We’ve been conditioned to think that all stress is harmful, but science now shows that certain kinds of stress are not only beneficial, but necessary for optimal health. By cultivating the right kind of stress, you are healing, repairing, and regenerating your body. In this episode I’m joined by physician and author of The Stress Paradox Dr. Sharon Bergquist to discuss how stress can improve your gut and overall health.
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On today’s show, we are talking stress with one of the experts. Dr. Sharon Bergquist is an internal medicine physician. She’s a professor and she runs a lifestyle medicine program at Emory. She’s been involved in multiple clinical trials, including the NIH funded Emory Healthy Brain Study. She is the author of the brand new book, The Stress Paradox, and this is an incredible book. It focuses on so many things, but if I had to sort of summarize it, I would say it is about the power that we all have to turn on these coordinated stress responses in our body. And these stress responses are literally more powerful than medication for keeping us healthy. You can find her on social media @thegoodstressdoctor. Dr. Bergquist, welcome to the Gutbliss Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
So the first thing I want to ask you is what makes stress good versus harmful? Because we’ve all been conditioned to think of stress as a killer. So what’s good stress?
Yeah, so like you said, the stress that we know is chronic, it’s continuous, it kind of permeates our lives, it’s in the difficult relationships, job situations that make us feel stuck. But there’s a different type of stress that is brief and little acute episodes of stress. These are stressors that were inherent in our lives for our ancestors for thousands of years, really millions of years. And these brief stressors can enrich us, they strengthen us. And that’s really the key difference when we use stress strategically in these brief bursts. It can be a very powerful force. It can help us grow. It’s really the idea of pushing ourselves past our comfort zone. And that is the gateway to becoming stronger, more resilient, and healthier people.
Now give us some examples of what those sort of brief life enhancing stressors look like.
Yeah, some examples are five really main ones and the common theme again is that these were inherent in our ancestors’ lives. They are exposure to plant chemicals which are called phytochemicals. Our bodies perceive those as microstressors. Brief bursts of exercise, particularly if you reach a vigorous or high intensity. Exposure to heat and cold extremes of those. Eating in a window that allows us to fast a little bit more than our overnight fast, but something that’s very doable. And exposing ourselves to critical thinking, these mental and emotional challenges to which our brains adapt and our brains help us become more resilient. So those are really five main ones. And they work in a very coordinated way where there’s a lot of synergy, where if you use one of these physical stressors, they help you become mentally stronger. If you use some critical thinking and psychological stressors, they help you become physically stronger. And the kind of point of intersection where they all converge is at the level of our cells.
I love that these are also just sort of good common sense things, right? Like eat some plants, move your body, use your brain. And when you think about the longevity movement now and people taking gobs of supplements that are clearly going to rot their liver and stress their kidneys, the science shows us again and again and again that it really is these basic things. I sum it up in the gut world as dirt, sweat, veg: get outside in nature, get sweaty, eat some vegetables, but you have some additional things about really using your brain. And one of the things I really like about that is that you can reframe what you’re doing in a more positive way. And I’ll give you an example of that. My almost 90 year old dad is not very tech savvy or equipped to deal in the world we live in now. And so most days I speak to him, the conversation starts with, “I’m having a little problem”. And then, you know, it’s often something wrong with his iPad or something like that. I’m happy to help, but he complains about it and he goes, “you know, everything was working fine and then this happened, or there was a leak or something”. And I say to him, “dad, you know, my entire life is problem solving, more or less from I get up in the morning till I go to bed at night”. So if you embrace it, rather than see it as this terrible obstacle that you have to surmount, if you embrace it and you celebrate these tiny little things, like you were disconnected from the internet and we reconnected you, it may not seem like a big deal, but kind of see it as this little victory rather than this obstacle. So I think there’s so much in the book of things that are there and we can’t do anything about it, but we can reframe it in a way where it starts to work for us.
Can you tell people a little bit about how to use stress in addition to these five things which are so important? Do you have tips for how people can reframe what they would consider stressful events in their life?
