Hormesis (this topic in depth): The Good Stressor opens a useful window into controlled stress as a signal for adaptation. The conversation is not a shortcut or a spectacle. It is a reminder that healthspan is built through signals the body can understand and repeat.
hey this is ari and in this video i want to share with you a little clip from my much longer presentation all about the science around saunas this was a presentation i did that i forget exactly how long it was the full length version is 45 minutes or an hour or something like that and uh it's packed with content but of course modern world people have short attention spans so i wanted to break things down into little valuable chunks and go over some of the key elements of that presentation and this is one of the clips that i want to share with you saunas are incredibly powerful in terms of their ability to as a hormetic stressor in terms of their ability to stimulate adaptations in our body that ultimately confer uh mitochondrial growth mitochondrial biogenesis neuroprotective effects anti-depressive effects increased athletic performance and much much more disease prevention reductions and cardiovascular disease neurological disease all cause mortality saunas are an absolutely wonderful tool and are extremely effective also for helping you to increase your energy levels i highly recommend them and in this clip you're going to find out a bit of the reason why i'm such a huge fan of saunas so enjoy and if you want to listen to the full length presentation i also have an article associated with that the links for that are down in the description below enjoy first of all i want to give some context around why saunas have such profound effects on our body how are they actually working so first of all sauna use is a stressor now i just threw a lot of you guys off by saying that by saying it is a stressor it is a type of stress and i'm going to explain more about what i mean by that in a second but it is heat stress if you go into the scientific literature uh around sony use it's often
literature uh around sony use it's often referred to in the scientific literature as heat stress quote unquote so here's the the thing as much as stress has become a really bad word and gotten a bad rap um certain kinds of stressors can very counter-intuitively be extremely powerful for human health much more than people realize and we actually need these stressors in our life in order for ourselves to function normally it's a key point i'm going to come back to that more but now the key concept here the the point to understand of what this is all about is something called hormesis it's one of my favorite topics but uh if you're watching the video i'm showing some screenshots of some research on the screen here this one's called stress response formisus and aging that which does not kill us makes us stronger and basically there's lots of research showing that hormesis is linked with longevity is linked with the rate of aging is linked with resistance to disease and a number of other important benefits in my opinion hormesis may very well be the single most important strategy to improve your health energy and longevity and it's something that very few people have ever heard of even though there's a mountain of scientific literature on it very few people have ever heard of it even very few of my peers and colleagues other health experts have ever heard of it unfortunately much to the detriment of the people they work with in my opinion but hormesis is the process by which a mild or acute stressor increases resistance to other stressors and increases the health resilience and vitality of the organism and the organism being you in this case so again that this quote from nietzsche what doesn't kill us makes us stronger now another key point to understand about this is that it doesn't just increase resilience and resistance to
increase resilience and resistance to the stress that you originally exposed yourself to it actually builds in resilience at the cellular level and makes the cell's resistance resistant to a wide variety of different stressors not only the one that you expose them to uh again there's a number of studies i'm showing screenshots again here for people watching the video uh showing that stress tolerance through hormesis is one of the major keys to longevity and resistance to disease regarding stress and understand understanding how stress works in our bodies it's important to understand sort of two different kinds of stress there's something called you stress and then there's distress now it's possible basically to overdo stress as most people are aware of but it's also possible to underdo stress now unfortunately while most people are very focused on the types of stress that they're overdoing so mainly chronic psychological stress for example and just being sort of stressed out and not taking enough time to relax and wind down and and de-stress through meditation or yoga or breathing practices and vacations and things like that we are also greatly under-stressed in the types of hormetic stressors that have the most profound benefits on our physiology so there is a certain optimal level of including certain kinds of stressors and excluding other types of stressors now if all of this discussion sounds weird to you and you're like what is this guy even talking about with stress and this doesn't make any sense and i thought stress was bad and this guy's not making any sense okay well you're actually more familiar with stress than you realize because exercise physical exercise like going for a run or lifting weights is actually a type of hormone it's a type of
