Feel Stressed? Why That Might Not Be a Bad Thing with Dr. Sharon Bergquist
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If you're like most people, you've been told that stress is the enemy, that it's something to reduce, manage, eliminate. We associate stress with burnout, inflammation, illness, and being overwhelmed. And sure, the wrong kind of stress can wear us down. But what if we've misunderstood the whole concept from the start? What if stress isn't the villain, but actually the secret weapon we're overlooking?

This is Smart People Podcast. Podcast for smart people, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people.

In this episode, we're joined by Dr. Sharon Bergquist, a physician, scientist, and longevity expert who's been studying the body at its most fundamental level, the cell. She is also the author of the new book, The Stress Paradox, Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier, an essential stress management companion with a mind-body-soul approach. And what she's uncovered is nothing short of a paradigm shift.

According to Dr. Bergquist, not only is stress not always bad, but certain kinds of stress, when done right, what she calls good stress, are actually essential to healing. They build resilience and they're necessary for long-term health. Now today, we're not talking about your basic like, oh, you work out and that's stressful. We all know that. We're going to dig into what that means at the biological level.

How does stress impact our cells? How does it influence everything from aging to energy to immune function? And then what we can do starting today to tap into this incredible internal capability. So if you've ever wondered why your body feels off, even when your labs say everything is normal, or why modern healthcare seems better at managing disease than preventing it, this conversation is going to connect some dots.

Not only that, and maybe it's because I'm in a stressful period of my life, but our next episode is also going to talk about stress, but in a different light. So we will see it from all angles. Hopefully in our next two episodes, we can reframe the way you approach stress, health, and healing for good. Now let's get into it as we talk to Dr. Sharon Bergquist about her new book, The Stress Paradox. Enjoy. I never start a podcast with this question.

But as I was learning about you, I was like, I need to know. And I think it's because it's a field I'm so fascinated in. You know, how do you describe yourself to others, given that you have this incredible academic background, this practitioner background, this stress focus? What's your marketing pitch to people? Because you have so many ways it could go. I think

would consider myself a clinician that's a scientist, so physician-scientist, and it's really straddling both, combining the research, which informs my clinical practice. And at the end of the day, you know, when you're taking care of patients, you have to understand how the research is applicable to their health. So it's really a physician-scientist, and it's

combining both worlds of real world experience, taking it back to studying it and then applying what you're learning to people and reiterating. Could you tell us a little bit about your clinical practice? What is it like? Is it traditional? Who do you see most? What types of patients? I work at an academic medical center. So it's more a traditional practice. And I have

two clinical practices actually within the academic center. I work in a general internal medicine practice. So I'm an internal medicine trained physician, meaning I focus mostly on disease prevention. And my personal interest is how to use lifestyle

and behaviors to prevent, manage, and even reverse a chronic disease. So unlike most physicians and academic centers, I'm trying to get my patients off of medications rather than prescribing them.

And I have another practice where I'm the medical director of an executive health program. So we take care of senior executives who are leading global companies. And the interest there is really health optimization. These are people who need to be peak functioning and their employers have a vested interest. And so their stockholders, et cetera, in making sure that they're,

They are evaluated at a level of depth that is beyond traditional care, diagnosing earlier stages of problems just because their health impacts so many people on the financial bottom line. So I do more future state medicine in that clinic, looking more at where is the science going and the technology going

in helping us peel the layers back of earlier and earlier biomarkers for identifying the chronic diseases. And some of my research is really focused on that and looking at the rate at which people are biologically aging, things of that sort through kind of more of a molecular signature. With the executive practice, at times I'd imagine you felt like, why is it only accessible to the rich?

You know, how do you how do you feel about that? You know, Chris, first of all, thank you for that huge compliment. I take that very well because it's such a core mission of mine to provide really high quality care.

And your question is fascinating because people often ask me, what is executive health? And I simply say it's how health care should be. And it is a challenge, but it also makes you question why care isn't structured that way. Right. So.

We are not bound to insurance companies when I design the protocol for our executive health. So I can use my medical background, my scientific background to evaluate what I think is ethically ready for prime time. Right. And there's a lot out there in the wellness field of people promising health.

Certain types of testing that they say is predictive or they can structure a dietary or exercise regimen based on certain levels of testing, some of that is really ahead of the science. And I feel like I can kind of straddle that boundary between what is truly ready for being used in an ethical way outside of a clinical study and

And so I would say the executive health really is future state, but oftentimes things start that way before they can become mainstream, right? The first person who got an iPhone, I'm sure was fairly wealthy. And over time it becomes democratized. And I think that that's really what can happen in a lot of healthcare. So for example,

We do coronary arterial calcium CT tests. That's becoming quite common though, right? Is that the one that's only like 300 bucks? The average person could get it, right? Less. At our center, the cash price without insurance is $250. We were doing that at least 15 plus years.

At the time, it was heavily criticized. It was not a part of the guidelines, even within cardiology academic programs. It was something that people were questioning, like, we don't think we should be doing this. And it has now made it into the guidelines. And it is fairly common and inexpensive.