Yeah, so what you just mentioned is so critical because there’s a mindset around this and how you perceive stress alone impacts the effect that the stress has on our body. So if a person, say like your dad, approaches the iPad issue as, you know, this is beneficial, I’m going to learn from this versus this is harmful, this is stressing me out. That difference alone impacts the cortisol reactivity – you know, your stress response. So the first is just embracing the idea that these are microstressors. These are not life-threatening things that will activate the fight or flight response that, you know, everyone envisions. These microstressors, you know, our bodies are designed to really adapt to stress. The stress system is there to help us. It’s an adaptive mechanism. So when you feel that sense of stress, think of it as my body is preparing me. It is activating energy so I can handle this. So it’s there to help you. So I think the first is just the mindset approach and how that applies is that we spend a lot of time in this mindset of fear of restriction, of avoidance. I mean, this applies not just to the mental components of stress, but to all of our stress.
And if we expand stress to be anything that challenges us physically or mentally, we apply that mindset to food, focusing more on playing the defensive game. What should I avoid? How do I defend my health against the ultra-processed foods? We do it to ourselves in a whole host of physical ways. But if we embrace this mindset of taking action and control, what can I add? What can I control? It really changes how we feel about stress because it is a mindset that I am building health, you know, and that can help me negate the harm that may or may not be avoidable. But we get very focused on the things that are very difficult to control. You know, our food environment is very difficult at a large scale to control. You know, we can certainly control it in our homes. The environment of technology is very difficult to control large-scale, but again we can create a micro environment but what we’re talking about here is this mindset of playing health on the offense rather than playing it on the defense and focusing on building health rather than worrying about the things that are taking away from health So that’s really the framework and I don’t think we spend enough time talking about how do we build resilience. How do we build? How do we mitigate the harm? And that’s really the half of the conversation that we’re focused on when we talk about good stress.
Well, I love in the book how you have both the physical and the mental. And as you were talking about building resilience, it really made me think of what you do in the gym, whether you’re starting to lift or whether you’re starting a running program with the goal of running a marathon and how you add the miles, you have the training program, you start with maybe a three mile base, you have some long runs, you have some tempo runs, you have some faster runs and then you look back two, three months later and you’re like, wow, I now have a 10 mile base instead of a three mile base. I built this up! Or you’re starting a weightlifting program and you look back. So when people do that from a physical point of view, it is often in the setting of a structured program. I know when I ran my first marathon in 1997 or 1998, I forget now, but it seemed like just an unsurmountable thing to do. I’d never run more than about six miles. I’d run a 10K and like, how am I going to run 26.2 miles? And I did it with a program that was raising money for Whitman Walker, which provided services to HIV patients. And so I had that also sort of mental piece that I’m doing something good for other people, but it was a structured program. So, you know, how do you get from six miles to 26.2 miles? One step at a time, literally building up. And so we have these structured programs for weightlifting or running or cycling, but we don’t really have them for how we build that mental resilience, or at least we didn’t until The Stress Paradox. So thank you so much, Sharon. This is an incredible contribution, not just to the medical and scientific literature, but I really think to everybody’s practical toolbox. And I’ve told you this before, I got a galley copy, because I was honored to be asked to write a review for the book. And usually when I get a galley copy, I’ll read the intro, I’ll read a couple of chapters. But I read the entire thing. This book is fantastic. I’m so thrilled to recommend it. It’s The Stress Paradox, why you need stress to live longer, healthier and happier. And when we come back, Dr. Bergquist is going to tell us how good stress can be an antidote to chronic stress – when we come back.
We are back talking with Dr. Bergquist about stress. Sharon, tell us, how can good stress be an antidote to chronic stress? It’s sort of like, how can you use stress to combat other kinds of stress, which seems a little paradoxical.
