{"id":34009,"date":"2023-05-17T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/?post_type=journalarticle&#038;p=34009"},"modified":"2024-09-12T09:37:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T15:37:11","slug":"lets-think-about-zebras-stress-and-how-we-treat-others","status":"publish","type":"journalarticle","link":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/journalarticle\/lets-think-about-zebras-stress-and-how-we-treat-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Pensemos en las cebras, el estr\u00e9s y c\u00f3mo tratamos a los dem\u00e1s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some years ago, I was a regular at Learning and the Brain Conferences. I especially remember a wonderful session called \u201cStress and the Brain\u201d given by Dr. Robert Sapolsky, professor of neuroscience at Stanford University. His informative and entertaining book, <em>Why Zebras Don\u2019t Get Ulcers<\/em>, increased my understanding of our human responses to stress. He mentioned homeostasis as an overall situation where the mind and body are in optimal balance, e.g. self-content, happy healthy heart rate blood pressure and so on. A zebra may be chased by a lion, during which the zebra\u2019s hormone system for fight-or-flight is functioning well. The zebra runs at maximum speed for as long as possible. If it is lucky enough to avoid being the lion\u2019s dinner, it will be back grazing with the other zebras and with its hormones back to normal (i.e. homeostasis). The zebra is not ruminating or re-living the frightening flight from the lion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While I\u2019m not an expert, I do know that when we humans feel stressed or lose control of our emotions, like the zebra, we have an alarm system that alerts our body to prepare for fight-or-flight. Our adrenal glands release hormones, two of which are adrenaline and cortisol. Adrenaline increases heart rate, blood pressure, and quickly sends blood and glucose (sugar) to the brain and muscles to prepare the body for fight-or-flight, just like a zebra would experience. Cortisol, however, regulates body functions, including our digestive system, muscle tension, rapid heartbeat and chest pain, aches and pains, insomnia, colds, and infections. Cortisol can inhibit the immune system and communicate with parts of the brain that control mood, motivation, and fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Sapolsky cautioned that thought alone can turn on stress response in humans. Long-term stress can knock us out of homeostatic balance and make us sick, but if we can develop the mental ability to focus our minds elsewhere when fear, anger or stress happens, our bodies can return to homeostasis like the zebra. But, when humans experience fear, anger, or stress, many of us feel compelled to repeat, magnify and worry about our troubles over and over which can easily turn into irritation, sudden anger, depression, headaches, heart attacks, strokes, lack of sleep, concentration, memory impairment, and mood swings. According to the Mayo Clinic, \u201cour body\u2019s stress response system is usually self-limiting, but when stressors are constantly present and the overexposure to cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones can disrupt almost all our body\u2019s processes.\u201d This can be frightening and sometimes fatal, so learning to manage anger, stress, and fear by thinking positive thoughts can be personal roads toward our own health and happiness. Prayer, meditation, mental control, and yoga are four devices we can use to help us redirect negative thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given the stress that we\u2019ve all experienced over the past few years, it is helpful to look towards those who have not only lived through periods of great stress, but flourished and changed the world for the better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Several Years of Stress<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let\u2019s think of the stress, fear and anger all of us have recently experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>In 2019, we heard about an unknown disease in Wuhan, China.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 2020, China identified a new disease as a coronavirus. The American CDC confirmed first cases and the World Health Organization confirmed human-to-human contagion and declared a pandemic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>In 2021, \u201cWeeks before American life ground to a halt, the coronavirus was blazing a mostly silent path across the country, burrowing deep into people\u2019s lungs and launching an attack that would expose nationwide vulnerabilities, scar a generation and reshape the world. For most people, March 11, 2020 was when the Covid-19 crisis first became real. It was the day of a high-profile diagnosis, major event cancellations and an official designation: pandemic. Schools closed, streets emptied and commuters stayed home. We didn\u2019t know it then, but the virus already had infected thousands of Americans. Over the next 12 months, leaders bungled opportunities to quell its spread, case levels rose, fell and rose again, hope endured, and more than 525,000 people lost their lives. Scientists developed vaccines in record time. Misinformation and lies spread as quickly as the pathogen itself.\u201d (From \u201cA Pandemic Year\u201d by Reis Thebault, Tim Meko, and Junne Alcantara. The Washington Post, March 11, 2021.