Robert Sapolsky Quotes

When people get into that fight-or-flight place, then they move away from the creative centers of their brain.

Any time a body goes outside the environmental conditions for which it developed it has to acclimate.

A man's brain has a more difficult time shifting from thinking to feeling than a women's brain does.

Communications technology changes possibilities for communication, but that doesn't mean it changes the inherited structure of the brain. So you may think that you're addicted to online reading, but as soon as it isn't available anymore, your brain will pretty immediately adjust to other forms of reading. It's a habit like all habits.

Emotional life grows out of an area of the brain called the limbic system, specifically the amygdala, whence come delight and disgust and fear and anger.

Life needs a membrane to contain itself so it can replicate and mutate.

Its not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.

If you act scared, your body produces adrenaline.

The main thing I've learned is that we all have to learn to work with - and appreciate - the brain we've been given, and not waste time wishing things were easier.

When we talk about the brain, it is anything but unidimensional or simplistic or reductionistic.

Our brains are wired such that it's difficult to take action until we feel at least some level of this emotional state. In fact, performance peaks under the heightened activation that comes with moderate levels of stress. As long as the stress isn't prolonged, it's harmless.

Your brain is so lovely and so willing to please. It wants to help so much.

The more you change and stress the body the quicker it's going to adapt and change.

If you're left to scream and scream day after day, your levels of cortisol remain high, and you develop a slight immunity to your own stress, so what you find is babies who have been neglected tend to become risk-takers.

My lab looks at the ability of stress hormones to kill brain cells, and basically we are trying to understand on a molecular level how a neuron dies after a stroke, a seizure, Alzheimer's, brain aging, and what these stress hormones do to make it worse.

The pancreas releases insulin to make you ready for fight or flight when you're scared. So if you don't fight or flight - if you stay onstage, telling jokes - then your body stores more fat in your tummy which makes you insulin resistant. All comedians have fat bellies, even if they exercise.

Shift often from openness to closure.

I am not afraid of the word tension.

That's the purpose of stress. It's a friend. It's an alarm clock, built in to let you know that it's time to do The Work.

Stress is the spice of life.

By putting yourself in that intense form of stress, it makes regular life more peaceful.

I think the growth of the brain is a slow process. But you do change and the more you accept change and embrace change, the better.

We apply fight-or-flight reflexes not only to predators, but to data itself.

Unbeknownst to most fun-loving bipeds, not all stress is bad. Indeed, the New Rich don't aim to eliminate all stress. Not in the least.

Stress is a form of suffering, but it is accepted as normal. And it is normal in our world.