Yes, so the good stressors, what they’re really doing for us is that they’re making our cells healthier by regenerating them. They’re repairing our cells; they’re helping them resist damage, and this is the damage that we’re exposed to every day that impacts our DNA, impacts our proteins, that damages our mitochondria. So what we’re really doing is we’re making ourselves function better, and that is the path that helps us become stronger. So like you just said, when you did your marathon, you had a very structured program and that applied to building aerobic capacity. People do that at the gym for building muscle. We’re expanding this model of the plasticity, the ability of our body to grow from being challenged to the mental, we’re extending it to really every part of our brain, you’re essentially training your body to become more resilient and resistant. And the pathway is essentially stress, recover, repeat, stress, recover, repeat. So as you just said, you start where you’re at, you honor your body, you honor your bio-individuality wherever you’re starting from, and you have to be very thoughtful about how you start and incorporate the stress. And you have to strategically plan for recovery because the growth, the building of the muscle, the building of the brain, the building of the gut, when we’re exposed to challenge, all happens in that recovery phase. And it’s this microdose and repetitive habit that you build that makes you resilient and becomes the antidote to the chronic stress.
So how do you do the recovery? Is there something you actively have to be doing for the recovery? Or is recovery just eliminating, sort of stepping away from the stress for a minute?
That is a good starting point for the recovery, but when you’re strategic about recovery, the first thing is you actually have to plan for it. A lot of times we put ourselves through stressful situations and then we do the next and the next and we stack the stress. So the first thing really is plan. And it is a little bit more than just take a book and sit on a sofa or watch a movie because your brain is still in a very active mode. It’s just switching and kind of downshifting a little bit. But if you can get into a deeper state of relaxation by being out in nature and really connecting with nature, a deeper state that is like a non-sleep, deep rest that you can also do in various ways that are similar to meditation, but they’re a little bit different. That actually helps you build pathways and adapt to the stress in a way that gives you greater growth. So there is a strategic way. And then of course, when it’s a physical stressor, like exercise, sleep is a critical component. So planning sleep, you know, as crazy as it sounds, I don’t think people give a lot of attention to what their sleep routine is like. They just put their head on a pillow and the most common concern I hear about in my office is I don’t sleep well, I have insomnia. So we really have to think about are we building the practice of recovery. And ditto with any type of post-workout or strategy around getting the nutrients post-workout that you need to maximize the muscle growth after a workout. With every stress exposure, you need to build a recovery plan that is just as important as building the workout plan. how are you going to train for that marathon? Well, how are you going to recover after every training? They’re like yin and yang, kind of like peanut butter and jelly. If you do one without the other, you really miss out on the benefit.
The sleeping is so critical and it’s something that plays so prominently into gut health, into immune health, into our resilience to viruses, chronic diseases, etc. And there’s so many good tips in the book for that – thank you for that. Okay, one of the things that I love about the book, The Stress Paradox is, and there are many things I love about this book, as you all know, Dr. Bergquist is actually the first author I’ve had on the Gutbliss podcast because I feel that strongly about her book. So there is a toolkit in this book and it’s essentially almost the second half of the book with worksheets and all kinds of practical things. Tell folks a little bit about what’s in that and how they can use it.
The book includes a Stress Paradox protocol and it breaks down these five stressors and talks people through how to challenge yourself essentially past a comfort zone, but not to the point of overwhelm. And then it helps people with strategic recovery through each of these stressors. And when I was designing the protocol for the book, I was thinking about my medical practice and every patient I see is in a different place with stress and where they are with their recovery. And I wanted it to be something that was adaptable, where everybody would benefit. Sometimes, you know, if something’s a 28 day plan, day one you do this, day two you do this. Well, some people are at a different starting point and this gives people the flexibility wherever they’re at to begin with overarching guidelines of pushing yourself to a point where you’re benefiting from stress, but not to the point where you actually can harm yourself from stress exposure. And helping people connect with their bodies, navigate through this process of stress recovery and repeat was just so important for me, and this was the best way to capture it. And what we’re essentially doing is we’re looking for this Goldilocks zone. This is the ideal zone where some level of adversity benefits us. And it’s helping people find that whether it’s mental, whether it’s physical and really tracking how we respond to each of the things that we’re incorporating into our lives and tuning into that. So it was my best attempt to help people like I would my patients with honoring their own preferences, honoring their body and helping everybody kind of move along this process because at the end of the day, our lives have gotten so comfortable where the idea of introducing a challenge deliberately almost feels like biohacking. But the reality is that this is what is foundational. This is what normal looks like for our bodies to thrive. And it’s helping people establish the foundation for health. And then you can build on it if you want to add supplements or different approaches that you want to try, but we’ve got to get the foundational pieces. And it’s really kind of a reintroduction of what our body needs to thrive.