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Covid threw our lives into chaos and fear:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Daily headlines featuring deaths and hospitalizations<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Isolation and solitude<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Accusations and name calling<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Political divisiveness and polarization<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Shortage of grocery and household goods<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Parents giving up jobs, or staying home, so children were not left alone<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Parental frustration when helping their children with schoolwork on computers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>School teachers and administrators in jumbled disarray<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Constant fear of contamination<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Each of these can cause fear, stress, frustration, anger, anxiety, emotional shock, or trauma. During this worst time, I noticed that some of my friends, studio parents, and neighbors were depressed, irritable, and frightened. Others seemed happier, healthier, and optimistic. I started to observe the causes and these are what I discovered in my own neighborhood. The happier group had pets to care for; laughed a lot when we talked; walked, exercised, and gardened; mentioned prayer or meditation; and listened to uplifting music or read good books. The less happy group had no pets, shared negative talk and thoughts, frequently watched TV news, felt alone and helpless, and read daily newspapers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It became obvious to me that the happier group was able to focus on positive thoughts and behaviors. It wasn\u2019t easy, but I tried to follow their examples and benefitted tremendously throughout the worst of the pandemic. Like everyone else, I was frightened at times, and wanted to smash my television and burn my newspaper on many occasions. It was during this crazy time that I began to think of people who really suffered through greater trauma and terror than any I had experienced. The two men who immediately came to my mind were Doctors Shinichi Suzuki and Martin Luther King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dr. Shinichi Suzuki<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Suzuki experienced destruction, terror, death, and bravery when Japan was bombed at the end of World War II. Even though Japan was responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, thousands of innocent Japanese people struggled to survive and help one another, just like many innocent people are doing now in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After the long end of World War II, Suzuki came very close to death from starvation. Many of you will recall the passages from *Nurtured by Love *where Suzuki, his youngest sister (who had lost her husband), and her two children walked along a mountain stream and gathered algae to eat during their stay with a helpful family in Fukushima. Algae was the only thing they could find to eat. Another terrible thing Dr. Suzuki had to endure was the separation from his wife because of her German heritage. On one of his rare visits to her, she gave him a precious apple. Although he was starving, he saved the apple for the children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Suzuki said the following: \u201cI had always made it a rule to live as best I could, whatever happened, whatever work I had to do. . . .\u201d He later described his near starvation after the war. Although he was near death, he intentionally invented a new system of calculation for division, addition, and subtraction, hoping that if he survived it might be something he could apply in his Talent Education Plan. That took great mental discipline for a very sick man suffering from starvation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the forward to Suzuki\u2019s <em>Ability Development from Age Zero<\/em>, my dear friend Lorraine Fink wrote: \u201cIn his concern for all humanity, Suzuki has dedicated his life to improving educational methods. Convinced that enthusiasm to learn can be sustained indefinitely if the teaching method is correct, he appealed for early education \u201cfrom age zero\u201d long before modern psychologists popularized the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Suzuki learned by his own intense observation, discipline, and experimentation. His work eventually upended traditional string teaching all over the world. Many early advocates of Suzuki\u2019s new approaches were laughed at and belittled with sarcasm, but now his wisdom and optimism are being adopted by many teachers because they have witnessed the wonderful outcomes. Those of us who are old enough still miss the days when Dr. Suzuki was at each conference teaching children and teachers. For teachers, he always had \u201cmy new idea, please try it.\u201d He was eager to share his thoughts and he always had the children, teachers, and their parents laughing and taking notes during his lessons. Suzuki\u2019s life is a beacon for all of us. In spite of World War II and being separated from his beloved wife for long periods of time (because she was German) and his near-death from starvation, he decided to help the world through music and love. Even though he was frustrated and angry, he was able to train his mind to focus on helping develop a mathematical device for teaching music, and on himself when he wrote: \u201cI have reflected on anger and concluded that anger is unnecessary in human life. Practice not being angry instead of developing an ability for anger. I myself practiced not becoming angry for ten years. It changed me from my very roots. What experiences I had!\u201d (<em>Ability Development<\/em>, p. 45)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This great man was born in 1929 and spent his younger years getting an education. He entered Morehouse College at the age of fifteen, then went on to study at Crozer Theological Seminary and graduated from Boston University with a Ph.D. He married Coretta Scott and they moved to Montgomery, Alabama where he became pastor of a Baptist church. As a pastor, he was not called to serve in either of the world wars, but he definitely fought his own war right here in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During his time on Earth, he abhorred the lack of opportunity his people had, but decided to focus his life and energy on helping Americans understand and support the constitutional rights given to all citizens. In his Nobel Prize lecture, he said, \u201cHistory is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. Love is the key to the solution of the problems of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Montgomery, he led a successful year-long boycott against the city\u2019s bus system after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. As a result, he formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Then he moved back to Atlanta where he was arrested along with many others for protesting segregation in a department store. He was also jailed in