Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
Book by Robert SapolskyWikipedia
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Search complete. 20 mentions across 16 episodes found for "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers".
Nov 4, 2026
Frank BrittGUEST
So let's start with even a more foundational question is what is the problem we're trying to solve? And then how does recovery fit into that narrative? You know, there's a book that I'm sure you read.
Frank BrittGUEST
It's been around for 25 years or so called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Frank BrittGUEST
And if you recall that book, which I'm sure you do, that book is really a seminal piece of work on the issue of chronic stress.
Frank BrittGUEST
And what we assert, a little bit of a chipper of our shoulder at Escape, is that we've all accepted a bad bargain, that we live in a modern world with all the modern dynamics of uncertainty.
Michael Hewitt-GleesonHOST
Cortisol as well, but adrenaline.
Michael Hewitt-GleesonHOST
Particularly, the obvious one is, you know, you're, I mean, my favorite professor on this topic is Professor Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University and his wonderful book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Morry MorganHOST
Oh.
Michael Hewitt-GleesonHOST
And he tells a story, you know, you're a zebra and a lion slashes open your stomach and you've got to hang out and you've got to just get out of there really quickly and And so that's the stressor.
Gwen BachGUEST
Thank you so much.
Anae LloydHOST
Yanka Milner, thank you for joining us, Yanka, says, with your zebra analogy, you reminded me of a brilliant book, Why Zebras Don't Have Ulcers.
Anae LloydHOST
Yes, who wouldn't
Gwen BachGUEST
love Robert Sapolsky? Also, his book, Behave, is amazing.
Mark HymanHOST
It comes and it goes.
Mark HymanHOST
And there was a wonderful book written by a crazy wild scientist from Stanford, Robert Sapolsky, who has been on the podcast called, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Mark HymanHOST
Basically, the thesis is that
speaker_0ADVERTISER
zebras just- John Husted testified at the first energy corruption trial, not against first energy, but for them.
Derek ClarkGUEST
As I'm recovering, plenty of time to research things, take some extra classes.
Derek ClarkGUEST
And I found this book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
Derek ClarkGUEST
And I start reading this and right away, I kind of started figuring out how this high blood pressure may have been an issue because what I now call myself is a stressaholic.
Derek ClarkGUEST
Yeah.
14 MINS LATER
Derek ClarkGUEST
if stress is an energy system surge and we're all about energy when we run out of that energy or how our body produces that is important.
Derek ClarkGUEST
So if it's metabolic health, I would say, I'm going to cheat here and say to Casey means is Dr. Casey means his book, good energy or Dr. Ben Bickman's book, why we get sick or two that I've recommended to a lot of people.
Derek ClarkGUEST
But if we're just talking stress, I'm going back to why zebras don't get ulcers by Dr. Robert Sapolsky.
Travis AppleHOST
Nice.
Jeff PattonGUEST
I forget his first name.
Jeff PattonGUEST
He wrote a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, and it explains a lot of how our brain chemistry works and why we do this thing.
Jeff PattonGUEST
But one of the things he explains is that, yeah, you get a dopamine hit when you play a game when you pull that slot machine, or I'm going to assert that stakeholders and companies and product managers get a dopamine hit when they come up with that feature idea and they build it and they launch it.
Jeff PattonGUEST
But what Sapolsky shows from monitoring the brains of chimpanzees is you get the dopamine hit when you try, not when you succeed.
Jared AngazaGUEST
I appreciate that.
Kevin MillerHOST
I think directly to, I just pulled it up, I couldn't remember the author, Robert Sapolsky, who you know, but his book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Kevin MillerHOST
I love that analogy, that the zebra's sitting there out in the savanna, eating grass, having a grand time with its buddies, and nervous system is down, and then here comes the lion, and it goes, boom, yeah, right into, it takes off like crazy, life is on the line, doesn't die.
Kevin MillerHOST
Couple minutes later, what's it doing? It's back eating grass again and thinking, gosh, how far we've come from that.
Abud BakriGUEST
Yep.
Abud BakriGUEST
And there's a book called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Julian DoreyHOST
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
Abud BakriGUEST
Yes.
Julian DoreyHOST
Okay.
speaker_0HOST
I looked first for some support.
speaker_0HOST
Robert Sapolsky's work on stress offers a version of it in Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
speaker_0HOST
A lion appears and its body mobilises.
speaker_0HOST
Energy becomes available.
Kim BarthelGUEST
Now, to humans, [laughs] we have thoughts, which is we treat our thoughts like the lion on the savanna.
Kim BarthelGUEST
My teacher is a, a guy named Dr. Robert Sapolsky, and he wrote the book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, because when they are chased by the lion on the savanna, they get up and they shake it off, and they move on.
Kim BarthelGUEST
And humans don't do that.
Kim BarthelGUEST
We ruminate, we try to use our cognition [laughs], and we loop around in there, trying to figure it out.
6 more episodes mention Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers.
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