I love that you mentioned the idea of a foundational approach because the corollary in the gut world is that people think that a supplement is going to zip up their gut lining or completely regenerate their microbiome. And the analogy I would use is, if you want to run a marathon, you’ve got to put in some miles. I mean, sure, great shoes and maybe some supplement could be some icing on the cake, but at the end of the day, you have to put in the miles. I think that with this sort of over-marketing of health and longevity and all of these things, we have really forgotten about the foundational approach. And really, it is the platform on which everything else is built. So when we come back, how stress management can help you create a healthier gut – when we come back.
We are back with Dr. Bergquist talking about The Stress Paradox and how stress management can help you create a healthier gut. And what I really want to say is that this book should actually be required reading for folks who are really struggling with GI issues, particularly GI issues like irritable bowel syndrome, but also for people with chronic autoimmune complex disorders like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis, because we know that even though stress doesn’t cause these diseases, there is a very strong correlation between stress and flare-ups. I see it in my college students around exam time. They’re not sleeping, they’re not eating well, they’re not exercising, they’re not getting out in nature, they’re stressed about the exam, and that is typically when they tend to have a flare-up. So connect the dots for us between stress and having a healthy gut.
Yeah, so when we think of stress, obviously we first think of the psychological stress and the connection there is on so many levels, but we know that the chronic stress, the stress from even exams, the heightened intense stress can affect our gut microbial balance. So we change the balance more towards harmful bacteria, creating a state of dysbiosis instead of the more beneficial bacteria that leads to less of the beneficial short-chain fatty acids like butyrate. It can lead to a leaky gut and intestinal permeability. And it can activate the immune system in the gut where we have more pro-inflammatory cytokines like IL-6 and TNF-alpha for people who want the more granular ways that we’re getting impacted. But the net is that we are creating a disfavorable bacterial environment and that creates a loop because then since our bacteria are instrumental in producing the serotonin, the dopamine, the more calming hormones and neurotransmitters including GABA, you get in this stress brain loop where you have reduction of the actual neurotransmitters that help us feel good, that help us calm us from this stress state and it becomes this kind of vicious cycle. And if you approach things from a good stress approach, again, this take action approach, the key is that not all stress leads to this fight or flight response. When we take on stressors that align with our belief system, stressors that are purposeful and meaningful to us, stressors that contribute to a greater good and helping others and things beyond ourselves, the profile of the stress response raises dopamine, actually raises our serotonin level, it raises our oxytocin level, and these are the hormones and neurotransmitters that mitigate that cortisol response. So we’re essentially breaking that vicious cycle by choosing the stressors that help relax and calm us and have a protective effect. Again, we’re using stress to build an antidote to these chronic stressors, you know, this paradoxical approach. And we’re mitigating the harm by breaking that vicious cycle loop and changing the neurochemistry in our body and in our gut.
I want to just reemphasize for folks listening two things that you said that are so critical. One is that the stress, the chronic stress, can actually create dysbiosis. And this is something that’s been known for a long time. There experiments actually in college students showing that that kind of stress, and particularly acute aggressive on top of chronic, can increase levels of bad bacteria a thousandfold within a 24-hour period of time. So I want people to remember that when you’re sort of obsessively stressing about something, you are actually helping to create dysbiosis, which is something you don’t want. The second is about the neurotransmitters. So you’re changing your brain chemistry based on your thoughts, essentially. That’s what you’re saying. I mean, that is powerful stuff.
