8: The Power of Hormesis in Boosting Health and Resilience

Michael Kummer: You're listening to the Primal Shift Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your primal self.

Alright, welcome back to another episode. Today I'm super excited because we'll talk about hormesis or hormetic stressors and if that sounds like Chinese to you don't worry I'll explain what it is. But the reason why I'm so excited about hormesis is because I feel like You have a lot of control over how to implement it.

I think exposing yourself to hormetic stressors is significantly easier than changing your diet or your sleeping pattern or any of the other things that we've discussed in this podcast so far. And, you know, in reality, we're all very good at stressing ourselves, you know. So I think, you know, applying hormetic stressors to your life is, um, it should come naturally to you.

So stick with me. Specifically what we'll. talk about in this episode today is what is hormesis in case you're not familiar with the terminology and if you don't don't worry because up until a few years ago I didn't know what that word meant either. I knew the concept but didn't really connect it with the word.

We're going to talk about why hormesis is important, very important to maintain optimal health, strength, immunity and all of those things. We talk about Some of my favorite hormetic stressors that are fairly easy to implement, most of them at least. And then at the end, we'll talk about the big mistake that everyone is making when it comes to hormesis.

And I'll share some tips and tricks that you can implement today to expose your body to some of those hormetic stressors, even if you don't have any equipment or nothing whatsoever. There are some things you can start doing today, really. So let's, with that, we're gonna jump right in. Before we do, again, subscribe, follow, rate, leave a testimonial.

That really helps other people find this podcast as well and I very much appreciate it. So, what is hormesis? Well, in a nutshell, hormesis means, or goes along the lines of, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. And you cannot always take it literally, of course, if you get into a car accident and, you know, are badly injured and, you know, you multiple bones broken and, you know, you are in pain for the rest of your life because of it.

I'm not exactly sure if that really made you stronger, maybe in some aspects, but not. in the areas that we are looking for to improve our health and wellbeing. So not everything that doesn't kill you makes you necessarily stronger in the areas of life that are important, but there are some things that certainly do.

And, you know, we talk about more in this podcast about, you know, those types of stressors like exercise, hot exposure, cold exposure, et cetera. All of those things do make you stronger if used wisely. Again, we'll talk about the big mistake everyone is making towards the end of this episode. Why is. Why is hormesis important?

Why are hormetic stressors important? Well, the thing is the body responds to our environment. You know, if you go to outer space, and you're weightless, then guess what's going to happen? Well, your muscle tissue is going to deteriorate, your bone density is going to go down, because the body doesn't need all of the structure to support our weight.

And that's one of the reasons why astronauts realized and now work out, they do weightlifting, they do deadlifts and squats and all of those things in space to help prevent the loss of bone and muscle tissue. And so, what that means for us down here on earth, obviously we are not weightless, but the more sedentary we are, the less we work out, the less we lift weights, the less we expose ourselves to certain factors in the environment, be it, you know, hot temperatures, be it cold temperatures, be it, you know, germs from the environment.

The more the body responds with, well, you know, we can dial it back because we don't need superior immunity, you know, because we are not being exposed to a lot of germs. But then of course, when you get exposed to germs, if it's out of your control, you get hit even harder because your immune system simply isn't prepared.

The same goes with, you know, exercise. If, if you don't lift weights, if you don't do resistance training, then your bone density is gonna go down and especially the older you get, the more fragile you get if you don't compensate, if you don't tell your body we are not getting weak. Just because we are older doesn't mean we are getting weak.

We need to maintain strong bone, muscle, and connective tissue. So we can live a decent life and do all the things that we want to do. So that's why hormesis or hermetic stressors are so important. And unfortunately, our modern lives don't necessarily lead to, you know, a lot of those stressors unless we make them.

intentionally a part of our lives. So by sitting here and recording a podcast, I'm not really exposing myself to any of those hermetic stressors that can help me become stronger and more resilient and maintain my current, you know, health, muscle composition, bone density, et cetera. I need to go work out, you know, I need to do a lot of things to kind of compensate for our modern lives.

And that's really the goal of those hermetic stressors to intentionally make them part of your lifestyle. So you can compensate for what the modern life, you know, throws at you by removing all of those stressors for the most part. Unless you're, you know, you're a farmer and you're working, you know, manually, you know, hard labor in the sun all day.