Same right now, we are testing fasting insulin levels and we combine that with a fasting blood sugar level to identify people with insulin resistance, which is the underlying process that leads to prediabetes and diabetes.

it occurs at least a decade plus before the onset of prediabetes. So when you're just using blood sugar, your body has this incredible compensatory capacity to increase how much insulin it produces at the onset of insulin resistance. So blood sugar remains normal for at least a decade plus. And when the pancreatic islet cells that produce the insulin are starting to burn out,

that is when blood sugar starts to rise. So prediabetes is actually a fairly late stage manifestation of an underlying disease process that has been going on for a while. An insulin test, which I think is so useful, I mean, we combine it in an equation called HOMA-IR, homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance. So there are algorithms where you can determine insulin resistance using a fasting insulin level.

But the impact that has on someone's health trajectory, telling them over a decade earlier that you are headed towards a whole pathway of metabolic disease and its sequelae, which is cardiovascular disease, dementia, premature mortality. Most people, given that information, want to make a change. They are motivated to make a change.

An insulin blood test, how much would you guess it costs? Oh, man. 600 bucks. 20. Wow. Right. So the question becomes, yes, we do this in an executive health practice.

But there is no reason why these cannot be more mainstream tests. So is it fair to say then that the majority of things you're currently doing in executive medicine is simply constrained by current costs because it hasn't reached a level of mass adoption or scalability? I would say it's not even constrained by cost. See, that's what I was wondering, because if it's not, why can't we just like, if it's

If it's not cost, then why couldn't I pay out of pocket now and afford it? Because I'm assuming I couldn't. I'm assuming it's like really, really expensive. Well, you can pay out of pocket, but the affordability, you know, I think you can get parts of it.

I think a big part of the cost is actually the physician time and the level of detail because we essentially get all the results. We develop care plans on the day of the visit. So it's all bundled. But if you just wanted to, for example, like you said, get the coronary calcium CT, get the

the blood tests, like an insulin level, these are affordable to most people. I mean, most people spend the same amount of money going out to a restaurant for dinner. Sure. Yeah.

And some of these choices of what is covered within healthcare are driven by some guidelines. Some of them are, you know, done at a level where you have committees that evaluate the evidence. They're looking at cost benefit. I mean, there are a lot of variables that go into the determination of what makes it into a guideline. And then above and beyond that, what insurance chooses to cover when they're looking at

outcomes that are of interest to them. So, but oftentimes what's the best for a particular individual may not be what is best on an aggregate level for a population. And so guidelines are trying to balance that, right? You know. I just don't understand why it has to be this way. I just for the life of me cannot figure out

why no one, except for the people I've gone outside of the insurance complex on, no one even tries to listen. Like I entirely skip my primary care position now because there's only two things they're going to say. One is you're fine or to send me to a specialist. If those are your two answers, why do you exist? You know, I think you're touching on a really big question really is, um,

How does healthcare need to change to take care of people so that we're bending the cost curve, not by restricting care, but by making people healthier, right? Like that should be the ultimate goal, right? And, you know, my personal mission has been to redirect more towards prevention and

and then using lifestyle-based management of disease. That is very time intensive and there's a lot of individualization. I personally believe in it. I'm a very mission-driven person, so I invest that time. I think there are a lot of incentives in the system that lead you down a different path and

I think it's really part of a bigger question, but your assessment is valid. And I think it takes vocalization and expression of what people want for there to be change driven by consumer demand. I'm not sure how much of it is going to come within the system. I mean, hopefully some will.

But I do think that at the end of the day, the person who's receiving the care can influence what that should look like, right? Because we're obviously missing the mark if we're creating a disincentive, not financially, but just a disincentive in people wanting the experience of going to a primary care physician.

And internally within the profession, it's leading to a lot of burnout cynicism because people don't feel gratified when they are put in a position where they have such limited time that they cannot really delve in to a problem with the level of understanding, right? So

You know, if you listen to a patient long enough, they're going to give you the diagnosis. I mean, that's what Sir William Osler said, you know, one of the fathers of medicine. And that's how the whole concept of how we provide care originated. And we've deviated so far from that.

Now the average physician, I believe in eight seconds interrupts the patient, right? So we'll never hear the diagnosis. It's really a system not designed to perfectly benefit everyone, but to benefit some enough and then financially at the top the most, you know, because the physicians don't want to do it this way. The patients don't want it this way. But to your point, if I go in and I've got like a,

It's somewhat of a medical mystery that's going to take even 30 minutes. They're just looking going, we are not set up to do that. I mean, they've almost to an extent become operators that their goal is to just make sure you go in the right direction, not the answer at the end of the line. Yeah. I will say though, you know, in defense of all my colleagues, I will say that,