Yes, your thoughts, beliefs and your actions change the chemistry and the function of your body. So when I’m using the term resilience, I’m referring not just to this mushy concept that you’re somehow stronger, but that you’re physically restructuring your body. You’re remodeling your brain, your gut, every component. So resilience is a muscle in every part. You’re training the brain, training the gut. And that’s exactly right. That’s what we’re doing and it’s not just psychological stress that helps the gut. But if you also extend it to all the stressors that we’re talking about, for example, with the exercise piece, when we have bursts of exercise, we’re building cardiorespiratory fitness in a way that exceeds what we’re capable of doing through continuous exercise. And VOT max, which is a way of looking at peak oxygen intake at our highest level of activity when we’re doing intense activity can account for 22% of the variance in our gut bacteria. So there’s this exercise piece of how good stress can help when we look at what I’m terming fasting which is essentially just trying to go more than 12 hours without eating. That gives our body the time to do the repair processes that improve the cells in our gut lining. Fasting also improves the balance of our gut bacteria. And this is not just an overnight fast, but if you go more than three hours between meals, you also allow the migrating motor complex, which is kind of this system that helps propel things down in our gut. It creates that gradient of gut bacteria. And if you eat, you stop that process of moving the bacteria on down to your lower intestines. And you can create dysbiosis simply by just snacking all day. So the physical stressors also improve gut health as does incorporating the good stressors and changing the neurotransmitter chemistry. So there’s such a synergy. And if a person is stuck with the mental component of it, I think a lot of times people get stuck with how do I handle the stress in my life. Sometimes you can just start with the physical and work your way to better gut health, improve the neurotransmitters, and that makes it easier to handle the psychological stress.
I want to ask you, because I know you’re a runner, so what you’re describing sounds like interval training. So interval training versus distance running, what’s your take?
Yeah, there’s, both are important. You’re building a base of stronger mitochondria, essentially the energy making capacity of your muscles through continuous running. But when you hit those intense peaks, you’re pushing above the amount that you can get from continuous exercise. So about 40% of people who don’t do the interval training but only do continuous paced workouts don’t see an improvement in their VO2 max or non-responders. There’s a unique benefit because our body senses the intense intervals as a form of stress. we’re talking about an adaptation at the level of our central nervous system. And that is what triggers these stronger adaptations where we produce more mitochondria than we would otherwise. So there’s a unique benefit to that intensity that helps us reach a different peak of cardiorespiratory fitness that we would not get without the interval training.
I think there’s so many great lessons in this book too for parenting and particularly for folks who are parenting teens or in my case I have a 20 year old. I know you have three girls and they’re all sort of on the launch pad, because we have this tendency, this desire sometimes to want to protect our kids from adverse events and adverse outcomes, but we are not allowing them to build resilience if we are not also allowing them to experience some stress. I’m not talking about encouraging your kid to flunk out of college or anything like that, but to sort things out, figure things out, maybe feel a little uncomfortable trying to get to that solution. So I think that there’s so many fantastic lessons in the book, not just for how to create a healthy gut, but how to be healthier in general, how to have more resilience, how to be a better parent. I want to thank Dr. Bergquist. Sharon, it’s really such a fantastic book. I was very, very moved by it. And I think you’ve done such an incredible job of not just presenting the science but really giving people practical tools that they can use. So thank you so much for joining us and for putting the stress paradox out into the world.
Thank you so much for all your kind words and for receiving the book so well.
All true! I want to leave you with three takeaways about The Stress Paradox that we’ve been talking about with Doctor Bergquist.
1. We’ve been conditioned to think that all stress is harmful, but science now shows that certain kinds of stress are not only beneficial, but they’re necessary for optimal health.
2. By carefully cultivating the right kind of stress, you are healing repairing and regenerating your body
3. And finally, a quick summary of five key good stressors for maximizing mental, emotional and physical resilience: #1. Eat more plants #2. Push yourself physically on a regular basis with intermittent intense exercise #3. Expose yourself to heat and cold #4. Fast for 12 hours overnight and #5. Challenge yourself mentally and emotionally.
So that’s it for this episode of the Gutbliss Podcast on The Stress Paradox and what it means for your gut health. Join me next week for irritable bowel syndrome.