Most of us don't do that. So we need to kind of find ways to compensate and they're very easy ways. And so let's talk about some of my favorite hormetic stressors that you can very easily make part of your routine. And one is, I already alluded to it. Exercise. If you don't exercise, if you don't stress your body with weights, with resistance, with, you know, making your muscle fibers twitch fast by running, by sprinting, and not necessarily talking about jogging, but by sprinting, by lifting, by doing high intensity stuff, then your body says, well, you know, I don't need strong muscles, I don't need strong bones, I don't need strong ligaments, you know, I can just be a jellyfish.

You don't want to be a jellyfish. You want to maintain strong tissue and the only way to do that is to challenge your body to do something that it's maybe not capable of doing yet, but to react to that stimulus and grow more muscle tissue, grow stronger bones, improve your bone density, grow stronger ligaments.

So next time you come across that obstacle, that stressor, you can handle it. So exercise is one of the best hormetic stressors and in particular weight lifting and resistance training. And it doesn't always have to be, I mean, ideally you want to load weight, you know, you want to do Deadlifts and back squats and all of those movements that really put stress on your bones, on your connective tissue, on your muscle tissue.

So it becomes stronger and more resilient and easier for you to do that. So when you apply the same principle, if you have to lift heavy stuff like a bag of, you know, I don't know, potting soil or salmon or whatever you might have to do, furniture for that matter, you can handle it without getting injured and you can do it pain free.

That's very important. The second one is. Sun exposure. We'll talk about that in an upcoming episode more about, you know, what, how to responsibly enjoy the sun and what you can do and what you shouldn't do. But sun exposure is incredibly important because the sun is not gonna go away. The sun is, hopefully, not anytime soon, not in our lifetime at least.

The sun is, sunlight is very important for the production of hormones, you know, not only vitamin D, but, you know, testosterone and many, many other hormones and bodily functions, you need the UV light on your naked skin and, but you want to do it in a way so you don't burn, you don't get a sunburn and, you know, maybe develop cancer down the, down the line.

You want to do it in a way that makes your skin more resilient. to UV light. So you can handle it and reap the benefits. And so by exposing yourself to UV radiation to the sun on your, you know, with your naked skin, without wearing sunscreen, without wearing clothing, without wearing sunglasses. And you already start doing this in the colder months of the year.

So your body gets used to it. You know, it, it responds to those mild stressors in, in winter where the UV radiation is not as strong. So you build up that resilience. And then when summer comes around, you can handle, you know, significantly. higher dosage of UV radiation and the stronger sun and you win in across the board because you can reap that UV radiation.

You, your body can turn it into vitamin D, into, you know, hormones, you know, manages circadian rhythm and all of the things that come with proper sun exposure. Cold plunging or cold exposure in general is an excellent way. to not only make you feel more comfortable when it is cold and when you don't have a choice, you know, sometimes you're out and about, or you might travel somewhere where it's really cold, or you might live somewhere where it's cold, and you want to feel comfortable, and the only way to make you feel comfortable in the cold is to get used to it, to get resilient, more resilient, um, and robust, so you can deal with the cold, and cold plunging, in particular, ice bathing, is an excellent way Not only to get used to the cold, you know, ever since I started cold plunging, now when I get into the plunge or when I take a cold shower, it literally feels like no big deal.

It's nothing. It's not freaking me out anymore like it did in the, in the very beginning. And so that's a clear sign that I got used to it. I became more resilient. to the stressor that is cold. And, you know, besides that, cold exposure, ice bathing, cold plunging, cold showers in particular, can also make your immune system more resilient.

And that's another important factor because immune health is key, you know, for everything. Not only because you want to avoid getting the sniffles now and then. The immune system is involved in everything. An overreactive immune system can lead to autoimmunity, can lead to a host of other issues. A weak immune system that's not active at all can obviously lead to a lot of sickness and disease and you don't want that.

And so, by making your immune system more resilient through cold plunging, it's a win win and a great way to make you overall much more robust as a human being. The opposite of cold plunging. sauna bathing, or heat exposure. Again, another way to not only make you feel more comfortable in the sun, I mean, right now here, as of time of this recording, you know, we are, you know, almost in August, end of July in, you know, in Georgia.

It's humid, it's thick, it's hot outside, and I used to absolutely dislike The summers in Georgia. Now I'm still mildly uncomfortable. I sweat a lot. I have to change sometimes my shirt three times a day, but I'm okay on the outside. You know, I can work outside. I can sweat and I I'm okay. I'm no longer like, Oh, I need to get out of the sun.

I need to get into my. you know, temperature controlled home. No, I'm okay outside. And the side effect or the benefit of, of being more resilient and to being more comfortable in the heat is that, you know, sauna bathing is more enjoyable and I can reap more of the benefits. Again, goes back to improving your immunity and all of the benefits that I've discussed on my blog that come with sauna bathing with heat exposure.