Where the system excels is, God forbid, you or anybody else or myself are diagnosed with a very horrible condition. The procedures, treatments are phenomenal. And the people doing them are incredibly trained in a complete gift to humanity that they can do such complex surgeries. So there are areas where the system shines. I think what we're talking about here is the

you know, foot in the door, healthy person. I want to stay healthy or I'm having this really, I don't know what to do. I have this symptom. Help me think it through, right? This kind of one. Yes. That's where we're struggling. Great point. That's helpful because then that leads us into kind of this chronic illness, which I've never associated with it because anytime I or somebody in my sphere for the most part has,

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I've experienced this. It's not at the chronic level. It's this almost bodily awareness that this is what leads to the chronic level. And that's where the struggle is. Oh, I'm having this pain here and it's tolerable, but I'd like to figure it out. Almost no one

is willing to dive in. And I think that is what you're talking about, either at the executive level or in your research and things. It's like, how do we, at that point, help get people on the right path so that they don't have to end up in the OR, which we are really good at. Well, exactly. And

And I'm, you know, this is really a segue into my work because when you are experiencing any symptom, be it fatigue, digestive problems, irregularity in menstrual cycles, a whole host of common symptoms that make you realize something is off. I just don't feel right. Really what is happening is at the level of our cells. There is some cellular dysfunction, right? Because I always think of, you know, what is your body telling you? Are you listening to your body? Right?

And cellular dysfunction, I mean, we're really now saying, let's bring it down to what is the physical correlate or the biological correlate to the symptom, right? Some part of your body is not optimized, right?

And if we don't listen at that stage, there's further dysfunction. Our cells make our tissues, our tissues make our body organs and systems, right? So over time, that leads to chronic disease. If we still don't listen, then, you know, meaning we don't treat the underlying problem. We often medicate, but we don't treat the underlying problem. That progresses to premature mortality. So I think...

Going back to being in touch with our bodies and listening to those symptoms and tuning in and realizing that that is our body saying something that you're doing, thinking, you know, because our thoughts, beliefs, actions, they all influence how our bodies function. And

you know, hopefully finding someone that will help you navigate how to figure that piece of it out of what is off, right? I mean, that's, to me, the core of prevention is saying, okay, let's peel the layers and go down to, you know, deeper level, deeper level. And you ultimately end up at your cells because we have 37 trillion cells in our entire bodies made of cells.

And the root really is at that point. And so much of what I'm fascinated by with both stress and resilience is the impact of what we do right now, which can harm ourselves and lead to these symptoms, and

And what we can choose to do, how we engage stress, where we can mitigate this damage, we can actually repair and regenerate ourselves. Like we have this incredible human capacity to heal our bodies. And so they're for the taking.

But we are not doing the things we need to do to activate our innate healing capability. And that is why I'm so passionate about redirecting our understanding of stress and

and delving into how we can utilize it to optimize our health and wellbeing. All right. I'm hooked. I'm in. You got me. I'm your new, you know, I'll be the bullhorn on the corner because I love what you said there. How did you make the correlation between I'm listening right now? I go, okay, we're made up of cells. It's like fundamental level. So if we boil everything down, something's wrong with those.

To stress. Are those clearly linked or is, did you have to move up a couple layers in the biological complexity line to get us from cellular health to stress?

the impacts of stress. Yeah, it's, um, it was quite the evolution in a lot of my work and research really over decades. Um, the, um, first part of that process was for me, a realization maybe about a decade into my practice. Um, you know, I was very well trained. I, um, you know, got, I think incredible mentorship during my residency and internship, um,

to treat disease. And I felt like most physicians do that I had that skill set. But about a decade into practice, I realized that

you know, patients that I was treating kept on coming back six months and we were just escalating their meds and their numbers met all the, you know, guidelines. They were well controlled by certain standards, blood pressure numbers, blood sugar numbers, et cetera. But the underlying process was really progressing. We were needing to escalate the medications or developing complications. And

For me, that was the point in my career where I realized that I needed to rethink what excellence meant. I needed to reimagine how we deliver care.

That took me down the path of really on my own, spending early mornings, weekends, understanding really that the ultimate contributor to our health unquestionably is our lifestyle. You know, what we eat, how much we exercise, things of that sort.

And there is an evidence-based approach to lifestyle. You know, diet and exercise has been said so much that it's really lost its meaning, right? And there's a full body of literature with specifics of if you want to lower average blood sugar, these are dietary practices, etc.,

And that became a big part of what made practicing medicine so gratifying for me because I could actually help people reverse their disease. And I mean, what could be more, well, for me at least, what could be more gratifying, right? And when that comes, a sense of empowerment on the part of people, it transforms people, right?

And I could feel it in my patients, the excitement. And they would share with me their recipes, you know, even things of that sort, and

And that then, you know, over time, as I delved more into how we can utilize different aspects of our lifestyle, kind of dovetailed into research around stress and how stress ultimately, as I have found, is the most powerful lever in

for making ourselves healthier because it has a regenerative capacity, right? Regenerative medicine is essentially using our body and our cells capability to heal at a kind of root cause way.

