if
on
Monkey King mortgage
the money pouring help
I'm milk answer when I feelings wish
them you never called everything
stress
it is everyone's inferno
be devil in my mind igniting our nights
offending are equilibrium but it hasn't always been so
once its purpose was to save us
if you're a normal mammal which stresses about
is three minutes have screaming terror on the south lawn after which it either
over with the rover with
but everything changed
what want to help to survive has now become the scourge of our lives
and I just burst into tears and webOS
went today
scientific discoveries in the field
I am and in the lab
proof that stress is not a state of mind but something measurable
and dangerous this is not an abstract concept it's not something that
maybe someday should do something about you need to attend to it
today in some of the most unexpected places
scientists are revealing just how lethal stress can be
chronic stress could do something as Crohn's
subtle and grotesque as kills from your brain cells
the impact of stress can be found deep within us shrinking our brains
adding back to our bellies than unraveling are chromosomes
this is real this is not just somebody
minded stress
savior tyrant play
its portrait revealed the hi the hi
and ok
the
well
this program is made possible by contributions to the
PBS station from viewers like you thank you
home all of us have a personal relationship with stress
but few of us know how it operates within us
or understand how the onslaught of the modern world
can stress us to the point of death
if you wish to know what we can do about it
well
but over the last three decades Stanford University neurobiologist
Robert Sapolsky has been advancing our understanding of stress
Howard impacts our bodies and how we're social standing can make us more
or less susceptible is being aggregated bad news
most of the time you can find in teaching and researching in the
high-achieving high stress twirled the brain science
mine is this huge contrast between
glass %uh but that's only part of the story
for a few weeks every year or so Sapolsky ships his lab to a place more
than 9,000 miles away
on the planes at the mass I Mara reserve in Kenya East Africa
by
K
Robert Sapolsky first came to Africa over 30 years ago on a hunch
that he suspected he could find out more about human stress and disease
but looking at non-humans and he knew
just the non-humans home
you live in a place like this year baboon and you may have to spend about
three hours a day getting your calories
if you only have to work three hours today you got nine hours a free time
every day
to devote to making somebody else chest miserable
they're not being stressed by lions chasing him all the time
for being struck by each other they're being stressed by social and
psychological toll Walt
invented by their own species their perfect model for Western I stress
related disease
to determine just what tolls stress was taking on their bodies
Sapolsky wanted to look inside these wild baboons at the cellular level
for the very first time to do this
he would have to take their blood in the most unassuming way
well basically we're trying to do is an ass but eyes a baboon
are without him knowing its comment because you don't want to have any in a
sense to spit or stress
you can't just you're getting your cheap interest about me up and down the field
for three hours and finally when he's winded
darden perhaps best
no the big advantages have a blog on
heart that it's pretty much silent and
has a whole lot no way are moving parts with the big drawback
his doesn't go very far so what you spend just
this is our amount of time doing is trying to figure out
had a look nonchalant accountable
I'm time
okay he is wobbling
carriers from
each baboon blood sample Robert measured levels of hormones central to the stress
response
hywell to make sense what's happening in your body you've got these
two hormones that are the workhorses a whole stress response wanted them we all
know
adrenaline American version at an effort the other is
a less-known hormone called glucocorticoids comes out to be drilled
land along with in-line and these are the two backbone to the stress response
that stress response
and those two hormones are critical to our survival
home
because what stresses about is somebody is very intent on eating
you were you were very intent on eating somebody and tutors immediate crisis
going on
when you run for your life
basics are all that matter longs work overtime to pump mammoth quantities of
oxygen into the bloodstream
the heart racist a pump that oxygen throughout the body
sore muscles respond instantly you need your blood pressure up to deliver that
energy
you need to turn off anything it's not essential growth reproduction you know
you're running for your life this is no time to of the late
tissue repair all that sort of thing do it later if there is a leader
when the zebra escapes it stress response shuts down
but human beings can't seem to find their
off switch we turn on the exact same stress response
for purely psychological states thinking about
the ozone layer the taxes coming up mortality