There are a lot of them, but that's another way to stress your body. intentionally to a degree where it can become stronger and more resilient. One hormetic stressor that I think is severely underrated is the exposure to germs. And so, you know, there is this saying that farm kids are significantly healthier than their city counterparts.

And that's true, you know, if you're exposed to germs, then you train your immune system to become more resilient, to be more capable of dealing with germs and pathogens in general. You know, most of our society, the idea is to wipe everything clean and to sanitize everything and to reduce our exposure to germs.

The only thing it does It tells our immune system we don't need to be ready for germs because, you know, we are not dealing with germs a lot, so no need to be capable of handling those. Well, guess what? You cannot avoid germs. Germs are an important part of life. I mean, our skin, our gut microbiome, you know, everything is covered in germs.

In germs, some more, you know, are good, some more, some are maybe less good and can make you sick. But the point is you cannot, if we were to wipe out all germs, we'd be dead. We could not live without those microorganisms on our skin and our gut and on other parts of our body. And so don't even try sanitizing everything instead.

teach your immune system, help your immune system to be resilient enough, to be capable enough of dealing with those germs. And that goes back to, you know, farm kids. When our daughter goes out, you know, she kisses the chickens, you know, I mean, the chickens are not the cleanest animals, they scratch in dirt, they have, you know, they have E.

coli in their poop, you know, and salmonella and some of the other germs that can, you know, make you really sick that everyone's trying to avoid, you know. We don't do that, you know, the kids, you know, kiss, you know, their animals, you know, we grab the eggs, we don't wash them, sometimes they have some smears of poop if, you know, that the chicken, you know, I don't know, packed in a pile of poop or whatever, and then try to move the egg in the nesting box to arrange it the way she wants to, and then you have that on the eggshell.

We don't wash those, I don't wash my hands when I come in from dealing with the animals, the kids, you know, kiss them, and nobody gets sick, you know, and that's not because we are, We've been lucky all those years. No, it's because our immune system has been trained to deal with those germs and, you know, to not get sick, to not get overwhelmed.

And the only way you can do this is to expose yourself. I'm not saying go around and lick the toilet seat in, you know, in public restrooms, but you need to be able to Ramp up your exposure slowly over time so your immune system gets stronger, more resilient, and ready to deal with whatever might come its way.

And, so that's another very important thing. Don't be too overly, you know, clean with, you know, washing everything and your hands and your fruits and your eggs and whatnot, you know, be out in the dirt, you know. And just embrace some of those terms, they'll make you stronger. And then the last one, and that's a, I think a controversial one in the biohacking, healthy living kind of community, and that's food, you know, because if you heard me in the past, you know, I always say most plants are toxic, to a degree, and you should stay away from the most toxic plants.

And I still think that's the case. However, at the same time, you know, those toxins and plants, in the right amount, I believe, can make you more robust and more resilient. They stress your body, but I think that if you do it smartly, if you do it in the right dosage, you can actually make your body more resilient.

Because we all get exposed to the things to varying degrees, you know, even you know, certain anti nutrients like lectins, you know, are in milk, for example, in raw dairy, there are some lectins. Now, not to the extent of, you know, maybe nuts or seeds, but they are in there, you know, and so by, you cannot avoid all anti nutrients or all, you know, heavy metals or all, whatever, you know, the toxin might be, but in the right amount, I think, you can actually.

Help your body to be more resilient and to be more capable of dealing with those. So I'm not saying, you know, that you should, you know, stop eating meat and now load up, you know, your plate with, with spinach and with kale and with broccoli because they have, you know, toxins. No, but if you have a little bit of.

You know, those things based on how your body responds, I think it can be a net positive to make you more resilient and to make you more robust. Ultimately, you know, everything I do is to make me more robust. So when I then go out and have, you know, maybe once every two months, a regular, you know, pie of pizza, I don't fall apart because I can, in my body is resilient enough to handle it.

Now, I'm not, you know, suggesting that you need to eat a pizza every two months, a regular pizza, but I'm saying that you should be able to. if, you know, you cannot avoid it or don't want to avoid it. And so food and, again, another hormetic stressor potentially that you can leverage intentionally without overdoing it, of course.

Now, here is the thing, and that's the big mistake everyone seems to be making. Once people realize that, ooh, you know, certain stressors are good, sauna bathing, cold plunging, exercising, they go all in. and stress themselves every single day. Now, just because a hermetic stressor is generally considered good, doesn't mean some is, you know, the idea that some is good, more is better doesn't apply in particular to stress, because think about it.

