“That which does not kill us makes us stronger” is a well known maxim attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche. But is it true?
In my previous post I described hormesis as a process by which certain stressors can make you stronger and have an anti-ageing effect and I described some of the underlying mechanisms. In this post I focus more on the practical side of hormesis.
It is important to note 5 general principles when invoking hormesis:
- The dose makes the poison. Fast for too long or expose yourself to too high or too low temperatures and you might not survive to see the benefits. Heat stress, for example, can increase intestinal hyperpermeability (aka ‘leaky gut’) and thus the absorption of endotoxins from gram-negative gut bacteria and this mechanism may play a role in heatstroke (1). Excessive caloric restriction in the form of a crash diet may reduce thyroid function (2, 3, 4) and often causes rebound weight gain (5, 6). Too high a dose of curcumin could cause liver injury (7).
- The only toxins or stressors that are beneficial are the ones we have successfully evolved to deal with, so don’t use hormesis as an excuse to go out and have a bit of chocolate cake. That would just be rationalising your addiction which seems to be a common abuse of the concept of hormesis, whether or not the term ‘hormesis’ is known or whether it is Nietsches’s maxim “What won’t kill you will make you stronger”. On the evolutionary time scale gluten and refined sugar are very new additions to our diet and we have not evolved an ability to benefit from even miniscule amounts of gluten perhaps because we did not evolve over millions over years in an environment that provided chocolate cakes and bagels. So if you are wondering if something might be good for you in a small dose and you are not familiar with the research ask yourself if this stressor is something we evolved with over millions of years even before the agricultural revolution. Also ask yourself whether this is a ‘convenience’ or a comfort (likely to be an addiction) or whether it is a stressor or challenge that is associated with some level of discomfort, be it the bitterness of some dark green leafy vegetables or the strain of some exercise. If what you are considering is an addictive substance such as sugar a small amount will make you weaker not stronger, as it will simply make you crave more sugar. I am not trying to impose on your choices and of course you and I may choose at times to have the chocolate cake, but it will not provide hormetic benefits.Although we clearly did evolve the ‘fight or flight’ response to respond effectively to short term stressors such as encountering predators, we did not evolve to deal with the chronic psychological stress that is one of the hallmarks of modern life in the industrialised world.
- With hormesis the key is to build up gradually when you are ready. If you are chronically very ill attempting to gain hormetic benefits too early in your healing process may simply cause you more oxidative stress. If you have CFS/ME you may not be able to do much or any exercise without crashing (8, 9, 10, 11) until you deal with your health on other levels first, although a sauna (12, 13) or a cold shower (14) may benefit you. If you are very toxic a sauna may give you a headache and make you feel worse so you need to build up the duration and temperature of the sauna very gradually and support your detoxification in other ways, such as by ensuring you eat sufficient protein for amino acids to bind with toxins and ensuring adequate intake of vitamin and mineral cofactors for detoxification pathways, supporting your kidneys and liver perhaps with milk thistle or liposomal glutathione and remembering that adequate bowel movements are essential for effective detoxification. With exercise it is wise to begin gradually so that you strengthen not just your muscles but tendons, ligaments and even bone so as to avoid injury. If you have a candida overgrowth or blood sugar imbalances you may find fasting very difficult so you may need to deal with your gut dysbiosis or blood sugar imbalance in other ways first. Hormesis, in short, is a good way to make a strong and healthy body even stronger, to capitalise on your good health, but you need to have some capital to begin with.
- Hormesis is not a substitute for meeting your nutritional needs. If you lack amino acids from protein, vitamins and minerals you will not be able to make the anti-oxidant enzymes and other protective proteins that would be increased by the activation of transcription factors like Nrf2 and instead of benefiting from hormesis you may react to, say green tea extract, which will just cause you oxidative stress without the benefits.
- By their very nature stressors increase cortisol which will impact your digestion as I explain in 10 Ways Stress Affects Your Gut. Therefore I recommend not exposing yourself to hormetic stressors such as exercise, cold showers or a sauna soon after eating. The exception to this, of course, is that you can begin fasting after eating.
So here are some simple ways you can begin benefiting from hormesis:
Eat a wide variety of vegetables whose different phytochemicals have a synergistic effect. Especially beneficial are allium vegetables like onion & garlic, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts, polyphenol rich deeply coloured vegetables and fruit of a wide variety of colours. You can further widen your intake of polyphenols by consuming extra virgin olive oil, cacao or a square or two of 100% cocoa content chocolate and, for those of us lucky enough not to have cortisol imbalances, coffee and green tea, especially matcha green tea.