thirty-year mortgages we turn on the same stress response and the key
difference there is
we're not doing it for real physiological reason and we're doing it
non-stop
by not turning off the stress response when reacting to life's traffic jams
we wallow in a corrosive battle for moms
even though it's not like her death
hyperventilate our hearts pound
muscles tense
ironically after a while the stress response is more damaging than the
stress risks of
because stress response psychological nonsense that you're falling for
nosy neighbor on her from running for its life with understand why
a fewer speaking in public
will cost you to secrete the same hormones that it's doing at that point
to save its life
own stresses the body's way of rising to a challenge
whether the challenges life-threatening trivial
more fun you get the right man stress we call it stimulation
goal in life is to get really stressed the goal in life is to have the right
type of stress
because once the right type we love it
when shop at a person to experience that we paid good money to get stressed that
way
it tends to be a moderate stressor you got a stress-free best transient it's
not for nothing roller coaster ride turn off three weeks long
and most of all we care about his you relinquish a little better control
in a setting that overall feel safe sheesh
but in real life for so many others primates including Roberts bubble
control is not an option two years and big male
who loses a play candy chases a sub at all
to by tonight or female who slaps a juvenile Knox and
into a tree on fifteen seconds
no in so far as a huge component of stresses
lacquer control like a predictability you're certain there in years is
watching the zebra
and somebody else is having a bad day in this your rear end actually get sloshed
tremendously psychologically stress for
for the folks further down the hierarchy 10 Roberts
early revelations was identifying the link between stress
and hierarchy in baboons some boom troops are over 100 strong
like us they have evolved large brains to navigate the complexities have large
societies in
lemme survival here requires a kinda
baboon political savvy with the most cunning and aggressive males
gaining Top Rank and all the perks
females for the choosing mall the food they can e
and in endless revenue with willing groomers the every male knows where he
stands in society
who can torture him who she can torture
and who in turn the torture re can torture
the of such a terrible thing to confess after thirty years but
I to actually like baboons all that much has been individual guys over the years
why I absolutely love
by Guarantee Scheme back-stabbing
machiavellian faster search of to each other
so they're great for my science and I'm not out here to commune with them
they're perfect for what I study the new 22 years ago
at the age of 30 Sapolsky is landmark research
earned him the MacArthur Foundation's Genius fellowship
%uh home his early work
measuring stress hormones from extracted blood led to two remarkable discoveries
a baboon turek determine the level of stress hormone in his system
%uh
so if you're a dominant male you can expect your stress hormones to be low
%uh dude if your submissive
%uh much hired but there was an even more revealing fine
in suppose key sample lower anchors
the have nots had increased our grades
and higher blood pressure this was the first time
anyone had linked stress to the deteriorating health
other primate in the wild basically
if you're you know a stressed on healthy baboon a typical true
high blood pressure elevated levels of stress hormones you have an immune
system that doesn't work as well
your reproductive system is more vulnerable to being knocked out of whack
your brain chemistry is one that bear some similarity to what you see in
clinically depressed humans
and all that stuff %uh those are not projectors a hale and hearty old age
could this also be true for that
other primate as Robert Sapolsky
was monitoring stress in baboons professor Sir Michael Marmot
was leading a study in great britain the track the health of more than
28,000 people over the course of forty years
it was named for
Whitehall Cittadella the British civil service work every job is ranked in a
precise hierarchy
the perfect laboratory to determine whether in humans
there might be a link between rank and stress
I mean that's the thing about stress I think you've got a look at it in both
acute terms and chronic terms I think I've been under chronic stress
in this organization simply because I'm a square peg in a round hole
kevin Brooks is a government lawyer his rack
level 7 means he has little seniority in his department
she lives the life of a subordinate
I think what I was most aware of at the time was the workload and how
I had listed under control but one of my cases wasn't
wholly-owned control just let it slip and it is a bit like
come you and being in a car hitting an ice patch
and skating but nonetheless I came in
Monday morning and supply immediate manager
let's call in bed then what's the word versus so we find a room
officials at all then he says you know you've done
