Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist, MD: Hormetic Stress, Women’s Resilience, and the 5 Stressors That Support Longevity

Avoiding stress at all costs may actually be making you less resilient.

In this episode, Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist reframes stress as one of the body’s most overlooked tools for longevity. The right kind of challenge can activate repair, strengthen resilience, improve metabolic health, and help the body adapt in ways that support healthier aging over time. Rather than trying to eliminate stress completely, she explains how to use it more intelligently.

At the center of the conversation are five key stressors the body appears designed to benefit from when they’re used well: plant phytochemicals, exercise, heat and cold exposure, time-restricted eating, and purpose-driven psychological stress.

Sharon also explains why recovery matters and why too little stress can be just as harmful as too much, and how mindset changes the biology of the stress response.

A study of 29,000 people found that believing stress is harmful raised the risk of dying by 43%, while viewing it as not harmful lowered that risk by 17%.

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