Eat sufficient protein for detoxification and to make glutathione, anti-oxidant enzymes and all the other protective proteins that are increased by the activation of transcription factors like Nrf-2. Polyphenol supplements will not make up for a deficient diet. For protein you need to eat 0.8g/kg of your body weight per day when you are healthy, but if you are healing or if you are an athlete you will need 1.2-1.8g/kg body weight per day. You can check the protein content of various foods using a website such as SELFNutritionData.
After you benefit from the muscle-relaxing and sinus cleansing effects of your hot shower turn the temperature down for the last few minutes just enough so you feel some discomfort without giving yourself a complete shock. If you can turn the temperature down to 10°C or less you may gradually be increasing your resilience in preparation for a really cold plunge (15) and if regularly repeated this habituation effect can remain for 7-14 months (16). However, anxiety during your cold water experience will inhibit the habituation process (17) so please do not push yourself if you are not ready for this experience. If you can then be ready to jump into the sea, or river or lake if you are lucky enough to have any of these nearby, then you will also benefit from the anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of the earth’s electrons (18) since the electrolytes in natural water allow it to conduct electricity. If you shiver you will also be increasing brown fat production (19 ) to help you burn more calories (20).
Consider buying yourself a far-infra red sauna and gradually increase your exposure without causing yourself to feel ill when you leave the sauna. Be sure to drink enough water before the sauna when After sweating rinse the toxins off in a cold shower to prevent their reabsorption as well as to benefit from the hormetic effect of the cold water. Right after your sauna is a good time to take liposomal glutathione to aid with the detoxification process. Then replace minerals lost in your sweat with some sea salt and potassium rich vegetables, or perhaps lemon juice in water for the potassium and sea vegetables for sodium and other minerals (but not from the Pacific due to the radioactive pollution from Fukishima)
You can also heat yourself up in the sun and there is another hormetic effect here with your body producing vitamin D to protect you from the sun. We could consider vitamin D to be hormetic because it seems to protects us from radiation and too much radiation or too much vitamin D will cause us harm (21). The vitamin D then benefits your health in a myriad of other ways, from improving immune function (22), reducing the risk of various common cancers (23) and helping to keep inflammation down (24, 25, 26) to protecting your brain (27) and increasing serotonin production in your brain for improved mood (28). If you have sweated a lot in the sun you may want to shower afterwards to clean the toxins from your sweat off rather than reabsorbing them, but otherwise you may want to avoid showers and especially soap or very hot showers for up to 48 hours so that you absorb more of the vitamin D rather than wash it off with the oily layers on your skin. Alternatively you could just soap under the armpits and in the groin.
Follow the advice in my post on balancing your blood sugar and deal with any fungal overgrowth so that you can fast overnight for 12-13 hours with your last meal of the day at least 3 hours before bedtime. Then you can start sometimes eating just two meals a day, preferably earlier in the day rather than later in the day and certainly during daylight hours. On these days eat all of your food within a window of perhaps 7 hours for men and 8-10 hours for women provided you do not experience hormonal imbalances as a result. Alternatively you can start with a very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet which in some ways mimics fasting (29) and has similar hormetic effects (30, 31). It is advisable to have some days when you break the ketogenic diet and eat carbohydrates to prevent hormonal imbalances which I often see in clients on a very low carbohydrate diet, who may experience symptoms such as increased fatigue, hair loss and mood swings.
See my post The Dangers of Over Exercising for my recommendations for physical exercise. Also remember to regularly exercise your brain with some intellectually challenging activity, perhaps learning a new skill or a new language, playing chess or studying, for example.
Remember the following key principles of hormesis.
- 1. The dose makes the poison.
- 2. The toxins or stressors that are beneficial are the ones we have successfully evolved to deal over millions of years before the agricultural revolution.
- 3. Build up gradually when you are ready.
- 4. Meet your nutritional needs before invoking hormesis.
- 5. Don’t mix digestion and stressors (other than hormetic toxins like polyphenols).
Please remember that optimising your health is not about making life easy and convenient by succumbing to and rationalising your addictions, but instead rising to a certain degree of challenge and taking pleasure in healthy foods and activities whilst taking care to ensure sufficient quality rest, sleep and recovery.
Its wise to try introduce these hormetic approaches to support your health one at a time. Which of these approaches do you feel drawn to? Which do you already notice benefits from? Let me know in the comments below.
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Related posts:
Hormesis – Do Toxins Make You Stronger – Part 1
10 Steps to Reduce Inflammation – What is Inflammation and Why Reduce Inflammation?
10 Ways Stress Affects Your Gut
The Colours That Heal You – Eating The Rainbow
Blood Sugar Balance – The Key to Health, Weight Loss and Stress Reduction
The Dangers of Over Exercising
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