Birmingham for a similar reason. About this time, the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation on buses was unconstitutional. As a result, he was frequently arrested, assaulted, and his home was bombed, but he grew in stature despite of the attacks against him and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1961, Robert F. Kennedy, who was US Attorney General, decided to crack down on crime and sent 400 federal marshals to protect Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists. In spite of protective marshals and the arrests and assaults, Martin Luther King continued to speak all over the country about non-violent change. His focus was not on fear or anger, but on his dream of peaceful change. His \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech in 1963 came at an emotional time for him, his movement, and the United States. The Civil Rights Act to enforce desegregation was passed and King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He was a true hero who had a positive and personal mission. He had been influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, whose example was a guiding light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a teenager in Chicago, I was privileged to see and hear him many times on television. He was a powerful speaker who never drifted to anger, or accusations in spite of the terrible treatment he had endured. Like the suggestions of Dr. Sapolsky and the capability of Dr. Suzuki, Dr. King trained his mind to focus on positive, non-violence to help others. As he said in his Nobel speech, \u201cDarkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How We Treat Others<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drs. Sapolsky, Suzuki, and King all urge us to train our minds to dwell on the positive when we are experiencing anger or stress of any kind. Ignoring our propensity to ruminate on the negative can be hazardous to our minds and bodies as well as the well-being of others. Dr Sapolsky writes that \u201can extremely high percentage of primate aggression represents frustration displaced onto innocent bystanders. Humans are pretty good at it, too. Taking it out on someone else works well at minimizing the impact of a stressor.\u201d In other words, blaming someone else is an easy way to make us feel better!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dr. Suzuki echoed a similar idea: \u201cA person who cannot harmonize well with other people is one who cannot see that he is ever wrong or convey a contrite attitude. Such a person always says that the other person is wrong, society is wrong, and he always rebukes anything but himself. He has not once said that he himself was wrong.\u201d (Ability Development, p. 85). And Dr. King also follows through with another supportive statement from his Nobel Prize Speech: \u201cForgiveness is not an occasional act: it is a constant attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Suzuki Association of the Americas serves many people from diverse countries. In spite of the pandemic and American worries about politics, economy, jobs, health, government reliability, diversity and many more, each country has a variety of issues that are theirs alone. Our worries are not their worries. In or out of our Suzuki community, we should carefully contemplate our behavior before making accusations or judgments. The whole world experienced anxiety and tragedy the past few years. Watching loved ones die, seeing people lose jobs and their businesses are tragic and difficult to understand, but taking our fear and anger out on others isn\u2019t a wise choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our great news in the SAA is that we have been able to work, create, and experiment for our students and their families during the fear and chaos of Covid. As a group, we are better off than many who lost so much. We can surely make an effort to uplift our colleagues, friends, students, parents, and everyone else we know or work with. Some wise colleagues in our Suzuki Association of the Americas wrote our [url=https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/news\/saa-community-guidelines-english-espanol\/]SAA Community Guidelines[\/url] to help us avoid dissidence and hurt feelings. It would benefit each of us to read those guidelines often and make an effort to adopt and support the wisdom contained therein.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"120\" height=\"159\" src=\"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/1480-20091006092515.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-34010\" style=\"width:174px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/1480-20091006092515.jpg 120w, https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/1480-20091006092515-9x12.jpg 9w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 120px) 100vw, 120px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hace algunos a\u00f1os, asist\u00eda con asiduidad a las Conferencias sobre el Aprendizaje y el Cerebro. Recuerdo especialmente una sesi\u00f3n maravillosa titulada \"El estr\u00e9s y el cerebro\", impartida por el Dr. Robert Sapolsky, profesor de neurociencia de la Universidad de Stanford. Su libro informativo y entretenido, Por qu\u00e9 las cebras no tienen \u00falceras, aument\u00f3 mi comprensi\u00f3n de nuestras respuestas humanas al estr\u00e9s. Su...<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"pmpro_default_level":"0","_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"article-tag":[815,768],"journalsection":[],"class_list":["post-34009","journalarticle","type-journalarticle","status-publish","hentry","article-tag-dr-suzuki","article-tag-suzuki-community","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"article-tag":[{"value":815,"label":"Dr. Suzuki"},{"value":768,"label":"Suzuki Community"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalarticle\/34009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalarticle"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/journalarticle"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"article-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-tag?post=34009"},{"taxonomy":"journalsection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzukiassociation.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/journalsection?post=34009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}