8: Todd Becker: Experiments in Using Hormesis to Improve HRV

The Quantified Body

What is it that makes our bodies stronger? Gives them greater longevity? Greater resilience to disease? Greater performance? The strange answer to this is that often something that harms us, stresses us, is what ends up making us stronger. The process is known as "hormesis" and applies to pretty much everything we can think of. Low doses of all types of stressors can make us better by stimulating us to adapt - exercise, emotional stress, radiation, natural pesticides found in plants - also known as phytonutrients and so on. When the dose is too high it proves to do ...