Toxic Stress: How Stress Is Making Us Ill and What We Can Do About It

by Lawson R. Wulsin Narrated by David de Vries

Overview

Our stress response system is magnificent-it operates beneath our awareness, like an orchestra of organs playing a hidden symphony. When we are healthy, the orchestra plays effortlessly, but what happens when our bodies face chronic stress, and the music slips out of tune? The alarming rise of stress-related conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and depression, show the price we're paying for our high-pressure living, while global warming, pandemics, and technology have brought new kinds of stress into all our lives. But what can we do about it? Explore the fascinating mysteries of our hidden stress response system with Dr. Wulsin, who uses his decades of experience to show how toxic stress impacts our bodies; he gives us the expert advice and tools needed to prevent toxic stress from taking over. Chapter by chapter, learn to help your body and mind recover from toxic stress.

Editorial Reviews

Doody's Review Service

Reviewer: Olivia Colombo, DO, MHA (Trinity Health)
Description: This book review was co-authored by Daniel Domin, MS-3, Wayne State University School of Medicine. This book details the direct and indirect roles of prolonged mental health stress and dysregulated responses in disease development and shortening of lifespans. Accordingly, it makes the case for more consistent and robust gauging of such stress with corresponding implementation of treatment strategies to provide more definitive patient care.
Purpose: The book shines a spotlight on an under-prioritized but highly consequential parameter, known as the "stress profile", used when making clinical decisions geared towards improving health outcomes. It relates real and moving patient cases. The book also calls to attention that applying "tape" over health problems is unlikely to achieve desired results unless clinicians address the aspects of mental health sparking their development and modifying their course. Changing the current approach will be no small ask for resources in terms of both comprehensive interventional programs and research to further elucidate interplays between stress and chronic disease. However, it is the author's implicit belief that the promise of reducing our health care burden as well as greatly improving patient and physician satisfaction offsets the costs.
Audience: Although the book caters toward physicians, particularly primary care providers, psychiatrists, and certain diagnostic specialties, its messaging and overall style cover a broader audience. It also includes the laity, healthcare students, biomedical researchers, and bodies regulating funding for health care and research. The book is written in a way that makes complex biomedical terms easy to understand. Combined with its compelling and well-sourced evidence, it will benefit those looking to gain a better sense of interrelatedness between stress and illness as they strive to change their daily habits. For medical students, this book serves as a reminder to think bigger about underlying causes of disease they will encounter. Last but not least, given incomplete knowledge about the intricacies through which dysregulated stress affects overall health, the book inspires future research and makes a strong case for allocating the necessary funding.
Features: The book's early chapters flesh out the concept of toxic stress, detailing well-established physiological mechanisms linking body and mind. A subsequent chapter describes stressors working in tandem with genes and environmental factors, often reciprocally so, culminating in downward spirals of disease. Conjuring up real-life examples adds a useful dimension. The book then outlines several approaches for measuring said stress, capping off with a high-yield discussion of stress profiles. It emphasizes the cumulative nature of stress and current limitations to accurately gauge it, yet offers working models that account for early life stress exposure, vital signs, biomarkers, social factors, and the concept of a mental stress test for the heart. Towards the end, the book provides successful examples of rigorous long-term lifestyle programs incorporating targeted counseling and therapy with medical care, as well as a discussion on supported mindfulness strategies to mitigate stress and "retrain our brain". It finishes by synthesizing a proposal of cost-effective "resilience centers" aimed at reducing the burden of stress-related chronic illness.
Assessment: Overall, the book is optimally organized with good literary cadence and flow, but could be more succinct and less pedantic in parts. Most of the material presented in this book is not revolutionary in and of itself, insofar as it concerns either relatively accessible knowledge or tried-and-tested programs. The concept of "mind and body" being interlinked has also been around for a while. The book's master stroke is weaving together copious peer-reviewed evidence from various modalities to make the case for a sea change in our healthcare culture surrounding prevention and management of stress-related chronic illness. Additionally, highlighting gaps and shortcomings in current medical knowledge and practice offers a rough roadmap for navigating said change - in no less than a multidisciplinary fashion.

