together: 40 words in 40 days
03.4.2013 
Baboons experience stress.
And there are people who study this phenomenon. One of these, err, scientists wrote that type A baboons often have chronically elevated levels of stress hormones. This impacts their health negatively. Their reproductive systems don’t work all that well. They have elevated blood pressure. Wounds don’t heal quickly. All in all, they are not in great shape.
Believe it or not, baboons come in type A varieties, mediocres and slackers. The mediocre baboons experienced the least amount of harmful effects of stress. Relationships and social connections, among baboons mind you, actually counteract the stress response. The ones most likely to reach out to other baboons experienced less harmful effects of stress.
Baboons, and I am quoting here, who need baboons are the luckiest baboons in the world.
The bottomline: social connectedness is the most powerful antidote for stress-related disease.
At our church, we just say “together is better.” And the baboons can tell you that.
The “data” in this post comes from Monkeyluv: And Other Essays on Our Lives as Animals by Robert Sapolsky, as quoted in Emotional Sobriety by Tian Dayton, Ph.D.