But regenerative medicine, again, is what we're talking about. It's accessible to a small subset of people with very high tech, you know, things like immunotherapy, stem cell treatments. But the fact that our lifestyle through good stress has this regenerative capability has made good stress in my mind become a very practical and accessible way that every single person can regenerate

regenerate their body and find a path to healing, a path to prevention, to optimizing their human capability and what's possible for them. Would you say that good stress is one of, if not the primary way to improve cellular health? I think it's the primary lifestyle-driven way to improve cellular health. Okay.

Great caveat, by the way, because the other could be like genetic components and things like that. Right. You can do some cell injections. I mean, so there's a host of ways. But to make this something that any person listening can start to do today. Yes. On his face, everything can be boiled down to a sentence, right? Like do things that are hard. Your body gets stronger. And you're like, OK, where's the depth in that? But but.

This is making me think, again, let's go back to our health is derived from ourselves. And if we know that doing bench press makes us stronger because

because it stresses the muscles beyond their current capacity. And then they build back stronger. Why wouldn't the same logic hold for ourselves? You stress them enough to where they realize that because they turn over often, right? Depending on the body part in the cell. But so next time when I turn over, I should be a little bit stronger. And if that happens at a cellular level, the output is at a whole body level. Oh,

100%. Is that fair? Okay. Well, the whole premise of good stress is exactly what you're talking about. It's called bioplasticity. Our body is constantly changing. And when we engage stress and allow our bodies the time to recover, just as after you lift weights, you've got to recover, the growth happens in that recovery. And then you can stress again and have more growth.

And with good stress, which is termed hormesis, a science of good stress, we know that any time there's exposure to a stress, you can improve performance and capability or resilience by about 20 to 25 percent. Over time, you can improve 60 to 90 percent. You can almost double your human potential.

Next time I, let's say, go for a run or something, I'm going to be thinking about literal cells experiencing that. And that is more exciting to me. So I like this line of thinking on it. Yeah. You know, the whole concept of growth through adversity is very much just conceptual. And I completely agree with you. Like, what does growth mean and what does resilience mean? Right. It's almost mushy. Right.

And what I'm talking about is literally how we are rewiring the structure and function of our body when we engage stress and recovery. You know, we, like resilience is a muscle, just like you said, you know, if you go weightlifting, every part of our body, for example, if we engage critical thinking or psychologically stressful experiences of a certain type for a certain duration, followed by recovery, and we can certainly get into the details of it.

We can differentiate stem cells into neural cells that help us remember how we handled the stress. So we can build synaptic connections between our neurons, essentially pathways that communicate between brain cells that help us remember how we handled the stress, right? So you are changing the function of your body. So that is what resilience is.

And the opposite happens as well. When we don't, we actually lose it, right? It's use it or lose it. And so much of what compelled me to want to write a book and share this information is because we're currently in a state of not adequately utilizing the stimulus that our body needs to be in a growth and enhancing, enriching path. Yeah. I definitely say...

In the 40 years approximate that I've been on this planet, I'm probably engaging in less of the physical stress activities than ever before. And I notice it. The reason is because the mental stress activities are so elevated right now. A lot of people listening, I feel like, can identify with that, right? There comes this point in life, who knows when it is, but adulthood, where you're

We have to choose. We can only take so much stress and it's, it's in this kind of mental component. So we, we reduce the physical component to try to survive. What do you say to that? Is it real on a body or biomechanical level? And what do we do about that? Yeah, that's a, it's a great question. You know, so I will, um,

kind of maybe break down stress and the different impact it can have on our body. 'Cause I think lumping all stress together takes us down the path of, well, stress is harmful, I must reduce stress in my life. And I feel strongly that we need to emerge in a kind of stress 2.0 framework of differentiating the types of stressors because we can utilize the stress to become more resilient

and help us with the predicament that we're all in. So the stressors that are kind of wearing and fatiguing, exhausting are the types that are chronic and generally unpredictable and unavoidable, right? A child getting sick, financial hardship, difficult work situations,

Those we have some control over, but not always. Right. So there's a lot of, I think, well-intentioned advice to say no or draw boundaries, but that's not always realistic or feasible. And a lot of really good self-help on meditation and mindfulness practices to help us cope with some of these chronic stressors.

What I think is a different path and approach that we can take is taking action, right? Because these stressors make us feel that we don't have control. But when we can regain control through action, through thoughtful, deliberate, purposeful stress, we can build resilience and we can increase joy. And that helps sustain us through these chronic and very hard to manage stress in our lives.

The types that enrich us and help us grow are, first of all, they're deliberate, right? We choose the stress so they're inherently controllable. We can get a sense of mastery around them, okay? And we want to pick ones that align with our values. They're stressors that are meaningful to us and kind of help us express our soul, right?

