I'd Rather Be Reading

Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist on Why Some Stress Might Actually Be Good for Us

16 Mar 2025

Audio

Description

There aren’t many of us—if any of us—who aren’t experiencing stress. But what if I told you that a little stress isn’t just okay for us as humans, but it’s necessary? That’s what Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist writes about in her new book The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier, which is out March 25. Now, hear her out—in this fascinating book, she argues that a little bit of being uncomfortable can actually have majorly positive results towards our longevity and vitality. We as humans have, as Sharon writes about, gotten ourselves into a bit of a comfort conundrum—while our modern day comforts are certainly nice, they are stripping us of temporary stressors that actually make us better. Today on the show Sharon walks us through what the stress paradox is and how brief and intermittent stress, counter to what we might think, actually heals, repairs, and regenerates us. There is, it turns out, actually such a thing as good stress, and stress might kind of be getting a bit of a rebrand here. We talk about how to spot the difference between good stress and harmful stress, what stress induced growth is, what a hormetin is and how we activate them, five major steps to bring good stress into our lives that we can all start doing today, and so much more. When you think about it, it really makes sense—no diamond was created without a little pressure first, and applied in the right manner for the right duration, we as humans need that pressure to grow into something (or, rather, someone) beautiful, too. It’s really interesting. Sharon is an award-winning physician and visionary researcher who has helped lead numerous clinical trials, including the Emory Healthy Aging Study and the NIH-funded Emory Healthy Brain Study. She is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to over 200 news segments, including on CNN, Good Morning America, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC News. She too is a podcaster and hosts “The Whole Health Cure” show, and her popular TED video on how stress affects the body has been viewed over 6 million times. She is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Medical School, and makes a really compelling case for stress actually being a necessary component to living our best lives.⁠The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier⁠ by Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist

Transcription

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.

0 upvotes

🗳️ Sign in to Upvote

Popular episodes get transcribed faster

Other recent transcribed episodes

Transcribed and ready to explore now

13:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

01 Jan 1970

Fin de Semana

10:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

01 Jan 1970

Fin de Semana

12:00H | 20 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

01 Jan 1970

Fin de Semana

2ª PARTE | 06 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

01 Jan 1970

El Partidazo de COPE

3ª PARTE | 22 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

01 Jan 1970

El Partidazo de COPE

3ª PARTE | 04 MAR 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

01 Jan 1970

El Partidazo de COPE

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.

Report any issue

I'd Rather Be Reading

Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist on Why Some Stress Might Actually Be Good for Us

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Other recent transcribed episodes

13:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

10:00H | 21 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

12:00H | 20 DIC 2025 | Fin de Semana

2ª PARTE | 06 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

3ª PARTE | 22 ENE 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

3ª PARTE | 04 MAR 2026 | EL PARTIDAZO DE COPE

Sign in to Audioscrape

Share this moment