you know happened while you were away we couldn't find one official files
do you know what that meant he just came here darn
good kick here psychologically details
the endeavors more threats it was right this may be a disciplinary matter
so I left the room crossed over the corridor to my own room
and I just burst into tears and wept wept
up
them Sarah woodall also works for the government
unlike Kevin she is a senior civil servant
there about a hundred and sixty people reporting to me ultimately
mom or another within the sector I do
really enjoy working with our service it's quite a dynamic
environments it can be quite exciting I am
I like work with lots of people ISAF I
I do really into my top such dramatically different reflections
dramatize one of the most astounding scientific findings in the Whitehall
study
firstly each showed that
lower you were in the hierarchy the higher your risk of heart disease
and other diseases so people second from the top
had higher risk than those at the top people third from the top
had a high wrist in this second tell and Iran
all the way from top to bottom we dealing with people in stable jobs with
no industrial exposures
and yet your position no hierarchy
intimately related to your risk disease
and links have lacked I've been very lucky I
I have never experienced any problems as my health I'm
since I've been a season seems also to happen had day of
with ill health say a I've been very fortunate
in my own situation I think that might occur is pretty much
arm tainted is pretty much
arrested because I had for since the last three years at work I've been off
sick
for probably half that time this particular study is sort of the Rosetta
Stone the whole field because
it's the British civil service system everybody's got the same medical care
everybody's got the same universal health care system
just like the patent all the baboons it the same thing at the same level
activity
it's not the stuff that or if you're a lower-ranking batboy is smoking watching
your drinks too much and if you're a lower-ranking greater civil service
guy you never go to the doctor and you don't get preventive vaccines both for
the studies rule out almost hard found
and they produce virtually identical findings on both sides of the primate
defied
there are sole wrenching stories and life-threatening consequences
I'll for every subordinate like to have him
living a life boom uncertainty there isn't alpha
strutting his stuff glory ing in power
over someone else someone unsuspecting
someone lower ranking
I'm
condom
12:46 to either if you see where the darkness
world okay guys who do you think high-ranking
like yeah
much carefully make sure the other guy doesn't how Salam
this year Robert brought his family to Africa
his wife you're a psychologist Lisa share Sapolsky
has also done extensive research with bubbles
way and for the first time they brought along their kids
Benjamin and Rachel sleep as he likes
cash
they're all the bathrooms are perfectly willing to get very freaked out by
the human coming over in touch when these guys but cover room with the
burlap and he doesn't exist anymore
oh my God he's there he's a not there anymore
this is not quite I take your kids to work day
but films pretty central feature of
who I am by now and who my wife and I are
and for kids 10 where we came from
this is pretty fundamental as in previous seasons
Robert measures how individuals at every level love the bubble hierarchy
react to and recover from stress
what we're doing it we're now going to challenge the system
with increasing doses it up and her friend
the baboons responses immediately picked up in its blood
vital signs that can be deep frozen in perpetuity
justice
storehouses potential knowledge and I got 30 years if those blood samples
frozen away at this point because
everyone wants some new form owner some you something or other pops up
and Dax thing to look at in store going after samples back to when
you know when she called it was president 150 25
anticipating the long reach of stress is a recent idea
news 41 robert was Rachel's age scientists believed stress was the cause
of only one major problem go this is a picture of a major american
personnel problem and ugly store that doctors call a peptic ulcer
eating away at the wall of a man's coming the No
stomach pains that you talk about knowing
the burning those are obvious symptoms gastric ulcer
thirty years ago watch the disease that comes to everybody's mind when you
mention stress
it's all servers stress and also stress and ulcers and
this was the first race related disease discovered it back 7 years ago
when I want you to do is to work on the rescue I had to
that's right also agreed on their own kinda feeling
you've got to be honest with yourself about the way you feel about
fine anno doctors sound like a better answer to me
the connection between stress and
ulcers was mainstream medical gospel until the early nineteen eighties
then Australian researchers identified a bacteria
as the major cause ulcers
and this offer through the entire feel this was
he's got nothing to do with stress it's a bacterial disorder