And they're generally helpful beyond ourselves. They contribute to something bigger than ourselves. The biochemical profile of stressors that fall into this category are not simply cortisol and adrenaline, kind of your fight or flight. They're more nuanced because when we are straddling this kind of purpose-driven, purpose-driven

you know, kind of sense of possibility, but maybe that kind of excitement, that's when we maximize how much dopamine we're releasing. We also, when we're doing things that are helping others, we release oxytocin. We also, in these types of stressors, release serotonin. These neurotransmitters and hormones, serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, they actually mitigate our stress reactivity. They mitigate cortisol.

So we are literally changing the biochemistry in our body in a way where we are kind of reducing our cortisol load. So this is the ultimate paradox, right? Hence, it's the stress paradox that through engaging stress, we are becoming more stress resilient. We are actually mitigating and kind of regulating our cortisol levels by engaging stress. The things you described are good stress. Don't.

feel stressful. Therefore, I don't know how we define them as stress. My whole life I've considered that word stress means that in some capacity it has to suck. It can't feel good and be considered stress. That would be

paradoxical, if you will. Well, but stress is anything that challenges you mentally or physically. Okay. Okay. So let's say you want to start a podcast. Of course there's joy in it. There's excitement because you learn a lot in the process, but you're taking a chance. You're taking a risk. You're making an investment.

Some people, even as they're hosting, have some anxiety before every podcast. What if I, you know, don't ask the right questions or I'm way off track? I don't understand the topic. I mean, it's akin to public speaking, right? So yes, there's high reward, but it is stressful, you know, but you're choosing the stress. That's why it doesn't feel bad. It's not threatening to you.

It is feeling like you're challenging your way in a way you want to grow. But inherently, I mean, your body is gearing up for you being on stage, right? So there is a stress response. How much of this is dependent on how you view the situation? It reminds me of a Simon Sinek quote he told us once, but basically like stress and excitement are the same thing.

physiological emotion interpreted differently. And I don't know how much truth there is to that, but you know what I mean? Like how much of it is simply how we view the situation. Yeah. It makes a big difference. Right. So, um, there, there's been work on if you have a stress is harmful mindset versus stress is beneficial mindset.

And a simple change in mindset can reduce cortisol reactivity. So that alone, you know, if people walk away with nothing from this conversation other than stress can be beneficial, that alone is an intervention that will help them handle stress better. So I think that that is part of it, but it's also, you know, it's beyond just mindset. We're not just talking about reframing, right? Because,

You can't say, well, my child is sick, but that's a good thing, right? I mean, so it's more than that. It's saying, how can I build my resilience so that this doesn't completely deplete me and make me just sick, right? And we are building our resources. So if we go back to the conversation about what's happening at the level of ourself,

When we are exposed to these chronic depleting stressors or chronic stressors that are physical or chemical, like ultra-processed foods or being sedentary, loneliness, these are all, there's so many forms of chronic stress. These are harming our cells. So at the level of our cells, they are causing mitochondrial dysfunction or our cells can't make the right amount of energy. They can cause damage to our DNA. They cause,

cause inflammatory damage, oxidative stress, a whole host of things that are impairing the proteins, the DNA, the energy making capacity of our cells.

When we are taking on good stressors, be they psychological or even physical or chemical, so doing bursts of high-intensity exercise, adding plant food with the phytochemicals that our body perceives as kind of these good stressors, heat and cold, circadian fasting, these are kind of the five core ones that I mentioned, we're

What we're doing is we're activating stress responses at the cellular level. Our cells in that stress mode repair DNA. Our cells start to repair proteins. Our cells actually ramp up their antioxidant capacity. They start to modulate inflammation.

Our cells activate the autophagy response where we recycle old and damaged parts and we kind of use the scraps either for energy or for making new healthier cells. So we start this repair and regenerative process. So the good stress is literally making us resilient to the harm, right? So if you think of your cells as a bank account, right?

These harmful stressors, these chronic stressors are essentially taking money out of your account. And when you are taking on these good stressors, you're making deposits into your account, right? So it's approaching health rather than on the defensive, you're on the offensive side, right? Yeah.

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I, I, as you talk, I keep, I just keep picturing these cells. I'm like working them out. So they're stronger. So that one on a day-to-day basis, I'm stronger. And then two, when I have to fight, then I have a stronger army behind me. If you just boil it down to that level, I think it's helpful. And then let's get to you. You just went through kind of the five key components of

Because I'm assuming by this point, people are like, OK, I get it. What do I do? Let me just present a hypothetical. Let's say you're around middle age. You know, you've just noticed now you don't feel as good. There's little things that pop up now. You know, the knee is creaking. The low back is hurting kids. You know, whining gets you even more pissed off than normal. The sleep isn't as restorative. You know, again, hypothetical.

