]

You know, got. It was pretty bad. And then, I mean, I'd just come out of hospital. I just had a baby. So, you know, I mean, he'd stuck around till the baby was born, but as soon as she was born.

[Jad Abumrad]

A.

[Linda Thompson]

Couple of weeks, a week, I don't know. He told me, I've met somebody else. I don't know if I've ever told anybody this, but the first thing I said was, can she sing? I mean, what normal person would say, can she sing?

[Producer/Announcer]

She was heartbroken when Richard left, and without explanation, her voice went with him. It just flew away, like someone had left the cage door open.

[Linda Thompson]

That was really awful. And that. That kind of. It put the singing into perspective of it.

[Producer/Announcer]

She was mute.

[Robert Sapolsky]

I came to you when no one could hear me.

[Producer/Announcer]

At home, with a newborn and two young children, she was totally isolated.

[Linda Thompson]

If you can't speak, it's just a nightmare. I mean, it's. It's a nightmare.

[Producer/Announcer]

She couldn't make a sound when she picked up the phone. Strangers looked at her, puzzled as she gestured.

[Linda Thompson]

Nobody knew what was wrong with me. And I went to this guy and he said, oh, you've got hysterical dysphonia. And, you know, on one hand, it was great to know that it had a name. On the other hand, you know, even though I'm a layman, I could understand that. Hysterical dysphonia meant that there was something wrong with my brain rather than my throat.

[Producer/Announcer]

For months, her brain toyed with her throat. Sometimes it was totally fine. Other days, nothing. Dry gurgles would barely escape. Ironically, when she was at her worst, that album she'd had such trouble recording came out, and the critics loved it. She got some of her best reviews. The label expected them to promote the album.

[Linda Thompson]

Richard and my manager didn't want me to do the tour. I mean, Richard said, you know, we're not together anymore, and I don't think you should do the tour. And my manager at that time, our manager said, you mustn't do the tour, and you're not well enough. You've just had a baby and you're crazy, you know, and you mustn't do.

[Producer/Announcer]

The tour because think about what touring meant. Richard wrote their songs, many about heartbreak. Night after night, she'd have to walk on stage and sing their sad story from his perspective.

[Linda Thompson]

And I said, forget it. I am absolutely doing the tour. And I was very glad I did.

[Producer/Announcer]

Because something miraculous happened because I was so broken hearted.

[Linda Thompson]

My dysphonia. I mean, for whatever reason, I didn't have it. I sang really well.

[Producer/Announcer]

Anger had returned her gift. This tour is legendary.

[Linda Thompson]

Absolutely. I stole a car in Canada and got arrested. Slavery. Slept with too many people, took too many drugs and drank too much stuff.

[Producer/Announcer]

There's a story about you smashing up a dressing room.

[Linda Thompson]

I did. I smashed up a dressing room. And the guys at the club said, we had the Sex Pistols last week and they were nowhere near as bad as you. And I said, oh, thank you. I'm worse than the Sex Pistols. But I wasn't actually trashing the dressing room. I was throwing things at Richard, you know, it's like every time he passed me, I'd lob something at him, you know, and when he passed me on stage, I'd trip him up on stage. I mean, it was insane. Poor Richard.

[Producer/Announcer]

When they played L. A, where Richard's new girlfriend lived, Linda Ronstadt consoled her.

[Linda Thompson]

Yeah, she pulled me out of the gutter outside the Roxy, where I was lying surrounded by champagne bottles. She. She pulled me out of the gutter and took me back to her house and where I was ill for days and days and days.

[Producer/Announcer]

But at least her voice was back. And singing, she says, felt good.

[Linda Thompson]

It didn't stay for long. I must say, it didn't stay for long.

[Producer/Announcer]

When the tour ended, the voice took off. It left as mysteriously as it had returned.

[Linda Thompson]

I couldn't speak when there was any peripheral noise. Like, if I was in a restaurant, I would just say to the waiter, I've lost my voice. I never went into the hotel, you know, with anybody. You know, I've got this thing, this dysphonia and blah, blah, blah. I mean, please.

[Producer/Announcer]

She's never entirely recovered. The battle between brain and voice has continued for two decades. I can't seem to speak.

