The Dr. Hyman Show - Why Small Stressors Can Actually Be Good For Us

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

Why Small Stressors Can Actually Be Good For Us | This episode is sponsored by Uqora We know that chronic, long-term stress can wreak havoc on our health. However, short-term and/or mild stressors can have the exact opposite effect. For instance, when you practice resistance training by lifting heavy weights and inflicting damage on your muscles, your body responds by repairing the damaged fibers, thus creating bigger and stronger muscles. This is called hormesis, a phenomenon that demonstrates the beneficial effects of low-level stressors. A similar process called xenohormesis also occurs in plants, making them stronger and richer in phytochemicals that are good for us. Dr. Hyman recently spoke about these topics in his conversations with Ben Greenfield and Dr. Frank Lipman. Ben Greenfield is a human performance consultant, speaker, and New York Times bestselling author of 13 books, including the wildly popular titles, Beyond Training and Boundless. A former collegiate tennis, water polo, and volleyball player, as well as a bodybuilder, 13-time Ironman triathlete, and professional obstacle course racer, Ben has been voted by the NSCA as America’s top Personal Trainer and by Greatist as one of the top 100 Most Influential People In Health and Fitness. Ben hosts the highly popular fitness, nutrition, and wellness website bengreenfieldfitness.com, a site with over a million monthly visitors, featuring articles, podcasts, and product reviews. His latest book, Boundless, is all about creating more energy to live the life of optimal health and happiness you deserve. Dr. Frank Lipman is recognized as a vocal pioneer of integrative and Functional Medicine (or what he calls “good medicine”). Dr. Lipman is the founder of Eleven Eleven Wellness Center and the Chief Medical Officer at The Well. He is a sought-after international speaker and the best-selling author of six books—How to Be Well, The New Health Rules, Young & Slim for Life, Revive and Total Renewal—and his newest book, The New Rules of Aging Well: A Simple Program for Immune Resilience, Strength, and Vitality. This episode is sponsored by Uqora. If you’ve struggled with urinary tract infections, check out Uqora’s potent line of products to promote better urinary health. Right now they’re offering Doctor’s Farmacy listeners 30% off when you go to uqora.com/doctor Find Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Ben Greenfield, “How To Have Boundless Energy” here: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/BenGreenfield Find Dr. Hyman’s full-length conversation with Dr. Frank Lipman, “The Keys To Aging Well” here: https://DrMarkHyman.lnk.to/DrFrankLipman

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Small amounts of cold, good. Large amounts, as anyone knows, who's maybe not dressed right for a day of skiing, it can be stressful. You know, heat, same thing. Hey everyone, it's Dr. Mark. I think we can all agree that we're thinking a lot about immunity these days, but the pandemic aside, I regularly see so many patients who struggle with recurrent infections. One of the most common is urinary tract infections. They're actually the second most common infection in the United States, especially in women.

Now there can be a lot of reasons someone might constantly be fighting infections like a UTI, but most of us have been over-prescribed antibiotics at some point in our lives. We may eat too much sugar, be stressed out too much, and all these things can upset our microbiome, and that directly impacts the balance of bacteria in the urinary tract and the rest of our immune system. But a lot of women I talked to were

doing the right things to try to avoid these recurrent infections but without any luck. They've tried cranberry extract and they make sure to pee after sex among other things but they still get frequent bladder infections. So I was really intrigued to hear about a product my team recently discovered called Eucora. They were completely blown away by the results. Two of them who constantly struggled with frequent UTIs hadn't had a single symptom since trying Eucora. Eucora's unique target drink mix blends easily with water and tastes just like the pink lemonade

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u-q-o-r-a.com forward slash doctor. Now let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hi, I'm Kea Perot at one of the producers of The Doctor's Pharmacy podcast. We typically think about stress as being a bad thing, but this isn't always the case. In fact, introducing microstressors can actually activate your body's healing mechanisms through a process called hormesis. Dr. Hyman recently explored this topic in his conversation with human performance consultant and best-selling author Ben Greenfield. We know any of these things that might induce a mild hormetic effect from

cryotherapy to exercise to heat, they would be unfavorable in large amounts, but small amounts. So what you just said something was a very cool concept, which is hormesis, hormetic. People have no idea what that is. Most people have never heard of the word. And what it means is that when there's a stress to the system, it activates a healing response. So a little bit of stress, like if you exercise and lift a weight, it's going to create a little bit of micro damage in the muscles,

but that makes them stronger. Yes, assuming you allow them to rest and recover and, and the same could be said of radiation. There's, there's even a, there's one study that showed that the rodents around Chernobyl were living longer than non irradiated, irradiated rodents. So, so there's some evidence, even mild amounts of radiation may be beneficial. This, this might be partially why earthing and grounding and going outside barefoot and getting exposed to that type of radiation is beneficial you know lower risk of skin cancer with frequent sane exposure to sunlight due to that hormetic effect and building up and the cryotherapy like a skin cold shock therapy yeah with the cold uh you know that that can that can excessively activate the sympathetic nervous

system it can stress the immune system it can be too much but in small amounts right you get nitric oxide production and you get that activation of the vagus nerve, and you get a little bit of conversion of your adipose tissue into metabolically active brown fat. And so small amounts of cold, good. Large amounts, as anyone knows who's maybe not dressed right for a day of skiing, it can be stressful. Heat, same thing. We know from the Finnishish longevity study the men's longevity study that sauna is four to five times a week in the sauna and and uh you you see a

distinct increase i do that i do both like a hot steam really hot and then i jump in an ice bath well that's that's what they left out in that study i think is you know because i've gone to finland and i've gone to the men's finish also jump in the ice they'll they'll go in the sauna and then they'll go jump in the baltic sea stand outside to dry off shivering and then go back in the heat and do a few rounds of that and then of course there's the social component right they're with their with their buddies hanging out when they go in the sauna you're quiet you're breathing you're not on your phone so there's there's some components that i think go beyond the sauna yeah and i remember once i was i was in maine i had a friend of mine had a wood fired sauna and we literally sat in there for six hours yeah and we'd go back

