Is there a stress vaccine coming any time soon? Dr. Robert Sapolsky has been researching stress vaccine for 30 years and seems they may very well be one on the horizon. Read more below, see a photo and videos of Dr. Sapolsky.
After 30 years of research in primatology, specifically with baboons, Dr Robert Sapolsky believes that it is possible to alter brain chemistry to create a state of ‘focused calm’. A stress vaccine that can help you remain calm without making you sluggish, making you loose your focus or slowing you down.
I want me one of those!
Dr. Sapolsky is a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University in California. He claims that he is closing in on a path to a genetically engineered formula that would elevate the need for relaxation therapies or prescription drugs to relieve stress.
Chronic stress differs from the normal worries of everyday life. As we all know, chronic stress can lead to a multitude of illnesses like heart attacks, diabetes, strokes and a whole host of other stress related health problems. The illnesses range in severity from something like acne to something as serious as cancer. In his research, Professor Sapolsky observed that stress caused physical damage to the animals he was studying in Kenya. He has been studying hormones called glucocorticoids, which are part of the body’s immune system and help fight cancer and inflammation. These hormones are produced by all animals and are the hormones that help us (and baboons and other mammals) deal with an imminent threat.
Most anxiety is caused by what we call the ‘fight or flight’ instinct. When we perceive a threat, our senses are heightened and we prepare to fight or run away. In the animal kingdom, the hormones precipitate some action, either fighting or running away. In the human world, the threats we sense are not as concrete as our cave-man ancestors had to deal with. Instead of reacting in a primal manner, we tend to suppress the instinct, leaving the hormones that are prompting us to act with nothing to do but hang out in our bodies and make us sick, both emotionally and physically.
Professor Sapolsky has observed that a zebra will turn off the stress chemicals once the threat has passed. Modern man has lost the ability to turn off the hormones. We produce too many glucocorticoids for the real or perceived threats we face in our everyday lives and we don’t have a clue how to turn the hormones off once we no longer feel threatened.
Since the glucocorticoids have nothing to do in modern man’s bodies most of the time they are released into the body they build up and become toxic. They make us sick biologically by destroying brain cells and weakening our immune system. They harm our social relationships because we become irritable, irrational and angry, often (if not usually) pushing our emotions into our subconscious minds and then displacing them by snapping at the wrong people, in the wrong situations and long after the original conflict has passed.
The Stanford team has adapted a herpes virus to carry engineered ‘neuroprotective’ genes deep into the brain to neutralize the rogue hormones before they can cause damage. The virus is now shown to work on rats.
Professor Sapolsky’s preparatory work was published last October by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Professor Sapolsky says he’s still amazed it works, but warns that human trials are still years away. One of his colleagues said:
In humans this engineered virus would short-circuit the neural feedback caused by stress, that lingering feeling of tension after a crisis has passed.
‘It would leave you fresher and ready to deal with another threat, so you can maintain your drive, but with more focused calm rather than bad temper and digestion.
This could change society.
It seems that Professor Sapolsky’s 30-years of research is paying off and a stress vaccine is coming. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for all the trials to be completed. In the meantime, we’ll have to rely on stress-reduction techniques we already use like yoga, exercise and for some, medication.
The videos below are of Dr. Robert Sapolsky discussing baboons and stress.
I want to be the first to sign up for the clinical trials. my chronic stress and my lack of ability to control how it affects me is crazy and causing health problems. I’m only 40 but i feel like I’m 65.
I would love to get my mom signed up. She has had shingles constantly for years and the doctors have told her it’s “”stress”" related. If would be wonderful if we found something to help her.
Wake up! This is a chemical lobotomy that will change who you are forever. This vaccine will erradicate parts of your Self, and you will be incapable of expressing normal, human emotions. Having a live herpes virus eat away parts of my brain is not sounding like the optimal choice for me. And btw…let’s keep lithium out of the water…google lithium in water and chemical lobotomy vaccine and GET INFORMED!
Why is there something suddenly wrong with anger? Anger is a necessary emotion, and I embrace it! I am angry that we are being poisoned with lithium, arsenic, lead and fluoride in the water we drink. I am angry that we are being diseased by the modified food we eat. I am angry that we are being vaccinated with well known neurotoxins. I am angry that the nightly news reports on American Idol, but says nothing of Codex Alimentarius. I am angry that we are over-medicated, under-educated and grossly uninformed. I am angry that we are producing a society of dumbed down, distracted people who don’t realize that they, too, should be angry!
Is that Rupert from Surivor?!?!?!
I agree with the 4th person lol. Its all just natural emotions and these types of people think that theres something wrong with it. Thats just my personal opinion, do your own research then find out what you think
LOL Joan – he looks like Rupert doesn’t he!
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I would like to know when the vaccine will be approved. I have suffered from insomnia since I was a child and I am almost 62 years old. It has gotten alot worse and I have used sleeping pills to which I became addicted. My circadian rhythm is totally off. I am desperate and don’t want to take any prescription medication for this condition.
Maria Miller
[...] Blue Star Chronicles August 2010 [...]
So, do you folks believe this is true?:
“Modern man has lost the ability to turn off the hormones. We produce too many glucocorticoids for the real or perceived threats we face in our everyday lives and we don’t have a clue how to turn the hormones off once we no longer feel threatened.”
Poor human beings, victims of their own inner states, unlike _any_ other animal. Typical doctor stance; who’s brainwashed here?
Dr. Sapolsky is a professor of neuroscience at Stanford University in California. He claims that he is closing in on a path to a genetically engineered formula that would ELEVATE? the need for relaxation therapies or prescription drugs to relieve stress.
Did you mean alliviate?
PBS has been running KILLER STRESS.
More people should see how much we behave like intimidated baboons when stressed.