How would you recommend this person start to build their resilience when they feel like it's probably lower than they're used to? Yeah, I think it's reintroducing these good stressors. So

So good stressors, again, are you can introduce more plant food. And it's not an either or. I know a lot of people have a carnivore diet. Some people are vegan. Whatever your current dietary preference is. We're just saying add food.

plant phytochemicals because your body perceives them as literally a toxin. I mean, plants make phytochemicals as natural pesticides to deter us. But over our eons of time, our ancestors evolved mechanisms for us to build resilience against these toxins. And we've actually grown to depend on them for ramping up our defensive mechanisms and

So simple, just add one more fruit, add one more vegetable today. I mean, that's a very simple place to start. When we look at exercise and sedentary patterns, you know, obviously our lifestyles are very sedentary. We have removed the need for these short intermittent bursts of high intensity exercise. If you look at our hunter gatherer ancestors, younger, old, male, female,

They all invariably needed to have bursts of running. I mean, whether it's to avoid getting killed, it's a survival thing. Our bodies have adapted to needing that high intensity. If you look at chronic or continuous exercise versus some addition of these bursts of high intensity,

The cardiorespiratory fitness, which some people may know is measured through VO2 max, is considerably more improved when people have these intervals of intensity. About 40% of people are actually non-responders to just continuous steady state exercise when it comes to increasing VO2 max. So our physiology has really evolved to need these good stressors.

And, you know, there's a cost to pay for the comfort and conveniences that have so dramatically shaped our culture today. You know, most people focus on what we've introduced through all of, you know, the mechanization through the industrial revolution and the information age. And clearly there's a mismatch between, you know, all the things we've brought into our lives like processed foods, etc.,

But what people aren't talking about and what I'm really bringing to light is that there's a mismatch of what we've taken out of the fabric of our life. And this lack of good stress is a really startling risk factor for the mental and physical diseases that we're seeing today.

So it's reintroduction and it can be brief, right? So there are studies showing that vigorous intermittent lifestyle physical activity, you know, the acronym is VILPA, V-I-L-P-A, just doing one to two minutes about three times a day over time can reduce cardiac disease by about 50%, right? All cause mortality by 40%. We're not talking about quitting your job and becoming a health nut.

We're saying, hey, you know what? Can you run up a flight of stairs today? Can you do like one minute? It is really high impact to low time investment when you're activating these cellular stress responses. Heat and cold. I mean, we live in air conditioned, heat controlled, you know, climate controlled environments. Our ancestors, you know, lived in impermanent shelters, right?

Our bodies, again, have the stress response to temperature and it doesn't have to be extreme. It doesn't have to be expensive. At the end of your shower, can you do 30 seconds of cold? Can you just bring down the thermostat in the winter? And, you know, there are studies that if you can bring down the thermostat, you're

to, you know, around 60 to 68 degrees, somewhere in that range in a shorts and t-shirt, do it for 10 days, you can get up to a 37% increase in your brown fat volume, which is the type of fat that burns energy instead of stores energy.

So these are not hard. You know, you can end eating two to three hours before bed and align your eating pattern with your circadian biology. You're not even changing your diet. You're just changing the time that you are eating.

That alone helps engage some of the repair functions in your body does. It helps optimize the kind of natural time of day where your body is designed to either grow or repair, right? So you can reinforce that circadian pattern. You can cognitively become more efficient. Your digestion will become more efficient, right?

So these are simple. And I strongly believe in making things simple because I work a full-time job. I have three children. I have a husband and I'm trying to stay healthy. So I completely relate to people who are saying, how the heck am I supposed to be doing all of this?

And, and the answer is just these short bursts of stress followed by recovery. That's incredible. I want to talk about phytochemicals because there is this moron on the internet. Those are my words, not yours. And I can't remember his name. I can see his face, but he's really popularized. I think his book is called the plant paradox, uh, which is, which is comical given stress paradox. That's where I heard of phytochemicals. And I was like,

smart enough to know that eating vegetables is good for you, but not smart enough to counter his argument, which is like, look, plants make these toxins. The more we eat, the worse they are for us. And I think he just he stopped one level too short. So could you tell us just a little bit more about

about the food component here, because I know people latch onto that. And what are your kind of most recommended dietary additions? Yeah. You know, food is very complex because if you ever go down one pathway, it can lead you to think of food as good or bad. You know, if you only look, for example, at a blood sugar response, well, you're

that doesn't tell you the full story of the impact of food on your health, right? So you always have to look at the totality of how the matrix of that food and every component of it impacts your health.

The question of toxin and how that impacts our health is, yes, plants make phytochemicals as their natural defense. So plants, just like us, are trying to survive. They are exposed to UV radiation, to drought, to insects trying to eat them, to us trying to eat them as humans. They need to create a deterrent. They can't run away, right?

all they can do is produce natural pesticides. And those natural pesticides are the phytochemicals. The plants have a microbiome. Their microbiome actually produces these phytochemicals. And when we consume them, so our ancestors had to subsist on a variety of plant food to get the caloric intake to not die of starvation.

The dietary pattern of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, by necessity, included over 3,000 plant species. And our bodies, over time, adapted to detoxify these phytochemicals.

And to also ramp up our antioxidant defenses in response to eating them. You use the keyword of antioxidant though, right? Most people know antioxidants are good. We assume you have to get antioxidants by eating them. So for example, a pomegranate. But what you're saying is we also can manufacture antioxidants by eating oxidants? Correct. Correct.