and I'm willing to bet half the gastroenterologist on earth when they
heard about this one out and celebrate it that night just like the greatest
news never again really good after sit down their patients and
make I contacted ask 'em housing cohen's to anything stressful
it's got nothing to do with stress it's bacterial disorder so no longer with the
solution be stress management
now it could be something as simple as a pill
it was a major breakthrough stressed didn't cause ulcers
case closed
but a few years later I'll
the research took a new twist scientists discovered that this
ulcer causing bacteria wasn't unique in fact
as much as two-thirds of the world's population has it
so why do only a fraction of these people develop ulcers
research revealed that when stressed
the body begin shutting down all nonessential systems
including the immune system and it became clear that
if you shut down the immune system stomach bacteria
can run amok because what the stress does
is wiped out the ability of your body to begin to repair your stomach walls
when they start rotting away from this bacteria so stressed
can cause ulcers by disrupting your body's ability to heal itself
no if stress can undermine the immune system
would rather have it kenna wreak one answer comes from a colony of captive
mckarrick monkeys
near winston-salem North Carolina people think I stress is something that keeps
them up at night or
something that makes them yeah let their kids up but
when you ask me what is stress I say
lookit its it's this huge plaque
in this artery that's what stresses
for two decades doctor carole shy vly
has been studying the arteries are mcadams your
I'm like baboons and British civil servants
these primates organized themselves into distinctly hierarchical group's
and subject one another to social stress dual
stress hormones can trigger an intense negative cardiovascular response
a pounding heart at increased blood pressure
%uh so if stress follows rank with the cardiovascular system other high-ranking
mechanic
column a primate CEO be different from his subordinate
home
then sharply look at the or to reserve a dominant marking
one with little history of stress its arteries were clean
well but a subordinate monkeys arteries
told a grim tales cool as the born in artery
has lots more atherosclerosis build
up inside it than a damn retard yes I'll
stress and the resulting flood of hormones had
increased blood pressure damaging artery walls
making them repositories for plaque of
so now way feel track your arteries don't expand
and your heart muscle doesn't get my blood and that
can lead to a heart attack this is not an abstract concept it's not something
that
maybe someday you should do something about me you need to attend to it
today because it's affecting the way your body functions
and he stressed today perfect your health tomorrow and for years to come
the social and psychological stress
whether mckarrick human or baboon can clog your arteries
restrict blood flow jeopardize the health of our heart
of and that's just the beginning of stresses
dead link occurs
them
Roberts early research
demonstrated that stress can work on us in an even more frightening way
well back when I was starting
in this business what I want to focusing on with this
puts him 10 utterly implausible idea at the time
which was chronic stress and chronic exposure to
court records could do something as hong subtle and grotesque as
kills from your brain cells as a PhD candidate at Rockefeller University in
the early 80s
Sapolsky collaborated with his mentor doctor bruce mcewan
to follow the path of stress into the brain they subjected lab rats to chronic
stress
and then examined their brain cells the team made an astonishing find
while the cells have normal rat brains have extensive branches
stressed rats brain cells were dramatically smaller
and what was most interesting in many ways was the part of the brain when this
was happening
hippocampus you take intro neurobiology anytime the last five thousand years in
which you learn as
hippocampus is learning and memory stress in these rats
trade the part of their brain responsible for memory
stress affects memory and two ways
chronic stress can actually change
brain circuits so that we lose the capacity
to remember things as we need to very severe
acute stress can have another a fact
which is often we refer to as stress makes you stupid
which is making it impossible for you in
show over short periods of time to remember things you know perfectly well
we all know that phenomenon we all know that one from back when we stressed
ourselves by not getting any sleep at all
the next morning at nine o'clock we couldn't remember a single thing for
that final exam
you take a human and stress them big-time long time
and you're gonna have a hippocampus that pays price as well in addition to
undermining our health
stress can make us feel plain miserable
Carol shy police set out to find out why
she began not with misery but with pleasure
shadley suspected that there was a link between stress
pleasure and where we stand on the social hierarchy
