One thing you've probably noticed is how much this pandemic has thrown so many of us into

a high stress state. We feel anxious, we feel distracted, we are sleep deprived, and it's

happening on nearly a daily basis. As a neurosurgeon, I couldn't help but wonder what does this

constant stress do to our brains? Well, one of my personal idols in this particular field

is Professor Robert Sapolsky. He teaches biology and neuroscience at Stanford University. He's

also spent decades researching the effects of stress on the brain. He wrote one of my favorite

books, a very influential one, called Why Zebras Don't Get Allsers. Zebras don't get allsers

normally in the wild because they're not smart enough to think about mortality and global

warming and to be able to feel moved by the plight of a refugee on the other side of the planet.

That's Professor Sapolsky. His research shows that non-primeate mammals simply don't experience

chronic stress like we humans do. Lions coming at them, they run for their life if they evade it

by 30 seconds later, all the zebras thinking about is this blade of grass versus that blade of grass.

And the punchline of all of stress-related disease is returning on a system which didn't

evolve for dealing with chronic psychosocial stress. On today's episode, I talked to Professor Sapolsky

about how the unrelenting stress of this pandemic is affecting our brains and what we can do to try

and help. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent and this is coronavirus,

Fact vs. Fiction.

This has been a tough year, Professor. I mean, I had this strange sort of episode just a few days

ago where I was sitting at my desk typing away and doing a few things and if you were to ask me

what time it was, I would have told you it was around 2.30 in the afternoon and I sit mostly in

this windowless basement so I had no external cues and then I looked at my watch and it was 6.45,

4 hours and 15 minutes later and I felt very foggy. I just felt like I was in this bubble of liquid.

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