From the Publisher

‘Wulsin's Toxic Stress is a tour de force. His writing style is refreshing and vivid, and his understanding of contemporary research is encyclopedic and up to date. This is a terrific book.' Joel E. Dimsdale, M.D., Editor-Emeritus, Psychosomatic Medicine, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, University of California, San Diego

‘We know we are stressed … Thank goodness, we now have a valuable, easy-to-read, practical book that helps us figure out what to do about it! Lawson Wulsin, MD is a highly experienced and knowledgeable psychiatrist who writes with humor and great insight.  Using interesting clinical vignettes and understandable explanations and solutions, this book is a must read for those who want to improve the connections between stress-behavior-illness … and get healthier!!’ Michelle B. Riba, M.D., M.S., Past President, American Psychiatric Association; Professor, University of Michigan, Department of Psychiatry

‘Toxic Stress towers over other books that offer help for stressed-out readers. This insightful and compassionate guide by a renowned medical scientist and practicing physician examines the myriad toxic stressors to which all of us are being exposed in the 21st Century and the many ways in which toxic stress can affect our health and well-being. It goes on to explain how we can build resilience to prevent stress-related illnesses and how to find help for stress-related problems. And it leaves us with good reasons to believe that we can find ways to thrive, even when we’re swimming in a sea of troubles.’ Kenneth Freedland, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis

‘An easy-to-read and very catchy book which is, to many doctors, opening the black box of the complex bodily stress system and the risk factors for toxic stress. Health care professionals tend to ignore the problem of toxic stress despite it causing a range of diseases and also premature death. This book should be mandatory reading for doctors across the world.’ Per Fink, Professor, PhD, DMSc, Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital and Aarhus University, Denmark

‘This is an erudite, informative, and engaging book written by a master physician. Dr Wulsin draws on both his own experience as a clinician and on his thoughtful reading of the research literature, to tell a story that we all need to hear: the story of stress. He explains how, whilst stress is an integral and inescapable part of all our lives, it can become toxic and make us ill. He also gives us sound advice about what we, and the health care system, should do about it. This is a sound and thought-provoking read for anyone interested in health, whether as patient, physician, or health care planner.’ Michael Sharpe, MA MD, Emeritus Professor of Psychological Medicine, University of Oxford, President of the European Association of Psychosomatic Medicine

‘In this fabulous book, it becomes clear ‘How Stress Is Making Us Ill and What We Can Do About It.’ Dr Wulsin outlines the adverse health consequences of toxic stress but also the various advantages of resilience when coping with adverse life situations. Readers will find helpful information about how mind and body influence each other, which is especially important when stress levels are high. You will also find useful examples of how to talk about stress with your doctor, family and friends. This inspiring book makes stress understandable for a broad range of readers and also for health care professionals.’ Willem J. Kop, Professor of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands, Emeritus Editor-in-Chief of Psychosomatic Medicine

‘In this brilliant and eminently readable book, Lawson Wulsin highlights the role of chronic stress and trauma as the most burdensome (and neglected) public health issue in our society, affecting multiple organ systems in the body that have a profound impact on our social, financial and medical well-being. Illustrated with vivid case histories, Wulsin presents the complex and multidimensional impact of toxic stress, while providing us with exciting and life-altering evidence based solutions.’ Bessel van der Kolk, MD, author of The Body Keeps the Score, President of Trauma Research Foundation

‘Dr Lawson Wulsin’s new book is authentic in its timeliness. He impressively analyses the burgeoning science of mind body and lifestyle medicine that has emerged to fight the so-called syndemic of toxic stress that the nation and indeed the world are currently experiencing. We do have evidence-based practices and practice-based evidence in medicine that can help our neighbors and our communities build their resilience and robustness. Dr Wulsin’s book provides us with a pro-active prescription that can help us promote health and, in some cases, prevent the stress-related illnesses described in this book. In this way, this book is both timely and hopeful.’ Gregory Fricchione, MD, Associate Chief of Psychiatry, Director, Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine; Co-Director, McCance Center for Brain Health, Massachusetts General Hospital; Mind Body Medicine Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191383477
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	04/18/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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