Some Poor grad student pressing on the flanks of a hamster and out comes a doctorate on the other side

Importantly, rather than promoting aggression, testosterone promotes whatever is needed to maintain status when challenged.

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

We all seek out stress. We hate the wrong kinds of stress but when it's the right kind, we love it - we pay good money to be stressed by a scary movie, a roller coaster ride, a challenging puzzle.

If you care about your longevity and health, be a socially affiliated baboon who is better than high-ranking ones at walking away from provocations.

Most people who do a lot of exercise, particularly in the form of competitive athletics, have unneurotic, extraverted, optimistic personalities to begin with. (Marathon runners are exceptions to this.)

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.