[Robert Sapolsky]

My mind.

[Linda Thompson]

Hypnotism, that didn't work, and therapy and voice therapy and speech therapy and, you know, all sorts of things. If somebody had said to me if you have a heroin injection every day, you'll be fine. I would have done it. Absolutely would have done it. Because it's just so boring not to be able to sing. It's boring. It really is boring. Having this kind of tight throat. And then I suddenly said, I'm not going to do any more. I'm just not going to sing. And that's what I did. I didn't sing for a long time. Long, long time.

[Jad Abumrad]

That's the only.

[Robert Sapolsky]

That's the only big difference from when we played it.

[Linda Thompson]

And after the.

[Producer/Announcer]

And.

[Linda Thompson]

And after the instrumental and coming straight in.

[Jad Abumrad]

Exactly.

[Colby Hall]

But she seems to be getting that.

[Robert Krulwich]

No worries.

[Producer/Announcer]

This is Linda back in the studio after 17 years.

[Linda Thompson]

Sometimes I couldn't sing, so I would come back the next day and sing the first two verses and then a wee pause.

[Colby Hall]

Yeah.

[Linda Thompson]

Then the second. So that's how I got started again with. With kind of the minimum pressure.

[Colby Hall]

Is there a pause there? Yes, there is.

[Producer/Announcer]

And the critics are raving about her voice again. To me, it sounds like it always did. Clean, vulnerable, ethereal. But there is a difference.

[Linda Thompson]

I think I'm learning to let go a little. I did a live vocal, and some of it's shaky, but I'm leaving it all in. And I wouldn't have been able to do that a few years ago. I would have just winced. Now I don't care. I just want it to feel right. I do care, but, you know, I care a little less. Singing like he's got a gun to his head, that's probably the only good thing about impending old age.

[Producer/Announcer]

And she added in that bleak tone I recognized from her songs.

[Linda Thompson]

There's absolutely nothing else to recommend it.

[Jad Abumrad]

I can tell you. Ellen Horne is a producer for this program. For more on Linda Thompson and her music, and for more on hysterical dysphonia, check our website. Radiolab.org is the address. I'm Jad Abumrad, this is Radiolab. I'm here with Robert Krulwich. Today, we're talking about stress. Robert, let me ask you a question based on what we just heard. Bleak, bleak, bleak. That's how that last piece ended. And that basically describes the world we live in. How do you cope?

[Robert Krulwich]

I don't. I don't cope at all. I hate. I hate deeply and I hate.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, you rage floridly.

[Robert Krulwich]

I do. And as you know, working with me, there are moments when I want to kill you. That's all. It works for me. Yes, yes. But it also works for rats. I know this from Robert Sapolsky. Because he wrote an essay about this and I asked him about it. You have a very interesting description of work with rats in which rats are put into very tense situations, but there are four or five ways in which they alleviate their pain.

[Robert Sapolsky]

It's beautiful stuff because it essentially gets at the core of this issue. You know, most of us cope. Basic scenario. In those studies, you got two cages side by side. A rat in each cage, each of which can get a shock. And whenever one of them gets a shock, the other does. Same intensity, same duration, same everything. Sole difference is the. The rat in cage one just gets the shock. The rat in cage two gets the psychological manipulation.

[Robert Krulwich]

Meaning if you wanted to be one of these rats, not that you would. You'd want to be the second rat number two, because number one just gets zapped. Number two gets little fixes. There are four fixes he's going to describe. Let's start with number one.

[Robert Sapolsky]

First version. That will help the second rat. Every time it gets one of those shocks, it could run over to. To the other side of the cage where there's another rat it could sit down next to and bite the crap out of. And you know what? That rat's gonna do just fine. He's not gonna get an ulcer because he's giving somebody else an ulcer. He has an outlet for his frustration.

[Robert Krulwich]

Totally Mike Tyson approach.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Yes.

[Robert Krulwich]

If I get hit, you get hit.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Exactly. And it's documented by science. It makes you feel better, which is why, sort of the first soundbite they've got to do with you in stress management is don't reduce your risk of an ulcer by giving it to somebody else. Make sure your outlets are not abusive ones because they feel great. They're very effective.