And this is, again, a paradox, right? Because in, so for polyphenols, you can consume an adequate amount of antioxidants. And it kind of works in a tit for tat one for one way. You know, you've got the oxidative stress and you're eating the antioxidant and you're essentially trying to neutralize it. But if you look at the amount of antioxidants

intake of antioxidants we would have to have, it would be on the order of we would need micromolar amounts. If you measure the amount in our body, it's on the order of nanomolar amounts, right? So there's inherently a big question raised in the nutrition research in the last 50 years saying, hey, if this antioxidant theory that, you know, we're just eating the antioxidants is correct, why are the numbers not adding up?

And in reality, our body rapidly detoxifies the amount that we absorb to protect us. And that is why there's such a small amount in our body. But it's just enough to activate our ability to ramp up our antioxidant defenses. That is one of our cellular stress responses. It's encoded in a set of genes called Vita genes, vitality genes. These are gene programs that we have that help us survive adversity.

And it is conserved, meaning we have passed on this gene set for over 2 million years because they're so critical to our survival. So yes, plant foods have toxins, but they are not toxic. Okay. Well, and one of the things that I always get frustrated about, though, is you said 300 different, I think, or 3,000? Our ancestral diet had over 3,000 plant species. Okay. So you said...

Our ancestral diet had over 3000 plant species. I can't eat that. And I tend to be not quite an all or nothing, but I'm pretty damn close. My wife knows this. If I go on a kick that our whole world is going to change.

Because I go, I can't do that, you know, and just eating a couple extra strawberries and oranges feels redundant, repetitive kind of baseline. What what is the research? What do we actually need to do? Assuming the person listening is an educated eater, you know, they pretty good.

How do they get better? Yeah, well, I'll first put this in the context of where we are now. So right now there are over 30,000 edible foods in this world. About 150 are cultivated and about 30 of them make it to our plate each year. Okay, so we have such a small slice of the plant-based diversity on our plate and over 60% of our foods are processed foods. They're not even whole foods.

So if we make the assumption someone's health conscious and they've taken the first step of trying to have more whole ingredients rather than processed, that is certainly a healthy diet. But to maximize the capability that food can give us in terms of healing, fighting cancer, fighting a whole host of chronic disease, that's where the variety comes in because there are over 100,000 phytochemicals in different plant foods that

And the more diversity we get, the more we are activating disease defenses. So if you...

You know, so what I really believe in, and this is really how the protocols are structured in the book, is we are all creatures of habit and we do try and find simple solutions. So let's say you have nailed the morning smoothie and that is your go-to and you don't have to think about it because you already know you put in your X, Y, Z, you hit the blender and you're good to go. Right. Right.

So simple changes from that template are probably the easiest way to incorporate variety without needing to expend the mental energy of thinking about breakfast every morning.

So if your smoothie always has three strawberries, well, you know what? Can you buy a big bag of frozen blueberries and frozen mango and frozen cherries and every morning just swap out a different fruit? So a good goal to have in mind is 30 different plant food a week. Okay. I

I like that. And it's based on really the American gut project, looking at the impact of fiber on the microbiome. But I think it's a good way to extrapolate to our getting adequate phytochemicals as well. Beautiful. You said something, you said eat to your circadian rhythm.

And I will tell you, I know my circadian rhythm both because of my aura ring and just because of my whole life. I'm about a 12, like midnight to 8 a.m. guy. I don't care what people say about wake up at 5 a.m. It's just not how I'm built. I'm sure I could do it. It's not. What I've never thought of is I'm most hungry between the hours of about 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. And I am not hungry until about noon.

I have kind of solidified my sleep routine, built my life around that. But I have tried to follow the standard eating times. So I try to eat dinner around, you know, 530 and I try to eat breakfast around 830 and it never works.

Are we supposed to align our food to our circadian rhythm? I have never heard this. So you have three tools at your disposal, essentially, for optimizing your circadian biology. The first you've already nailed, it's sleep and awake time consistency.

The second is meal timing. And it just has to be consistency. It doesn't have to be 8.30 in the morning or noon or whatever your body. It's the consistency because your circadian biology is essentially a predictive machine. It wants to know, when am I going to ramp up your digestive enzymes to optimize your metabolism? If it's a different time every day,

you're wreaking havoc on your metabolism. So consistency of mealtime, and it could be noon if that is what feels right for you. And the third is light and dark.

because we have a clock in our head and the suprachiasmic nucleus sensitive to day and night. That's kind of the master regulator of our circadian function. But we also have peripheral clocks, every organ in our body, be it our liver, our pancreas, et cetera. They all have clocks. Our peripheral clocks are actually set by food intake.