just like stress pleasure is linked to the chemistry of the brain
when a neurotransmitter called dopamine is released in the brain
it binds to receptors signaling pleasure
shy fleet used a p/e Teese kenner to examine the brain oven on stressed
primate
are primates CEO policy
is that the brain's Afghan a monkey's light up right with lots of dopamine
buying
in this area it's so important to rewarding feeling pleasure about life
shy to leave then look at the subordinates brain
what we discovered is that the brains of their sport monkeys
are very buried tell because there's
much less receptor-binding going on in this area
why is that what he said about this area of the brain
when you have a rest opening everything
around you that you would normally take pleasure in is less pleasurable so the
Sun doesn't shine so bright the grass is not some green
food doesn't taste as good it's because the way your brain is functioning that
you're doing any brains function that way because you know
and a social status hierarchy one feature of a low rank as being lower
ranking
the reality an even stronger future by the time you get to humans is
not just being world ranking work work it's feeling
below banking or poor and one of the best place for society to make you feel
like one of the have nots
is to rub your nose over and over and over again
with work you don't have Richmond Calif
a town where societies extremes can be spotted right from your car
this is cardiologists Jeffrey retirement regular commute
you can learn a lot about their distress and
health outcome just from the neighborhoods you visit and
in this neighborhood the the life expectancy is quite good and
must to the people are pretty healthy and that as we reach the top the hill it
gets to be a little bit last
privileged and as we make this transition
the a social status begins to drop
and correspondingly in those areas
the their health outcome is much worse and these people are not going to have
the same life expectancy
as the people in that the middle class area we started
people are on guard people are vigilant their living more stressful life
this is a community that produces high stress hormones and people
and overtime it takes its toll one of doctor retirement
patient his 65-year-old Emanuel Johnson
his career guidance counselor in one of America's most dangerous neighborhoods
well actually I think we had forty seven homicides
no help and the last I four days we had 11 shootings three deaths
and ideas no nine times out of ten it's going to be a relative
a someone bet the kids know for Emanuel Johnson
there is a price for chronic exposure to this stress
five is guy had a heart attack I'm a diabetic too much I have to work on it
constantly
they've been in this business twenty years just it's stressful
just working two jobs over the years that you know
the the Koch router but better show became on
later but the stress was always a la before they came on
the manual Johnson's body may be telling get another story of stress
some the Whitehall study in england
found an incredible link between stress your position in the social hierarchy
and how you put on weight said may not be just
putting on weight but also the distribution
that wage and the distribution that weight
putting it on round the center is related to position in the hierarchy
and that in turn may be related to chronic stress pathways
so we said does that happen in monkeys
because they organize themselves in a hierarchy to and it turns out that it
does
masa born in monkeys are more likely to have fat in their admin
then heart damage markets I think the most amazing
observation that
I've made in my lab is this idea that stress
actually changed the way you deposit fat on your body
to me that was at star idea that you could actually
alter away fat is distributed home
Sapolsky shyly and others think stress could be a critical factor in the global
obesity epidemic
even worse Sat brought on by stress
is dangerous fans you know that fact carried on the trial court actually
inside the abdomen is much worse for you than fat carried elsewhere in the body
it behaves differently it's it is arm it produces different kinds of
for moms and chemicals and has different a fax on your health
whatever it is that works
foreign individual day thing to value
stress reduction think the problem in our society is that we don't
values stress reduction we in fact that you the opposite
weenie admire the person who not only marquee casting does two things it was
but does five things at once a week I admire that person how they manage that
you know
protests its that's incredibly stressful
way to live we have to change our values and value people who understand
a balanced and serene life
one heartbreaking moment in history reveals that stress may in fact
damage just long before we r even aware
Holland late 1944 on
a brutal winter and a merciless army of occupation
conspire to storm a nation
it is known as the Dutch hunger winter for those who survive today
things are haunting memories cupcakes
economy telephoning me im
that label for did dating her so she awesome
in the mood you for shopping Thompson home
