Toxic Stress:
How Stress Is Making Us Ill
and What We Can Do About It
Publication date: April 2024, Cambridge University Press
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.
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In the news:
“Do I Have a Stress-related Illness?” Psychology Today, December 3, 2024
Interview (30 min) about Toxic Stress with Hilja Ruegg, MD, at the University of Cincinnati Department of Family and Community Medicine 50th Anniversary Celebration, November 2, 2024 (Password required: 5^99.QfA)
"Faith Forum" interview (50 min) at Christ Church, Charlotte, NC, Center for Well-Being and Care, September 29, 2024
“Stress Thickens the Blood: Chronic stress can shift the delicate balance toward clotting of the blood,” Psychology Today, July 17, 2024
Academic Minute on WAMC (Albany's NPR station), July 1, 2024
The Reflective Mind with Jennifer Reid, MD (podcast), May 4, 2024
Exchanges with Mark Kobas (podcast), April 15, 2024
“How stress affects your body and mind – and how to manage it,” The Telegraph, David Cox, April 14, 2024
“Medical Emergency Aftermath,” in BottomLineInc (an interview on traumatic responses to medical emergencies), April 14, 2024
“Psychiatrist explains links between toxic stress, poor health,” Public News Service radio interview with Nadia Ramlagan, April 10, 2024
“How to stop toxic stress making you ill,” excerpt from The Daily Mail, April 2, 2024
“How Much Stress is Too Much?” The Conversation, March 19, 2024
“Should We Treat Stress?” Psychology Today, March 3, 2024
“Good, Tolerable, or Toxic?” Psychology Today, February 2, 2024
“Measuring Stress: So Simple, So Complex,” Psychology Today, February 1, 2024
“Understanding our stress response system,” Psychology Today, December 2, 2023
Advance praise:
“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.”
“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!”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”