Your body can only handle so much stress regardless of the type. And that includes obviously the chronic stress and acute stress, you know, chronic stress we talked about, you know, in another episode, something that we. It's very difficult to avoid. So you already have a certain level of stress every day that you cannot escape or at least not easily.

And, you know, depending on how full your stress class is, you know, it's very easy to cause it to overfill if you keep piling on additional stressors. And so what I, what I mean by that is if you wake up on a day and you're already stressed from the beginning you're, maybe you didn't sleep well, maybe you're still exhausted from the previous day's workout, you know, don't, you know, add on sauna bathing, cold plunging and another workout and maybe fasting, you know, all of those are stressors.

Actually, now that I say it, you know, fasting is another great hormetic stressor that stresses your body to deal with the absence of food and to repair and to do some of the things that it wouldn't be doing otherwise. So that might be my, then my, let's say, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, my 7th favorite hormetic stressor is fasting.

But the point really here is, don't just keep piling on stressors, even if they are normally good. Because they can cause your glass to overflow and you'll end up with you'll cause more damage than what your body can repair. So there's always a rate of repair and a rate of damage, and you always want to keep the rate of repair above the rate of damage.

Now, figuring out what that means exactly for you, that's an individual decision. You need to be a little bit in tune with your body to figure out what stress it can handle. And what is maybe too much? You know, for example, if you're, you know, women and you have your period, you know, that's a stress for your body.

Maybe during those days, don't fast, you know, or don't push it too hard in the gym, you know, allow your body to recover because the point here is to stress to an extent where your body can repair and come out stronger. If you stress too much and if you keep stressing, stressing, stressing without.

allowing enough time for recovery, then you're not going to come out stronger. You're going to come out weaker. And, you know, in the, in the realm of exercise, you might go into overtraining and you will never get stronger. And one thing that I see, and that's particularly true with working out, you know, for the average people who are not really, really using hormetic stressors intentionally, but they work out, they're workout enthusiasts.

You know, they see others work out in the gym. You know, I see it in our gym every single day, almost. I don't work out every single day, but whenever I go workout. You know, most of the people I work out with work out significantly more than I do because they might look at someone and say, Ooh, I want to look like him.

And so if this person goes three times a week, I'm going to go five times because the more I work out, the stronger I'll get, the quicker I will catch up. And that's not always true. You know, don't look at someone else and base your. stress exposure on someone else because your body might react entirely differently.

You know, I used to work out a lot and I realized that if I, the older I get, the more stressors I have, you know, with the sauna bathing, with cold plunging, with everything that I'm doing, the more time I need to recover. And if I don't allow for that time to recover, it's going to go downhill. So these days I work out.

2 times a week CrossFit, you know, maybe 3 times if it's a good week. And I still maintain my physique, I maintain my strength, I maintain my cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory fitness because I challenge my body enough and give enough time to recover so that I can at least maintain. I might not get significantly stronger by only working out twice.

But that's not my goal. I don't want to go to the Olympics anymore. I'm 41 now, you know, I want, just want to maintain and maybe get a little strong and a little fitter every year, but not, you know, I'm not a professional athlete and most people work out like a professional athlete without giving them the amount of or giving their bodies the time to recover like professional athletes do.

And that's something I see every day and that's something you should absolutely avoid. Don't look at someone else, what someone else is doing. Listen to your body and see what your body can handle. If you feel like you're run down, don't stress it anymore. You know, maybe go in the sauna on low heat. Don't expose yourself to significant heat stress if you're already stressed because all of the stressors accumulate and they can have a net negative effect.

That's something you don't want to do. So that's the big mistake everyone is doing. Now the question is, okay, how can you implement some of those hermetic stressors today, even if you don't own a sauna or, you know, a cold plunge and one of the, you know, just unsorted list, not really, you know, uh, based on, on the sequence of the stressors I mentioned before, but take cold shower, you know, I assume you have a shower at home or a garden hose or some source of water that You can use to expose your body.

Taking a cold shower, if you've never done cold exposure before, if you've never taken an ice bath before, if you don't regularly jump cold plunge, cold showers are an excellent way to get stressed. If you've, you know, there is probably a reason if you don't, if you're not doing cold showers yet, you know, why you're not doing it because they're uncomfortable.

