Understanding Hormesis: Why Stress and Adversity Make Us Physically and Mentally Stronger”

I know we’ve all heard of the old saying “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” but have you ever wondered if science could open our eyes to what exactly this means? I’ve wondered this, and it led me to this week’s Brain Fact Friday where we will explore hormesis or the idea that “short, intermittent bursts of stressors can actually trigger a cascade of cellular processes that enhance overall health, slow aging, and make you more resilient to future stress (both physical and mental).”[i] On this episode you will learn: ✔︎ How our cells respond to short, intermittent periods of stress. ✔︎ A look into 2 pathways that are important for longevity (The Sirtuin and mTOR). ✔︎ 4 Ways to boost our health, using hormesis or stress, making us physically and mentally stronger. For those new, or returning guests, welcome back! I'm Andrea Samadi, author, and educator from Toronto, Canada, now in Arizona, and like many of you who tune in, have been fascinated with learning, understanding, and applying the most current brain research to improve productivity in our schools, our sports, and workplace environments. The purpose of this podcast is to take the mystery out of this new discipline that backs our learning with simple neuroscience to make it applicable for us all to use right away, for immediate results. I had no idea while initially researching for this episode that neuroscientist and tenured professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Huberman, would be hosting Dr. David Sinclair[ii] (a Professor in the Department of Genetics from Harvard Medical School) on the Huberman Lab Podcast this week, and covering this very topic on “The Biology of Slowing and Reversing Aging”[iii] where the idea of hormesis was discussed throughout. I do recommend this episode for those who want to take a deeper dive into the science of anti-aging, longevity and the fascinating work that Dr. David Sinclair is doing in this field, in addition to Dr. Peter Attia’s Podcast, The Drive, on “Dr. Sinclair, Ph.D. Slowing Aging, sirtuins, NAD, and the epigenetics of aging.”[iv] If you are listening to this, and thinking “What? She’s lost me! What is she even talking about? Slowing down the ageing process? What is NAD and what are sirtuins?”  Just remember to keep an open mind--this podcast focuses on looking for the research from the most reputable place (Pubmed.gov), learn what the experts in the field have to say about what they are discovering, and then we break down the research in smaller pieces,  so that we can all make it applicable in our daily life, whether we’ve taken a neuroscience course, or not. What I’ve learned from studying closely with neuroscience researcher Mark Robert Waldman the past few years, is that we must be open to what the research says and keep our egos (and judgements) out of whatever it is we want to prove. I’m working hard on an abstract that supports the importance of educational neuroscience as a new discipline in our schools, versus the old model of learning, and although there is research that supports my hypothesis, it’s still a new field, and I must remember what Dr. Sinclair tells his students, that “most things we thought were true are not…or will change over time.”[v] I’m now on my third revision of this abstract, because it’s not easy to step away from what we want to believe, and leave it up in the air, because we might be wrong about everything, when it comes to looking at life through the lens of a scientist. Just keep an open mind, especially when you hear that Dr. Sinclair, now at the forefront of anti-aging research, after all the criticism he’s received over the years, is in the late stages of clinical trials of working on something that mimics exercise in a pill to speed up metabolism. The next few years are going to really blow our minds with what is possible, and I hope that we can all embrace new ideas, with open minds and make the needed chan