The Paradox of Stress: Embracing the Challenge with Dr. Sharon Bergquist

Okay.

So I know now everybody wants to know what's the Goldilocks zone in which we should stay in order to benefit from stress.

Yes.

The Goldilocks zone is essentially going a little bit past your comfort zone, but not to the point where it's overwhelming.

And the types of stress that are beneficial are the ones that are manageable and that they are intermittent or temporary.

So they're followed by recovery.

So essentially you stress, you recover.

And the reason you want to get to that point of challenge is is it's not so much that you want more stress in your life, like who wants that? But the stress is the signal to ourselves.

It sends an alarm system that triggers adaptations that make us healthier.

So stress is a tool in our toolkit.

of how do we get to what we desire, which is a more resilient state that at a cellular level is a healthier cell that doesn't have all the damage that's accumulating in our proteins, in our DNA, the oxidative stress, the inflammation.

And so getting just past our comfort zone, challenging ourselves, whether it's physically through a high intensity interval workout, whether it's through a circadian fast, just going 12, 13 hours without eating.

These are all signals to ourselves that it's, Prickerson alarm, that is the signal that changed gene expression.

And we have entire sets of gene programs highly conserved throughout evolution that are over 500 cells, I'm sorry, genes that control our ability to heal ourselves.

So if we live continually in comfort and desire to avoid discomfort and stress at all times, we do not turn on the types of stress that we were intended to experience.

throughout human history.

So essentially, if you were exercising, go just a little past that point where you're breathless.

Like you could say maybe a few words, like more in a vigorous state.

If you are doing something that is mentally challenging, just stick with it.

You know, in this era of AI, I feel like we're in a state of cognitive passivity.

But when we challenge our neurons, our brain, We grow dendrites, we grow synapses, the connections between our neurons.

We literally are changing the structure and function of our mind and body to become a more resilient self.

So to me, this is what growing stronger through stress is at a biological level, where we can explain now structurally, why is it that we grow through adversity, right? Like we've known this for centuries, but we know.

of the biochemical and molecular tools to understand what is physically happening to explain that state of growth and resilience and becoming stronger self.