This book is all about the deleterious effects of stress on the human body, and a fine example of when reading an ebook rather than a paper book pays off.
First, the book goes into great detail, down to the neuron level on how and why stress causes damage, and why the body tends to behave that way. It is dense with scientific explanations, but the author takes a friendly approach and guides the reader through the unfamiliar lingo until even the most casual reader feels comfortable reading words like “glucocortocoids“.
I was impressed with how each chapter deals with a different aspect of our health, both physical and psychological. The idea to end the book with advice and strategies for prolonging our life (or improving our happiness with what we get) was a good idea to balance with the bad news from most of the previous chapters.
Secondly, I read this book by checking it out as an ebook from my library. That meant that the most recent research could be included in this edition, and it seems like there were a lot of changes in the time between editions. It is a little startling to think how differently I might have taken the information from an older version – research in this area seems to have come a long way.
So despite its relative density, this was an interesting book to read and it was nice to get a little more detail into how my body is dealing with its upcoming disintegration (eventually).
Next I’m reading The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World by Laura Imai Messina.