They stress you, right? Just the thought of stepping into a cold shower is stressful. It might freak you out. But that's exactly the kind of stressor you want to expose yourself to. It's very low in terms of the damage it can cause from a, you know, cellular perspective, but it teaches your nervous system to become resilient to that type of stress and to handle stressful situations better and very easy to implement.

Next step obviously would then be, you know, a cold plunge. And I have a review of. I love my favorite cold plunges on my blog and also on the YouTube channel. So check that out if you want to learn more about some of the plunges that I've been using that I really like to make cold plunging and cold exposure a regular part of my routine.

In terms of, you know, heat exposure, just be out in the sun, you know, in, in uncomfortably hot and humid temperatures, you know, stay out there and sweat. That is it. heat stress for your body that will make you more resilient. You will get used to it and it might take a couple of weeks, but you'll notice a difference.

And it's again, a positive stressor, and you'll get the sun. So you have the UV stressor as well that can make your skin more resilient and better at making vitamin D and some of the other hormones I mentioned before. So embrace the heat in terms of exercise. I mean, Ideally, you know, you have some sort of exercise routine where you lift weights, where you do resistance training, where you do high intensity training.

But if you don't do any of that and you need time to figure out exactly what you want to do, you know, here are a couple of good examples of how you can expose yourself to uncomfortable situations without joining a gym. Take the stairs. If you go you know, to your office every day and there is an elevator, take the stairs, you know, stepping, you know, lifting your own body weight up, you know, 50 stairs or whatever is a great exercise.

It increases, it checks up your heart rate. It makes, it works your, your leg muscles, etc. and your bones because you're lifting your own weight up, you know, it's, it's a great free type of exercise. And I always laugh at people, you know, that, that go to the office, take the elevator up, take the elevator down, go to the garage, go to the, you know, get into the car and then drive to the gym.

I'm like, you already had, you know, some of that for free as part of your regular routine and you didn't have to pay or take extra time for it. So that's one thing. The other thing is, you know, In our gym, you know, at CrossFit, we do a lot of farmer carry, you know, we lift like, you know, heavy, you know, bags or kettlebells or whatever.

And, you know, walk around to improve grip strength, you know, to just, you know, have that load on our body. Well, guess what? Next time you go grocery shopping, park at the parking spot that's farthest away from the entrance and then carry your grocery bags. In your hands instead of the car, back to your car, you know, that's farmer's carry, you know, so you're, you're doing resistance training, you're doing walking, you're, you're putting load on your structure and you're probably check up your heart rate and it's completely for free and you can make that part of your regular, you know, grocery shopping routine maybe once a week or whatever and it's a great way to get an exercise in without having to go pay for a gym or go anywhere, you know, that's just another example of What I highly recommend.

And I, you know, we, we still do this, you know, even though we work out regularly. And another thing, and that's goes back generally to stress. I think I mentioned in the last episode where we talked about stress, the more stressed you are, the higher your demands on micronutrients. And that is vitamins, minerals.

peptides, coenzymes, cofactors, and all of the things in between. And so it's super important to maintain a good diet, to eat nutrient dense foods so your body is more capable of handling those stressors, both the chronic as well as those hermetic stressors. If you exercise a lot, your nutrient demands are going to go up, not only from a macronutrient perspective, you know, protein to build muscle tissue, fat to build cell walls and make hormones, et cetera, but also micronutrients, incredibly important.

And that's, you know, why I really like to consume beef organs or in, you know, in our case with the kids, et cetera, beef organ supplements, three stride beef organ capsules, really that can help you fill all of those gaps and make sure you Meet all of your demands as far as vitamins and minerals are concerned.

Specifically, you know, MK Supplements is my brand where we sell, um, high quality beef organ supplements and in particular one product, the hardened spleen I've seen to be highly beneficial in the realm of hormetic stressors and in particular workout, you know, it helps with recovery. It helps you stress your body.

Again, the next day without getting into some sort of overtraining, uh, but generally, you know, beef organs are great. If you want to give our supplements a try, you can use code PRIMALSHIFT to get 15 percent off. Uh, that is an exclusive offer just for my listeners here, and it's a great way to make your body more You are capable of dealing with those stressors and then those, you know, stressors obviously make you more resilient and so you get healthier and with stronger bones, stronger muscles, stronger connective tissue down the line.

And that's particularly important as you age. You don't want to deteriorate. You want to either maintain or get stronger, more resilient so you can do all the things that you want to do for the rest of your life that is hopefully still a long way to go for you. And with that, we're going to wrap it up.

Thanks so much for listening in and I'll see and hear you in the next episode.