Whereas our master clock is set by light and dark. So that is really if you are eating super late at night when your master clock is saying, hey, it's time to go to bed, but you're having this huge dinner at 10 o'clock at night.

you're kind of sending confusing signals to your body because you're jet lagging your body. Essentially one part is saying, wake up. The other part is saying, I'm trying to go to bed. So that creates a dampening and the oscillation of your circadian function and leads to inefficiency of your circadian biology. You know, everything from your metabolism and digestion to all the repair processes that happen overnight, you're impeding a lot of that repair and recovery. So,

So back to you. So you've got the sleep and wake up consistency. Does breakfast have to be at 830? Absolutely not. The whole slogan that breakfast is the most important part of the day was started by Harvey Kellogg. It was an ad campaign. It was not a scientifically based concept. What matters for circadian biology is the consistency, but also having the majority of your calories earlier in the day.

So if you are starting with lunch,

Make your lunch really big. Make your whatever, midday, whatever you're going to call it as a dinner, whatever time you have your second meal, make that fairly big. But as you are getting closer to your bedtime, your last meal, make it the lightest. So you want to front load the calories to align with your circadian biology when your body's optimized to break down the food. So your insulin levels will go down.

as melatonin levels rise. So the same food eaten later in the day will have a higher blood sugar spike. So you want to front load the calories, but that doesn't mean every person needs to have breakfast first thing in the morning. Well, so that's super helpful. The one area now I'm a little tripped up on again, I'm trying to represent our night owls a little bit because everybody now talks about, you know, you're the,

the morning, the early birds, if you are naturally aligned to more of that night owl component, you are then by definition though, not aligned to the light dark flow, right? Because let's say sunrise is it,

I don't know, six, five. I don't know. I never see it, but, but you know, and, and I like to wake up at eight. Would that mean that I then am already at a disadvantage? Like it'd be better to be the person who goes to sleep closer to sunset and wakes up closer to sunrise. No, because I,

If a person wakes up at six o'clock, but is indoors in the dark, they're not getting the light exposure at 6 a.m. But if you're waking up at eight, going out and getting natural light for 10, 15 minutes,

you are going to really awaken the different parts of your body that need to respond. Like you're going to have a higher cortisol amount. You are going to actually lead to a higher melatonin level at nighttime by getting that daylight earlier in the day. So it's your exposure to light.

And you can do that waking up at eight o'clock and getting natural light. And arguably you'd be better off than someone who's getting up at six. Lights are off. It's dark in their home or in their office and they never step outside and get that light. Wow. That makes total sense. Promise. Last question. Can you change your circadian rhythm? You can train most things in your body.

You know, I think certainly the peripheral clocks are very adaptable because they respond to meal timing. Your master clock, a little less so. So maybe you can modify to some degree. I do think that there's tremendous individual variation there.

And I think we should celebrate that. I think one of my pet peeves about health advice is that we give it as do X, Y, Z, and it doesn't honor the individual differences that we all have. And I think we need to take concepts like circadian biology and adapt it to us as individuals, but it doesn't mean that we all have to then change our biology to adapt to the concept. Brilliant. Sharon, well, I'll tell you this.

You have a new fan. You have a new listener. I'm just so...

and amazed by these things. So first, thank you for being on the show. You know, obviously you have your book, which we've been talking about, The Stress Paradox, why you need stress to live longer, healthier, and happier, an essential stress management companion with a mind, body, soul approach. The Stress Paradox. That's what it is. You also have a podcast. Tell us about that and mostly like where, for those listening who are going, this is incredible, where do they go next? Yeah.

Yeah. So the podcast is called The Whole Health Cure, and I started it as part of my personal mission to help people use lifestyle-based tools for managing their disease or their personal goals, whether it's longevity.

And for finding me and more information, my website is drsharonberquist.com. So D-R-S-H-A-R-O-N-B-E-R-G-Q-U-I-S-T. We'll link to it. Make it easier for people. So yes, exactly. So it's a D-R as in doctor. And then Berquist has a G. So it's G-Q. Most people misspell it. So, but that's...

a good place to start their resources, podcasts I've been on, some articles, just generally helpful resources. And always look me up on social media. Send me a question. DM me. I'm on Instagram at thegoodstresseddoctor. And I'm on LinkedIn as Dr. Sharon Horesh-Burquist. So please let me know what you think. I always love hearing people's opinions and thoughts. I think that's what

what makes any conversation richer. So I welcome it all. Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for your kind words. It's been very, very much a pleasure to be having this conversation with you. A thank you to this week's guest, Dr. Sharon Bergquist. The episode was hosted as always by Chris Stemp and produced by yours truly, John Rojas.

Dr. Bergquist's book, The Stress Paradox, Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier, an essential stress management companion with a mind-body-soul approach, is available wherever books are sold. And now to the quick housekeeping items. If you'd ever like to reach out to the show, you can email us at smartpeoplepodcast at gmail.com or message us on Twitter at smartpeoplepod.com.

And to stay up to date with all things Smart People Podcast, head over to the website, smartpeoplepodcast.com and sign up for the newsletter. All right, that's it for us this week. Make sure you stay tuned because we've got a lot of great interviews coming up and we'll see you all next episode.