that *good* stress
Stress is bad for you, right? Let’s challenge that idea. What if stress isn't the enemy we've made it out to be?
A few times a week, I sit in a hot sauna and let myself get uncomfortably warm. Then I step straight into a cold plunge and let myself get uncomfortably cold.
Maybe that doesn't sound so appealing to you. We spend so much of our lives trying to avoid discomfort, softening every edge, keeping everything easy and climate-controlled and convenient.
And yet, a little discomfort can often help us feel so much better, not worse. After the sauna/cold plunge, I feel clearer, more energized, more vibrant, more alive. Notice how I said a little discomfort. When it comes to stress, the dose makes the medicine.
BTW - a quick note before you cold plunge: cold exposure is a stressor, and it isn't automatically right for every body or every moment. If you're in the luteal phase of your cycle, managing low thyroid, living with a heart condition, pregnant, or navigating another health issue, cold plunging can be more taxing than helpful, and in some cases worth skipping entirely. Check with your provider, start gentle, and, as always, *listen to your body*!
So how can stress be the thing that wears us down, and also the thing that builds us up? The answer comes down to a single concept: the dose.
the healing power of a little stress
Hormesis a small, manageable dose of stress that triggers your body to adapt, so you come out the other side stronger than you were before. This type of hormetic stress is exactly what's happening with the sauna and cold plunge.
The dose is everything! The very same stressor can be helpful or it can be harmful, and what separates the two is the both amount of the stress and the amount recovery that follows.
You already know this pattern from the exercise world. A challenging workout is a stress. It creates tiny bits of damage in the muscle. Then, in the hours and days of recovery afterward, your body rebuilds that tissue stronger than before. The workout is the stimulus, but the increase in your muscle strength actually happens during the rest period.
Here are some examples of hormesis:
Heat and cold. The sauna and the plunge nudge your cells to build their own protective machinery, the kind that helps them handle stress better next time.
Movement. As I just mentioned, muscle adapts to the challenge you give it, as long as you let it recover.
Fasting windows. A stretch without food prompts your cells to do a little internal cleanup and repair.
Eating vegetables. Many plant compounds, like the ones in broccoli and other cruciferous veggies, are mild stressors that switch on your body's own defense systems.
but what about psychological stress?
Everything listed above is a physical stress. But, guess what? Psychological stress has a hormetic quality, too. And the perception of this mental stress is important And the perception of this mental stress is itself part of the dose.
Researchers followed a large group of US adults and tracked both their stress levels and their beliefs about stress. The people under a high amount of stress who also believed that stress was harming their health had a 43% higher risk of dying early. But the people under just as much stress who did not see it as harmful actually didn't carry that same elevated risk! The belief itself was doing damage, right alongside the stress. How you relate to stress can shape what it does to your body.
Now, let me be clear about what I am not saying. I am not telling you that stress is all in your head, or that you can think positive thoughts to get your way out of a hard season. Chronic, grinding, unrelenting stress with no relief will truly age the body.
But there's good news here → You have far more say over what stress does to you than you have probably been told. Some of that say is in how much stress you choose to take on (healthy boundaries!), and some of it is in how you hold the stress that's unavoidable.
recovery is the most important part
The benefits of hormetic stress only pays off if you let yourself recover. The heat means little without the cool-down. The workout means little without the rest. The fasting window means little without the nourishing meal that follows.
Unfortunately, this is exactly where modern life fails us. We are living in a world that hands us the stress and quietly forgets the recovery. The notifications don't stop. The news cycle never ends. The to-do list refills itself the moment you clear it. For most of human history, stress arrived in bursts and then passed, and the body got its recovery built right in. Now the stress just hums along in the background, all day, every day. That constant low hum is the wrong kind of stress. It's the kind with no rest waiting on the other side.
In our busy, chaotic world, we have to make sure we have periods of rest and recovery. It's something we now have to choose, protect, and put on the calendar like it matters. Because it does! Rest is where the important work of adaptation actually happens. You do not have to earn your rest.
One last thing to watch out for: you can absolutely overdo the good stress. Cold plunge every single day, hard training with no rest, fasting stacked on fasting, and suddenly your "hormesis" is going to be harmful, not helpful.
Like pretty. much everything in the naturopathic longevity world, this is all about balance. It's all about finding your right dose of stress: how much challenge, how much rest, and how to sequence the two for your body, your routines, your actual life.
what to take away from this
Discomfort is not your enemy! A cold plunge, a hard hike, a stretch of hunger before a good meal, getting outside your comfort zone. These are small, chosen stresses that ask your body to adapt, and it will rise to meet them. What your body cannot adapt to is stress that never ends and never lets up.
So the work is really twofold:
Add in the good stress on purpose, in doses you can recover from.
And for the stress you didn't choose, give yourself genuine rest on the other side of it, and be gentle with the story you tell yourself along the way.
Your body is so much more capable and resilient than the wellness world tends to give it credit for. It was built to be challenged and to grow from it. Our job is to hand it the right dose, and then to let it rest and recover.
If you're not sure where you land, whether you need more challenge, more recovery, or a better balance between the two, let's talk about it on a free 15-minute discovery call.