to kaelin to
detainment Diane hope to Don blasts palacios
in the cup passed under questioning ish bill to show last
or chrome to drinking general bring month in canada beat
dutch researchers Tesla rosborough had heard many of those tragic memories
I'll she and her team wanted to know if there were any lingering effects
roseboom new
that our bodies respond to famine in much the same way they respond to other
stressors
so she set out to see if the fetus is a
women pregnant during these arduous days could possibly be affected by stress
because a meticulous record-keeping by the Dutch
roseboom was able to identify over 2400 people
who could have been impacted she and her team
analyze the data from those born during and after the famine
and came to a surprising conclusion I think that you could say that
these babies were exposed to stress
in fetal life and they're still suffering the consequences of that
now sixty years later the
many have the Dutch hunger winter children leave today
all in their sixties many still bear the scars of war
we found the babies were conceived during the famine
have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease they have
more hypercholesterolemia they are
more responsive to stress and a generally RM
poorer health than people who were born before the famine
or conceived after it
researchers think that stress hormones in a mother's blood
triggered a change in the nervous system at the fetus as it struggled with
starvation
but this was the fetuses first encounter with stress
six decades later the bodies have these Dutch hunger with her children
still haven't forgotten what we now know is
it's not just your fat cells towards the wind up in Boulder Boulder
events like this it's your brain chemistry it's your capacity to learn
this and it all too sure capacity
to respond to stress adaptively rather than maladaptive Lee
how it when you fall into depression how vulnerable you are a psychiatric
disorders
yet another realm in which early experience in early stress can be very
very bad footprint and if I had had
option I would not have optics to be
bipolar but now that I am bipolar
I'll have to live with it dish do not allege that for for fun
ocean but super lace the kid that need help cannot meet Jessica
then dole how boast who
what the Dutch hunger winter phenomenon is about his
experience environments for too long before birth and adverse
stressful environment come imprints can leave scars
blasting a hole lifetimes
means
yo
played at kicking
fingerprint kind yeah had a happy face and fingerprint afternoon everyone
can we get cash antique only bank and hoping to go
care less and get here during this year's multi-generational research
Robert who has spent his career documenting stresses affect on the
individual
and on the cell tracks the trail of stress even deeper into our bodies
10 most interesting new direction stress research
is taking the effects of stress down to induction bolts level
how cells work how genes work that half a dozen years ago and nobody could have
imagined
the ones unimaginable genetic structures called telomeres
which protect the end of our chromosomes from frame
as we pay chart telomeres shorten what interesting
is stress by way of stress hormones
can accelerate the shortening of telomeres haha to the assumption is for
the exact same page guys
if you're a low-ranking guard who's just been marinating and stress hormones
your telomeres who could be shorter so how does this formidable finding apply
to us
San Rafael Calif
once a week Janet Lawson keeps a very important appointment
she joined other mothers who share circumstances that produce chronic
unremitting stress so but she was your balance and that's the scary part
so we just went out actually last night but a new helmet just for fun
she's getting older and wanting more independence it's getting harder
each of these women his mother to a disabled child
for us my son's only 8 and and there's enough I can handle and I don't allow
myself to go
too much i cant i'd a friend recently who said to me
you know I think you really should consider putting Lexie at home and
on that was really stressful in have a tough to think
haha self spree
stuff like a hockey
even tho paper she's in a handle girlfriend
she's on even though she can't really communicate
she loves I
should him
these remarkable women came to the attention a biologist
doctor Elizabeth Blackburn I didn't directly know the individuals
but I know who to stories and a mother myself and so when I heard about this
code word
I really thought it was worthwhile finding out
what really is happening at the heart of the cells in
these mothers who doing such a difficult thing for such a long time
doctor blackburn is a leader in the field of telomere research
we have 46 chromosomes and they kept of
at each end by to Libya's nobody knew in humans
with %uh to me is and if raining down oh the life
would be affected by chronic stress and so
we decided we would look at this cohort of
chronically stressed mothers are and we decided to ask what's happening today it
till amir's and to the maintenance they tell me is
