What can we learn from the story “The Exam-Week Jaw”?
From the book – Chapter 4: Hormones and Brain Chemicals
The Exam-Week Jaw
A student called himself lazy. His jaw, sleep, and stomach called it load. Reducing Sunday email changed more than a poster about grit. Cortisol is not a character.
Read the full chapter – Chapter 4: Hormones and Brain Chemicals
Stories from real life
- Night Shifts and Biscuits – Neha, thirty-one, was a staff nurse in Mumbai who worked three weeks of night shifts each month. Between 2 and 4 a.m. she kept going on…
- Tired All the Time, and Not Just Sad – Kavita, thirty-eight, taught primary school in Lucknow. For almost six months she had felt tired in a way that sleep did not fix. She had put…
- Heat, Hormones and Hurtful Words – Lakshmi, forty-seven, ran a small tailoring shop in Madurai. Over the past year her periods had become irregular, and she woke drenched at night with hot…
- It Is Not Only a Chemical – Tom, twenty-nine, was an engineer in Glasgow who had been feeling flat for months. He ate takeaway at his desk, slept until noon at weekends and…
Shloks
- Bhagavad Gita 6.16 – Yoga is not for one who overeats or starves, nor for one who sleeps too much or never sleeps.
More on this topic: The brain, hormones and body chemistry behind your moods
More questions
- Understanding neurotransmitters – hormones and brain chemicals
- Serotonin – neurotransmitters
- Dopamine – neurotransmitters
- Noradrenaline (norepinephrine) – neurotransmitters
- GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) – neurotransmitters
- Glutamate – neurotransmitters
- Acetylcholine – neurotransmitters
- Understanding hormones affecting mental health
- Cortisol (stress hormone) – hormones affecting mental health
- Thyroid hormones (T3, T4) – hormones affecting mental health