TELEVISION
About
Feeling stressed? You're not alone. Stress is a fact of life. And the key to changing how stress affects you is a thorough knowledge of how it works-which you'll find in the 24 fascinating lessons of Stress and Your Body, taught by one of the world's foremost researchers on stress and neurobiology.
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Episodes
1. Why Don't Zebras Get Ulcers? Why Do We?
30m
In Professor Sapolsky's introductory episode, get a behind-the-scenes look at the science of stress and preview the groundwork for the course ahead. What exactly happens to our bodies when we come under stress? And how is our response to stress different from that of a zebra being hunted al ong a savannah?
2. The Nuts and Bolts of the Stress-Response
30m
Every time you have a thought or emotion, things change in your body. Here, explore the two factors responsible for these changes: the nervous system and hormones. Learn how these systems work, how they're regulated, and: most important: what happens to them during moments of stress.
3. Stress and Your Heart
30m
Armed with the necessary background information, explore how specific organ systems suffer when faced with chronic stress. In the first of a series of episodes on this subject, learn how long-term stress can damage heart muscles, inflame and clog blood vessels, and even lead to sudden cardiac arrest.
4. Stress, Metabolism, and Liquidating Your Assets
30m
The next organ system you focus on: the metabolic system. Discover how cycles of chronic stress lead to a persistent activating and storing of energy, which in turn can lead to an inefficient use of energy and play a critical role in the prevalence of adult-onset diabetes.
5. Stress, Overeating, and Your Digestive Tract
30m
Focus now on the role stress plays in our gastrointestinal tracts. Why do most of us eat more during stressful periods? How does stress affect bowel disorders like irritable bowel syndrome and spastic colons? And how does stress combine with a bacterial infection to produce a common stress-related disease: ulcers?
6. Stress and Growth- Echoes from the Womb
30m
The first of two episodes on stress and child development takes you inside prenatal and postnatal life. Using two extraordinary examples, Professor Sapolsky reveals the ways a fetus can respond to the environmental stressors of its mother, and how different parenting styles can affect the stress levels of young children.
7. Stress, Growth, and Child Development
30m
Investigate how chronic stress can disrupt the growth of young children by focusing on stress dwarfism and the connection between stress and low growth hormone levels. Also, learn how mid-20th-century experiments with monkeys proved how important love: and not just nutrients: is in raising less-stressful children.
8. Stress and Female Reproduction
30m
Get an insightful overview of the multifaceted effects of stress on the female reproductive system. Some of the topics you explore are the intricate relationships between stress and fertilization, ovulation, spontaneous miscarriages, high-tech in vitro fertilization, and the strength of the libido.
9. Stress and Male Reproduction
30m
Despite being simpler than its female counterpart, the male reproductive system is just as vulnerable to chronic stress. Here, discover how stress leads not to a major decrease in testosterone so much as an increase in erectile dysfunction (with a focus on two of the most common symptoms: impotency and premature ejaculation).
10. Stress and Your Immune System
30m
Turn now to the relationship between stress and your immune system. After mastering the basics of how this system works, delve into how frequent stressors can result in flare-ups of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, can increase your vulnerability to infections like the common cold and herpes viruses, and more.
Extended Details
- SeriesGreat Courses
- Closed CaptionsEnglish