by Lucinda Davis

Created on: January 20, 2011

Stress will keep us up nights worrying and tear through our bodies like a Viking terrorizing a village. The effects of stress on the body are so profound it does affect our health to extents that you can see on a scientific level. Stress can actually kill parts of your brain, cause coronary problems, and weight gain in the mid section.

You can even see the damage that stress does to our DNA. The end caps of our DNA will deteriorate from stress and then become frayed on the ends unless you repair it. This can be repaired with naturally produced substances in our bodies. Our bodies produce these healers when we are laughing and enjoying life.

A scientist has been studying the effects of stress on baboons for decades. He has been tranquilizing them discreetly to minimize any stress he could cause in their environment. He said that these baboons have a social hierarchy and the male baboons at the top of the social chain are the least stressed and therefore they are the healthiest. The stressed out baboons at the bottom of the social ladder have more weight around the mid section just like humans, they have higher stress levels and the same chemical changes in their bodies.

What's really interesting is when they did a study on humans over a forty year span they found the same interesting results. They did a study in a company and the people who were at the top of the food chain such as the management had lower stress levels and were overall healthier. People who were "peons" carried a lot of stress and were prone to heart attacks, weight gain, and memory loss. So, your boss has less stress than you, your bosses boss has less stress than your boss and so on.

Now there is something interesting about that little tribe of baboons they studied. One year the scientist went back to study the baboons and had found many of the baboons had gotten into some tourist garbage. The baboons that ate the garbage died because it contained tuberculosis. The dominant males who terrorized the other baboons were the ones who died.

The survivors were mainly females and a few docile males. This changed this one tribe of baboons. There is probably no other like them in the world. This group of baboons spend more time grooming each other and caring for each other. Each time a new male tries to come into their click and intimidate them and screech at them they don't put up with it. They show him a more caring lifestyle and soon the new baboon will join in with their ways.

So it is important that we find a way to eliminate the bad stress from our lives. Find ways to stop worrying about money, your job, and whatever else keeps you up at night. The next time your boss begins to chew you out for something you've done maybe you can visualize your boss as a screeching baboon. You can remember that the bullies do get their "just desserts" and you can have a chuckle with some friends which will begin to repair the damage that's been done.

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