a type of hormone it's a type of metabolic stress it's a transient metabolic stress that you're subjecting your body to and it's something that is not intrinsically beneficial but is beneficial by virtue of the fact that it is a stressor temporarily stressing your cells out and then your cells create adaptations to that stress that ultimately confer resilience and resistance to various diseases so that's what makes exercise very helpful again not intrinsically beneficial you'll find that out very fast if you massively overdo exercise relative to what your fitness level actually is so if you're currently sedentary you go decide to do a two hour super intense weight lifting workout with the heaviest weights that you can lift or you go for a 20 mile run you're going to find out real fast that your body is exhausted for days after that you're going to cause lots of cell damage you may even cause scarring of blood vessels that that deliver oxygen to the heart deliver blood to the heart you may even have a heart attack and die it's not uncommon for people doing extreme amounts of exercise so exercise again is a stress it becomes beneficial if you do it in an appropriate way relative to what your body is currently adapted for currently fit for and uh and then you push just beyond that to create new adaptations that's what ultimately confers the resistance and disease and resilience in the face of stress so here's the thing heat stress like saunas is also a type of hormetic stress just like physical exercise and again heat stress is incredibly powerful medicine just as exercise is just as we know exercise is linked to a mountain of health benefits you know there's a huge amount of science showing exercise prevents heart disease and various types of
heart disease and various types of cancers and diabetes and high blood pressure and neurological diseases and basically diseases in every cyst in the body the same is true of heat stress of sauna use it not only provides resistance to heat stress but again remember the concept of hermesas it provides resistance to a wide array of different kinds of stressors and ultimately a huge array of diseases in multiple systems of the body from neurological diseases to the heart to diabetes to many types of cancers hey this is ari and if you enjoyed this little clip i highly recommend checking out the full length podcast by clicking the link down below this video in the description check it out you're going to learn a ton more valuable information also as always i want to mention at the energy blueprint we offer a ton of solutions to help you increase your energy and as a side effect help you prevent disease dramatically improve your brain function your mood combating anxiety and depression increasing your resilience to stress and increasing your longevity all nice bonuses to strategies designed to massively increase your mitochondrial function and your energy levels and we've got a whole suite of products uh online info products that guide you on strategies to optimize your lifestyle and nutrition habits we've got an eat for energy course we've got a brain course we've got an advanced fat loss strategies course we've got a breathing for energy course which i highly highly recommend people just absolutely rave about that one in particular and we've got a whole suite of supplements mitochondrial formula a brain formula energy essentials and superfoods which is our comprehensive multivitamin and multi-mineral and superfoods formula and much much more actually we've got as of this moment in time
we've got as of this moment in time depending on when you're watching this but as of this moment i'm recording it i've got an amazing new anti-aging longevity formula on the way and an incredible new sleep formula that will be coming out in the next few weeks thank you for watching this again full length link to the full-length podcast is down below and uh check out the energyblueprint. com for our whole suite of products that can help you dramatically transform your energy levels talk to you soon
Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Verbatim — duplicates intentionally preserved.
Hormesis is the principle that a small, deliberate stress can make the body stronger. Cold, heat, exercise, fasting, and light exposure all ask the system to respond. Too much overwhelms. The right amount teaches resilience.
When the body meets a manageable challenge, mitochondria receive a clear message: produce energy more efficiently, repair damage, and prepare for the next demand. This is why hormesis belongs in a longevity conversation, not just a performance one.
The benefit does not come from stress alone. It comes from stress followed by restoration. Sleep, food, hydration, and calm are what turn the stimulus into adaptation.
"The body changes when the signal is clear, repeated, and followed by recovery."
Choose one hormetic practice and keep the dose modest enough to repeat.
Pair every deliberate stressor with recovery so adaptation can occur.
Track how you feel after the session, not just during it.
The strongest idea running through this conversation is restraint. Longevity is not built by chasing every new lever. It is built by understanding which signals matter, applying them deliberately, and allowing the body enough calm to adapt.