the movie photos the links in 30 Lummis
directly relates to the amount of stress
somebody is under and p.m. number reviews
that they've been under the stress such stressed mothers became the focus of a
study by doctor Blackburn's colleague
psychologist Melissa Apple are
mothers and young children are highly stressed group
their often balancing competing demands like work
and child-rearing and and often don't have time to take care of themselves
see if you out on top of that extra burden of carrying
for a child with special needs it can be overwhelming
it can tax very reserves that sustain people
and if they're stressed their poor stress they tend to die earlier
these women have shortened telomeres decreased activity of this enzyme
and very very rough number for every year you were taken care for chronically
ill child
he got roughly six years were to beijing
this is real this is not just somebody winding
this is real medically serious
aging going on and we concede that its actually coolest
by to chronic stress
but they're is hope doctor blackburn Co discovered in
enzyme to Lola race that can repair the damage
moon its but I was caught the threat a pump
you preliminary data
suggests that a meeting of minds such as this make actually have a health benefit
best by stimulating the healing effects have to lower rates
out it can laugh and laugh don't if you don't laugh forget it you can handle it
hey this when I found is that humor is something
if there's a certain level a black humor that we have about our kids
that only we appreciate we're the only ones who get the jokes and
in a way with the only ones who are allowed to laugh at the joke whenever
questions and the stress field years you know what are the active ingredients
that reduce stress and that promote longevity
and compassion and and caring for others
maybe when it is most important ingredients so does maybe the factors
that promote longevity and increased along race
and keep our cells rejuvenating in regenerating
so perhaps connecting with and helping others
can help us to mend ourselves and maybe even live longer
healthier lives called
twenty years ago Robert got a shocking preview of this idea
the first repeat ever studied the baboons he felt closest to
and had written books about suffered a calamity
it would have a profound effect on his research
lemme for the kicker are true is the one I started with thirty years ago
and they were your basic old baboon troop at the time and which means
males were aggressive and society was highly stratified and
females took a lot agree for the year basic off the rack cabin/entry
and then about by now almost twenty years ago
something horrific and scientifically very interesting happen tonight rooms
the key karach troupe took to foraging for food in the garbage dump a popular
tourist lodge
it was a fatal move our the trash included me
tainted with tuberculosis me
the result was that nearly half the males in the truth died
team
not unreasonably I got depressed as hell and pretty damn angry about what
happened
you know here is 30 years old you can afford to expend a lot of commotion on
the baboon troop and
there was a lot of emotion there of
for Robert a decade of research appear to have been lost
the but then he made a curious observation
about who had died and crew had survived
wasn't random who died in that troop
if you were aggressive and if you were not particularly socially connected
socially affiliated you can spend your time grooming and hanging out
if you like an email you dont im
every alpha male was gonna from the key karach crew
had been transformed and what you're left with is was
twice as many females as males and the males who were remaining were
you know just use scientific jargon they were good guys
they were not aggressive and sure they were nice to the females they were very
slowly affiliate it completely transform the atmosphere in the troop
like when male baboons reach adolescence
the typically leave their home troop in world
eventually finding a new troop and
new adolescent males mature in the true they'd come injustice jerky is any
adolescent males elsewhere on this planet
and we're taking about six months to learn we're not like that on this trip
we don't do stuff like that we're not that aggressive we spend more time
grooming each other males are common with each other you do not dump on a
female if you're in a bad mood
and it takes these new guys about six months and
they assimilate this style and you a baboon culture in this particular trip
as a culture of
fairly low levels of aggression and high levels of social affiliation they're
doing that twenty years later
and still the tragedy had provided Robert with a fundamental lesson
not just about cells but how the
absence of stress could impact society to these guys have the same problems
with high blood pressure
nope to these guys have the same problems with it brain chemistry related
anxiety stress hormone levels not at all
it's not just your rank
export your rank means in your society and the same is true for humans
with only a slight variation we belong to multiple hierarchies