[Robert Krulwich]

Now to scenario number two.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Next version. This time, the rat's getting the shocks. And now can go over to the other side of the cage and gnaw on a bar of wood or this counts as a relaxing hobby for a lab rat. Once it's. Once again, you know, gets out the tensions, gets out the frustration. It's an outlet.

[Robert Krulwich]

I like that, actually. Better than beating up on the other rat.

[Robert Sapolsky]

This is a nice, nicer world if we all gnawed on wood instead of invading countries and things like that.

[Robert Krulwich]

Number three, the Department of Homeland Security.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yesterday raised the national terror alert to orange, orange or high alert.

[Linda Thompson]

We're taking strong precautions.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Third version, in this version, the second rat knows when the next shock is coming. A little warning light comes on 10 seconds before it gets predictive information. And for the same physical reality. You're less likely to get a stress related disease. If you get predictability, when is it coming? How bad is it going to be? How long is it going to last?

[Robert Krulwich]

Oh, that makes a difference. If you see get ready, get set.

[Robert Sapolsky]

That helps you because you scrunch up and you tighten your button, you close your eyes and you think about that Hawaii vacation or whatever it is. And this is what we're doing when we're sitting in the dentist chair and say, are we almost done? Give me some predictability here.

[Robert Krulwich]

And finally, scenario number four.

[Robert Sapolsky]

The last factor is this one of if the rat thinks it has control, it's not getting. Get the stress related disease. Let it press a lever. It's been trained to press this lever to decrease the chances of a shock. The lever is doing squat today. It's a placebo. It's disconnected. But the rat's pounding away the lever thinking, this is great. Imagine how many shocks I'd be getting otherwise. It has a sense of control. Control makes stressors less stress.

[Jad Abumrad]

So moving along, beating up on another rat, or a person, in our case, gnawing on a piece of wood, having a sense of control even if it's false. These seem to be helpful stress relieving techniques. Well, what about yoga?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Mm.

[Jad Abumrad]

What about therapy? Do they try and talk to the rats?

[Robert Krulwich]

You would of course figure that a professor at Stanford would come up with something therapeutic. He did, actually.

[Jad Abumrad]

No good.

[Robert Krulwich]

This wasn't with rats. It was with his real field expertise, which is baboons. What Robert Sapolsky does is he goes to East Africa and he spends time with baboon troops, particular families of baboons, and he just hangs with them for really long periods of time, years even, and then writes stories and he observes things. And one of the things he observed was a therapeutic kind of stress resolution. In this case involving friendship. Here's how it went. Every baboon troop has an alpha baboon. That baboon beats up all the other baboons and is the guy who gets all the girls because he's the strongest one. But in the life of every alpha baboon, there's gonna come a moment where some lesser ranked baboon is gonna beat you up and you lose your crown. In baboon life, when you stop being the number one, do you fall to the bottom? Well, you. Well, what happens is the other baboons remember how cruel you were as an alpha and they take it out on you.

[Jad Abumrad]

The other that are up above you.

[Robert Krulwich]

Above you. Yeah. So number Two beats you up. Then number three starts to beat you up. Then number four takes you on, he tries to beat you up. Then number five and you're dropping down the chain.

[Jad Abumrad]

That doesn't seem fair by the way.

[Robert Krulwich]

That they go all the way to the bottom. Well, I don't know whether they might be like 34 in their 19s or they're not at the very, very bottom. Who decides whoever gets beat up.

[Jad Abumrad]

So I know, but I mean, you beat up the alpha guy, does he then have to fight everybody else to re establish his.

[Robert Krulwich]

I think, yeah, just like a bird pecking order. Everybody fights with it. It's like one of those barroom things where everybody looks at each other, they all slug it out and they arrange themselves in standing order afterwards.

[Jad Abumrad]

Oh, I see.

[Robert Krulwich]

I sit next to Tom because I beat up Tom, but he beat up Fred.

[Jad Abumrad]

At least I can still beat up Tom.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

It's not a happy thing to be an aging former champ baboon. Not at all.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, so if you are one of these ex heavyweights, what do you do?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, that's the question.

