Why Stress is Your Friend: The Simple Science of Growth — Hormesis

We often use stress to describe how we feel, however it takes on new meaning when we look at it from a biological perspective. “Stress is a threat to the body’s equilibrium. It’s a challenge to react, a call to adapt,” explained John Ratey.

Stress can either kill us or make us stronger. Stress itself could be the solution to our stress.

There is one type of stress we do not want: chronic stress.

From an evolutionary perspective, stress is a good thing. If we encountered a hungry lion in the wild and needed to escape, our body would release “stress hormones” like cortisol, adrenaline, and norepinephrine. These hormones help pass along a message to our body to stop whatever it is doing and put all its resources into thinking and moving fast. In the lion example, our brain and muscles fire up, ready to go.

While this response can be life saving, it can also cause problems in our modern day society as our body has a hard time differentiating between physical threats and mental ones.

Chronic stress is our emotional response to prolonged periods of pressure on our body and mind. This kind of stress comes from bad relationships, financial struggles, overly demanding jobs, and excessive exercise.

Physical stress often has a clear end, whereas psychological stress has no definite end, so our stress hormones stay elevated in our body for prolonged periods.

Chronic stress keeps our cortisol levels elevated, taking energy from our muscles and moving it to our belly as a protective mechanism, which turns into fat. A big gut and slender arms and legs may be a sign someone is experiencing chronic stress. Additional side effects include excess inflammation, tense muscles, pain, depression, and a weakened immune system. With 8 out of 10 Americans afflicted by stress throughout the day, it is no wonder stress is called a silent killer.

However, not all stress is bad. One type of stress serves as the foundation for growth: acute stress.

Acute stress is the good kind of stress.

Controlled bouts of stress, done periodically, encourage growth, bolster our resilience, and improve our body’s ability to respond to stress — making us stronger.

Lifting weights to get stronger, fasting to strengthen our body, studying an extra hour to learn more, or taking on a challenging level in a video game are all forms of positive acute stress.

As the Old Testament says in Proverbs 27:17, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” This concept is called hormesis.

Hormesis is the phenomenon and mechanism where low-dose stressors produce a beneficial effect and high-dose stressors produce a harmful or toxic effect. Small doses of temporary stress in the form of working out, fasting, studying, or working through a challenging problem cause our body to adapt and grow stronger, so we can handle future challenges.

Fitness author and ancestral health authority Mark Sisson writes,“Best of all, you don’t just compensate for the stressor.
You super compensate. You get stronger/faster/healthier/more resistant to disease than you were before. Think of hormesis as your body ‘hedging its bet’ and going a little above and beyond just to be safe.”

While we need stress to grow, we don’t grow during periods of stress, rather we grow while we rest. There is a simple formula to all growth:

Stress + Rest = Growth

All skill development starts with struggle. We can use this knowledge to master any skill we want. This is exactly what Josh Waitzkin did — twice.

It started with his first love at 6 years old: chess.

Waitzkin was walking with his mother through Washington Square Park in New York City and intended to play on the monkey bars, but was instead drawn to games of chess being played by street hustlers in the park.

Waitzkin threw himself into the game and quickly began making a name for himself. Word spread of his talents and there was no shortage of chess masters ready to mentor him.

As his formal training picked up, Waitzkin began his domination of the US junior chess scene and by age nine was already winning national chess championships. At 16, he became an International Master and was crowned the US Junior co-champion- — an impressive feat for anyone, especially in a bracket that included contenders up to 21 years old. That following year Waitzkin became the outright champion.

Despite his passion for the game, Waitzkin’s success in chess did not come without struggle.

“Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities,” explained Waitzkin. This might sound like an intense workout at the gym, but this is the process he used to master the game of chess.

While practicing chess Waitzkin would push his mind to the limit, often to the edge of utter exhaustion. Without stressing his mind, Waitzkin would never have been able to improve his ability to the point he did. Without stress, there is no growth.

In his early 20s, despite his success and fame, Waitzkin’s interests began to shift and he transitioned away from chess. He was drawn to Eastern philosophy and meditation, which led him to the Chinese martial art of Tai Chi.

Just as in chess, Waitzkin began rising in the martial arts world and started making a name for himself. Martial arts masters became interested in coaching and mentoring him. It didn’t take long for Waitzkin to amass numerous national championships. Before he was 30, Waitzkin was crowned world champion in both fixed step push hands and moving step push hands, the main competitive forms of Tai Chi.

How was Waitzkin able to rise to the top in two completely distinct fields? One simple formula: stress + rest = growth.

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In this blog series, I share excerpts and stories from my book, Hard Wired. I hope you enjoyed this post — if you enjoyed it and want to connect you can reach me here via email brandonlgustafson@gmail.com or connect with me on social: LinkedIn or Instagram. Also, you can also find my book on Amazon — here is the link to buy it: Amazon Link.