Want to live a longer, happier and healthier life? According to an Atlanta health expert, the key may be to start living a lifestyle a little less stress-free.
People in the United States are not short on stress these days. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, psychological distress has been a major concern. Two years ago, the American Psychological Association called America “a nation recovering from a collective trauma” when publishing its Stress in America survey. The Pew Research Center determined in 2022 that at least 40% of U.S. adults had faced psychological distress during the pandemic. In 2024, the APA called the U.S. “a nation in political turmoil,” revealing that over 70% of adults surveyed said the future of America was a major stressor in their lives.
But what if some of that stress could strengthen us, instead of wear us down?
Scientist, professor and clinician Dr. Sharon Bergquist is Emory University’s director of lifestyle medicine and wellness. In her new book “The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier,” she explores how “good stress” can empower lives.
What is ‘good stress’?
“Lifestyle is the foundation on which to build health,” Bergquist said.
The body’s innate ability to defend is something the Emory University expert calls resilience. She explained that “good stress” is stress that can serve to safely build that resilience, helping your body defend against disease — and help you live longer.
“What we tend to do as a result of the way we conceptualize stress as being harmful is to either deny that we are stressed, to avoid stress [or] to try and curb stress,” she said. “What happens over time is that we are not giving ourselves the mini stimuli, like the mini exercises, where we can gradually build resilience. We need some stress to build the pathways of getting good at stress.”
In her book, Bergquist identifies five forms of “good stress”: plant-based foods, exercise, hot and cold therapy, intermittent fasting and emotional and mental challenges. She refers to these as hormetic stressors, which are manageable stressors that can lead to positive health outcomes.
“They have the ability, when they’re at a mild to moderate dose, to paradoxically strengthen us because the common theme of those five is that they activate cellular stress responses.
“At the level of our cells, they’re helping us repair DNA, repair proteins, improve our energy or mitochondria, recycle damaged and old cells, raise our antioxidant capacity [and] reduce inflammation.”
Tips for improving your life with ‘good stress’
The first way people can adjust their lifestyles to live longer, healthier and happier lives through “good stress” is by simply eating their fruits and veggies.
Avoiding bad dietary stressors, like ultra-processed foods, is important for health, but adding healthy food to your diet can lead to even more profound lifestyle improvements. Specifically, Bergquist said, consuming the phytochemicals found in plants is important, as their antioxidant properties decrease numerous disease risks.
“The simple message is whatever your plate looks like and whatever dietary pattern you choose to follow — whether you’re an omnivore, a vegan, whichever — just add something that gives you some plant chemicals: one fruit, one vegetable,” she explained.
While what we eat can make a difference, when we eat is also important. The Emory University professor called her dietary approach to “good stress” a circadian fast. Through the fast, you eat all of your daily calories within a 12-hour window that aligns with your circadian biology.
“At nighttime, we need to go at least 12 hours to tap into our body’s restorative, housekeeping functions,” she said. “All the healing and repair happens after 12 hours because we have a metabolic switch that occurs where we go from using glucose for energy to using fat for energy, and we convert the fat to ketones, which are signaling molecules.
“They send a message throughout our body that we are in a stress situation. Our bodies hunker down and start to create stress resistance that starts to activate all of the cellular stress responses. And when we emerge from that stress situation, i.e. we eat, we actually grow healthier cells.”
Dieting is not all that be can be done to improve quality of life. Exercising through one to two minutes of high intensity activity three times a day can improve health, she said. This can be something as simple as a brisk trot up a flight of stairs. Or at the end of every shower, turn the water to cold for 30 seconds to activate “good stress” in the brain.
“It helps you function better in real life stress situations, because you’re training your mind to stay in the cold,” Bergquist said. “Just take deep breaths. Don’t run out of the shower.”
To mentally and emotionally challenge yourself in a healthy way, she explained that the key is not to seek more stress — but rather slowly and safely become more comfortable with facing life’s daily stressors.
“The idea is getting comfortable with being slightly uncomfortable,” she said.
“For mental and emotional challenges, it can be something that you have held off doing, but that sings to your heart.”
Have you been putting off asking for a promotion you feel you deserve? Start by crafting an email. Even if you don’t intend to send the message when you’re done, she explained, the act of facing your stress can still make a big difference.
“You just start small, wherever anybody’s at, and you build self trust, you build self-confidence,” she said. “You work your way into the life that you envision.”
The important thing, she said, is to focus on safely facing stressors that are hindering you from doing something that would bring your life meaning.
“This is an act of self love. This is an act of owning your life [and] making choices and decisions that are not just helping you perform better, but in the process actually making you healthier, stronger, and helping you live a longer life.”
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