[Robert Sapolsky]

What you often do, what you do about half the time is you pick up and you move to a different troop, you transfer to a different troop.

[Robert Krulwich]

Even though you don't know anybody and.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Just start all over again, which is great. You're going to be incredibly low ranking there because you're this broken down old male, but at least you're going to be anonymous. And what you often see are these old, broken, battle scarred males who show up from out of nowhere and join a troop and he's some sweet old poop and you feel horrible watching the juveniles hassle him. And almost certainly he was one son of a bitch in the western Serengeti about five years before and the guy's basically seeking political asylum.

[Robert Krulwich]

Are there old guys who used to be alphas who stick around?

[Robert Sapolsky]

That's the thing, only about half the old guys leave. So one of the studies I did was trying to figure out who leaves and who stays. Is it the ones who were more brutal back when? Is it the ones who were getting more grief now? None of that. The ones who stay are the ones who've actually managed to, to get friendships. This is for real. These are smart enough animals that they have social affiliative relationships that are stable over time with females. If you're an adult male, what do.

[Robert Krulwich]

Baboon guys and girls do when they're just friends? They don't go to the movies or anything.

[Robert Sapolsky]

They hang out. They hang out they sit next to each other, they sit in physical contact, they groom each other.

[Robert Krulwich]

Can you groom a lady and not get her boyfriend, the alpha of the moment, angry?

[Robert Sapolsky]

Well, the alpha is only interesting in her if she's at the peak of her ovulatory cycle. This is the rest of when she's.

[Robert Krulwich]

Not hot, then you can go sit around and chat about things.

[Robert Sapolsky]

And what you find is very often females at the peak of their cycle are in the middle of all this tumult with numbers 1 through 3 and sort of all this male androgen musk Schwarzenegger crap. And once it's all over with, she goes back and spends the rest of her month hanging out with this somewhat aged guy who's her buddy.

[Robert Krulwich]

So the baboon who had a little room in his life for friendship, not just conking and sex, but friendship wins in the end.

[Robert Sapolsky]

Not only do they win in this heartwarming like old guy sitting in the savannah sort of picture, but also win in the Darwinian sense. What's been a revolution in the field in recent years is the recognition that these guys who do the nice guy, Alan Alda affiliative stuff, reproduce a whole lot because it turns out a lot of the time, even during the peak swelling, while number one and number two are tussling, the female runs over to the bush and mates with the Alan Alda guy because she prefers him, amazingly enough, because the guy's actually nice to her.

[Robert Krulwich]

Now, do you know this or is this just your prayer?

[Robert Sapolsky]

No, this is real.

[Robert Krulwich]

You've counted. How do you know like that the Alan older guy had more babies than.

[Robert Sapolsky]

The Schwarzenegger guy because people now do paternity tests. You can do stuff like get hair samples from your wild primates when they go through the bushes and some thorn pulls off some and you go do genetic analysis. And amazingly enough, from a genetic Darwinian, bloody in tooth and claw standpoint, nice guys do not finish last.

[Robert Krulwich]

Robert Sapolsky is the author of many, many books and essays, including why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers and my absolute favorite, A Primate's Memoir. I spoke with him at his office in Palo Alto, California.

[Jad Abumrad]

That about does it for us. Check our website, Radiolab.org more information on anything that you heard tonight. And while you're there, communicate with US [e-mail] is our email address. I'm Jad Abumrad. Robert Kruwich and I are signing off.

[Linda Thompson]

Okay, Steve, keep it down, could you? Okay. This show was produced by Jad Abumrad. And Ellen Horn with production support from Brenna Farrell, Sally Herships, Rob Krieger, David Martin, Eric Malinsky, Sarah Pellegrini, Michael Shelley and Eleanor Park. Our special thanks to Robert Krulwich, John Elliot, Lara kippers and WNYC's own Ed Haber who produces my records. My name is Linda Thompson. This instrumental will be on my next album and that's my son Teddy playing the guitar. So run, Don't Walk to buy his CD Coming soon on Verve Record. Bye. Thank you.

[Robert Sapolsky]

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[Colby Hall]

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[Robert Sapolsky]

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[Robert Krulwich]

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[Robert Sapolsky]

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