Digestion is quickly shut down during stress…The parasympathetic nervous system, perfect for all that calm, vegetative physiology, normally mediates the actions of digestion. Along comes stress: turn off parasympathetic, turn on the sympathetic, and forget about digestion.

An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.

I had never planned to become a savanna baboon when I grew up; instead, I had always assumed I would become a mountain gorilla.

Hormones influencing the sensitivity of the person to environmental stimuli.

We live well enough to have the luxury to get ourselves sick with purely social, psychological stress.

What does the frontal cortex do? Gratification postponement, executive function, long-term planning, and impulse control. Basically, it makes you do the harder thing.

The regulation of genes is often more interesting than the genes themselves, and it's the environment that regulates genes.