The gigantic challenge is the magnitude of the individual differences in the optimal set point for "good stress." For one person, it's doing something risky with your bishop in a chess game; for someone else, it's becoming a mercenary in Yemen.

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

Oxytocin is a Teflon hormone - bad news rolls off it.

But often, it's easier to resist temptation with distraction, or to be so inculcated in doing the right thing that it's automatic, outside the frontal cortex's portfolio - Then it isn't the harder thing, it's the only thing you can do.

We're getting along so well; I trust you so much for this one second that I'm going to let you yank on me.

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

Genes are important for understanding our behavior. Incredibly important - after all, they code for every protein pertinent to brain function, endocrinology, etc.