out into the snow and roll around in the snow it's amazing and then get back in the sauna roll around in the snow it was i'd never felt that good in my entire life we do that at our house my kids call them snow angels and and what we'll do is do the sauna. Then as you're walking out, trudging through the snow out to the hot tub, you stop, you do snow as you get in the hot tub, you get that tingling in the skin, all that nitric oxide, and you go back out and do snow angels. And yeah, the idea of hot cold, you know, again, for, for the hormetic effect is fabulous. Xenohormesis though, is also very interesting. This idea that, that plants have built-in natural defense mechanisms

that also induce a hormetic response. And, you know, this has sparked movements like the paleo movement and the carnivore movement and, you know, paleo movement kind of restricting, you know, many grains and soy and some of these compounds that have built-in defense mechanisms. Or the carnivore diet takes that even further. And you get rid of kale and broccoli and cauliflower and most herbs and spices because of that mild amount of damage that these plants can cause the body.

But, I mean, when you look at a lot of these blue zones and longevity hot spots, the vast array of herbs and spices and xeno hermetic compounds yeah they're not doing um you know like like they're not eating like boatloads of quinoa that hasn't been rinsed and soaked and sprouted to get rid of the the soap-like irritant saponins that cover the quinoa and you know many cases the gluten is being slow fermented like a sourdough bread to pre-digest the gluten and the phytic acids or you know or soy for example you know edamame is is not quite as good as miso or tempeh or natto because it's been fermented and so i think it's proper preparation and deactivation of some of the natural built-in

plant defense mechanisms allows you to enjoy those foods where you're shoving aside the argument whether or not those foods are necessary, which is a carnivore diet, folks will say, well, you get eating a properly comprised nose-to-tail diet, you get all the vitamins and minerals and everything that you need.

Liver is far more nutrient-dense than any plant food ever. Oh, liver is, its nature is multivitamin. But at the same time, plants are fun. It's fun to gather around a traditionally prepared meal

and you've got whatever, maybe mom's casserole and grandma's salad and you know some beets and goat cheese and arugula and rosemary it's like you know there there's a lot of cool stuff on the planet that we can eat that goes beyond just animals but i think you just have to be smart you have to deactivate these built-in defense mechanisms but even those because you're never going to be able to fully deactivate everything. I think they're not necessarily bad. That's the principle of xenohormesis. These plant-based defense compounds can actually be good for you in sane amounts. Dr. Hyman further

explored the topic of hormesis in his conversation with fellow functional medicine practitioner, Dr. Frank Lipman. One of the things we haven't talked about and which actually are works seems to work well or stimulate the mitochondria is this concept called hormesis which is I love that concept what does that mean what does that mean I love that concept so hormesis means sort of what doesn't kill you makes you stronger basically that's perfect definition that's the best definition basically. Ah, that's a perfect definition. That's the best definition I've ever heard. That's a little bit of stress is actually good for the body.

You know, chronic stress we know is a problem and creates all these problems and it won't help you age well. But a little bit of stress, hormesis is good. And that's what fasting is. Fasting is physical hormesis it's a stress so a little bit of mild stress on the body and your body's uh response to that and and we talked about resilience but your body's response to that will be in is a positive response which stimulates all these factors that are good for aging. So we talk about fasting.

We talk about a little bit of interval training where you push yourself a little bit more than usual. Going from hot to cold. So even just having an ice cold shower after a hot shower. You know, I love going from a sauna. I've become obsessed with my sauna. Going from my sauna, jumping into some freezing cold water. So, you know, temperature extremes are another way of stimulating hormesis.

I love that. I love that. I love going from my steam or sauna right into an ice bath. And that's good for aging. I mean, that's good. That's hormesis. So anything that's a little bit of stress on the body is good. And actually what's interesting, I remember years ago Jeff Bland talking about this

or someone at one of the functional medicine conferences with phytonutrients. A lot of the hormesis is really good for plants. So plants develop more antioxidants and protective phytonutrients to protect themselves from whatever they have to deal with to survive. So spraying them with herbicides and that doesn't actually help them develop these phytonutrients to protect themselves, which actually end up being good for us too. The first time I heard about hormesis was years and years ago at one of the functional medicine conferences where someone, I think it was Jeff who talked about the importance of hormesis on plants and developing phytonutrients that would then benefit us. Yeah, you know, it's really important to

understand this idea because when you look at, for example, organic versus conventional plants, or even wild plants, even versus organic plants, the wild plants have way more, by hundreds to thousands of times more antioxidant potential, phytonutrient compound, and they also taste better. And what's interesting is that flavor goes along with phytonutrients. So the flavor profile of a food is directly related to the nutrient density and to the phytochemical content. So if you go to a garden, which I did the other day in a friend of mine's garden, and you pick a really ripe tomato that's just ripened on the vine,

you stick it in your mouth, and it's an explosion of taste and flavor and phytochemicals that is so different than these cardboard store-bought tomatoes that don't taste like anything. So that's really the power of the little stresses. And I think the strength training, the hit interval training, the fasting, the phytochemicals, these are all ways to actually improve this. There are so many ways to activate the body's natural healing abilities. Dr. Hyman explores many others in his full-length conversations with Dr. Frank Lippman and Ben Greenfield. I encourage you to check them out if you'd like to learn more. We all have the power to take our health into our own hands. By harnessing this knowledge, we can optimize our health and help

our bodies support themselves. Thank you for tuning into this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or leaving us a comment below. Until next time. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner.

If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.