Hello everyone. It's Dr. Niagara again with our next edition of Psychology Unplugged. Thank you for all of your continued feedback, positive comments, and questions, which have been really helpful in helping myself and my wife try and formulate topics we're going to broach every week.

So the one we're going to focus on today is stress.

That's been one of the most common things that people have been asking about. Not surprising,

given that we are all living in a very dystopian world and a very bizarre time through this

current pandemic.

And stress is something that is very unique to the human condition.

To really understand a lot of us, stress, I would recommend a great book.

It's called Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky.

Interesting concept because stress really is very much a unique experience for humans.

I want to focus on the physiology of the stress response.

Okay.

So stress is a subjective, perceptive experience. I've mentioned this before, two individuals,

several individuals, all witness and experience the same event. All of the individuals are going

to have different perceptions. Some may find that situation anxiety or stress provoking.

Others may find it simply innocuous and doesn't bother them whatsoever.

But what happens to the body when it is perceived to be in a sense of danger?

Now, humans are designed to do two things. One, procreate.

Two, survive. And stress and anxiety, as ironic as it may seem, are actually adaptive and part of the

survival mode of the human experience.

So when an individual perceives something as being dangerous, the eyes and the ears send information to a part of the brain called the amygdala.

It's an almond-shaped structure.

It's a part of the brain that contributes to emotional processing.

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