had you may have the worst job in your corporation and no autonomy and control
capability
but you're the captain the company softball team at here
and you better back you were gonna have also it's a psychological means to
decide
it's just the job 925 that's not what the world is about what the world's
about his
softball on the head of my team people look up to me
and you come out after citing you on top of the hierarchy that matters to you
month
that worked Anna lots
that will improve which
under the right circumstances with great seasons experimenters eight gold mine
%ah unfortunately this time around just
cage to have to clean now
arms studying stress for thirty years now and I even
tell people how they should look differently so presumably I should
incorporate all this is the reality is
like cum unbelievably stressed from Taipei and
poorly coping and Mike why else would I study the stuff 80 hours a week
no doubt everything I advises could use all its credibility if i keel over dead
from a heart attack in my early fifties
knack I'm not good at dealing with stress
you know one thing that works to my advantage is I love my work I love for
every aspect of it so that's good
nonetheless is pretty clearly a different place
I savanna East Africa your
you can do science here that's very different and
more interesting and some ways you can have hot showers on a more regular basis
sets a more
interesting varied were all time blocks aways
but for our Swan out there that you sure miss
you
there is a pretty miraculous place where
every meal taste good and your
ten times more where every sensation this is a hard place to
come to year after year without getting income for me
different metabolism and temperament
a more extroverted here more
more happy her
smart place not to be happy I'll
home
so one
antidote to stress maybe finding a place where we have controlled
but how do we reckon with all the time we spend at work
I would say what we've learned from
to Whitehall studying from the study is a non-human primates
his the conditions in which people live and work
%uh absolutely vital for the Hells
senior civil servants era Woodhall
enjoys the benefits of control home I don't
think I suffer from stress I don't work 100 as a week
I control am im at work the tightest to make sure that
Aiken County to clever long-term
control the amount of controllers intimately related
to where you are in the occupational hierarchy
and what we have found easy in general
we people report to us that things have got worse
that the amount of work stress is gone up
their illness rates go up where people report to us that they got more control
they're being treated more fairly at work this more justice
in the amount of treatment two things are getting better
the amount of illness goes down I've been very lucky I
I have never experienced any problems as my health but not everyone is so lucky
so is there a prescription for the vast majority of us
who aren't at the top give people more involvement network gets the more say in
what they're doing
give them more reward for the united efforts they put out
and it might well be you have not just a healthy workplace
but a more productive workplace as well up
I've managed to achieve a degree of control
at the moment I'm in a very good position this is the first time washy
life had
a boss who appreciates me he doesn't dominate team meetings he sits back
he invites people to contribute he let other people to
he's a real manager and he from the start when I returned of my latest sick
leave just six months ago
he was so positive I think I feel sufficiently
and power board
good who would have imagined
that Roberts baboons would point us humans
towards a stress-free utopia this may sound
a little fanciful but I think what we're trying to create
is a better society the implications both since the pilgrims
I love the British civil servants is how can we create
this society that has the conditions that allow people to flourish
and that's where this is heading to create
had better society the promotes human flourishing
somewhat or beverage teach the average person in there
don't bite somebody because you're having a bad day
don't just placed on them in any sort of manner social affiliations remarkably
powerful thing and
that said by somebody who lives in a world where ambition and drive in Taipei
in this and all that sort of thing dominates
those things are real important and one of the greatest forms of sociality
his giving rather than receiving and
all those things make for a better world home
another one of the things that happened ten shows
his different area people two men one generation transform what are supposed
to be
textbookssocial systems stricken grave tombstone
we don't have an excuse for me say they're certain inevitability smashing
and social systems
and sell the haunting question that endures from Robert's life work
are be brave enough to learn from a baboon
had the key karach true didn't just survive without stress
think thrived home
home can we
on ok to order stress
portrait of a killer on DVD call PBS home video
1 800 play PBS or
visit us online at shop PBS
.org means up