The Stress Paradox
Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier
Published on 8. May 2025
Book
Hardback
336 pages
978-0-06-334596-6 (ISBN)
Description
A paradigm-shifting approach to wellness that reveals how the right levels of stress are actually good for you and how stress can help you unlock the body's natural ability to stave off aging, prevent disease, and improve metabolic health.
What if we've gotten stress wrong?
There's a breakthrough happening in the study of cellular health, wellness, and longevity. We know that excessive stress can be toxic, but emerging new research reveals that too little stress is just as bad for you as too much.
Dr. Sharon Bergquist, a pioneering physician and leading stress researcher, is at the forefront of this movement. In The Stress Paradox, she explains that our bodies are designed to heal and repair themselves, but we need the right amount and type of hormetic stress to rejuvenate at a cellular level.
Many modern comforts have inadvertently increased our risk of mental and physical illness by causing us to underutilize our inherited response to challenges. Our need for stress is so deeply embedded in our genes that you can't achieve good health without it! Dr. Bergquist reveals how to optimize five key stressors to maximize mental, emotional, and physical resilience and reap a host of health benefits, from staving off dementia to increasing the years of your life. These simple lifestyle medicine changes can keep your mind sharp, improve your mood, increase energy and metabolism, support a healthy gut, maintain a healthy weight, and decrease your risk of serious diseases like cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's.
Eating more plant "toxins" in foods like vegetables, dark chocolate, and spices
Exercising with intermittent bursts of intense movement
Engaging in heat and cold therapy to awaken your body's ancient healing pathways
Fasting most effectively for your circadian biology
Challenging yourself mentally and emotionally while managing unhealthy stress levels
Rooted in cutting-edge science and complete with customizable protocols, workouts, and recipe templates, The Stress Paradox is an accessible life-changing roadmap for using hormesis to dramatically increase health, happiness, and longevity.
What if we've gotten stress wrong?
There's a breakthrough happening in the study of cellular health, wellness, and longevity. We know that excessive stress can be toxic, but emerging new research reveals that too little stress is just as bad for you as too much.
Dr. Sharon Bergquist, a pioneering physician and leading stress researcher, is at the forefront of this movement. In The Stress Paradox, she explains that our bodies are designed to heal and repair themselves, but we need the right amount and type of hormetic stress to rejuvenate at a cellular level.
Many modern comforts have inadvertently increased our risk of mental and physical illness by causing us to underutilize our inherited response to challenges. Our need for stress is so deeply embedded in our genes that you can't achieve good health without it! Dr. Bergquist reveals how to optimize five key stressors to maximize mental, emotional, and physical resilience and reap a host of health benefits, from staving off dementia to increasing the years of your life. These simple lifestyle medicine changes can keep your mind sharp, improve your mood, increase energy and metabolism, support a healthy gut, maintain a healthy weight, and decrease your risk of serious diseases like cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer's.
Eating more plant "toxins" in foods like vegetables, dark chocolate, and spices
Exercising with intermittent bursts of intense movement
Engaging in heat and cold therapy to awaken your body's ancient healing pathways
Fasting most effectively for your circadian biology
Challenging yourself mentally and emotionally while managing unhealthy stress levels
Rooted in cutting-edge science and complete with customizable protocols, workouts, and recipe templates, The Stress Paradox is an accessible life-changing roadmap for using hormesis to dramatically increase health, happiness, and longevity.
Reviews / Votes
"We all know that muscles must be stressed to grow. Dr. Bergquist extends this critical consideration to all of health, creating an 'anti-fragility' prescription for optimal vitality. Novel, important, and illuminating." - David L. Katz, MD, MPH, Past President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine"Blending science with practical protocols, The Stress Paradox beautifully shows how our marvelously complex bodies need good stress. It is an essential guide for anyone seeking to realign their lifestyle with how we're naturally hardwired for resilience." - Dan Buettner, Blue Zones Founder and 5x New York Times Bestselling Author
"In The Stress Paradox, Dr. Sharon Bergquist is changing the game and redefining our relationship with stress, showing us how we can use good stress to regenerate our cells, enhance resilience, and even nurture a healthier gut microbiome. This is a must-read for vibrant health and longevity." - Dr. Will Bulsiewicz, New York Times bestselling author of Fiber Fueled
"One of the most important books of our time, The Stress Paradox equips us with the essential tools to thrive in an increasingly toxic world. From harnessing the power of phytochemicals in food, to understanding how good stress influences your gut microbiome, this is powerful medicine!" - Dr. Robynne Chutkan, gastroenterologist and author of Gutbliss, The Microbiome Solution, The Bloat Cure, The Anti-Viral Gut and host of The Gutbliss Podcast
"The Stress Paradox will forever shift your perception of stress while guiding you on a path towards health, happiness, and longevity. Dr. Sharon Bergquist brilliantly navigates readers through the surprising truths about stress and how it can be harnessed for our overall well-being. Actionable and thoroughly researched, this book is a complete game-changer." - Dr. Heather Sandison, ND New York Times bestselling author of Reversing Alzheimers
"Dr. Sharon Bergquist expertly explains the counterintuitive benefits of stress, offering practical insights that can enhance our well-being and long-term health. This thought-provoking book challenges conventional wisdom and provides a fresh perspective on how we can best thrive." - Dr. Amy Shah, author of I'm So Effing Tired and I'm So Effing Hungry
"After her medical training at Harvard and a decade of practicing high-quality but standard medicine, Dr. Bergquist embarked on a journey to learn how to switch from sick care to exploiting science to help patients live long and healthy. This excellent book focuses on the power of the human body to turn on coordinated stress responses that can be more powerful than drugs." - Dr. Valter Longo, Director of the Longevity Institute at the University of Southern California and author of The Longevity Diet
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Illustrations
b&w graphics
Dimensions
Height: 237 mm
Width: 165 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
488 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-334596-6 (9780063345966)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Sharon Horesh Bergquist
The Stress Paradox
Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier
E-Book
03/2025
HarperCollins
€20.42
Available for download
Person
Sharon Horesh Bergquist, MD, is an award-winning physician, innovative healthcare leader, and visionary researcher renowned for spearheading a science-based approach to applying lifestyle as medicine. She has helped lead numerous clinical trials, including the Emory Healthy Aging Study and the NIH funded Emory Healthy Brain Study. Dr. Bergquist is widely published in peer-reviewed journals and has contributed to over 200 news segments, including Good Morning America, CNN, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. She hosts The Whole Health Cure podcast and her popular Ted-Ed video on how stress affects the body has been viewed over six million times. She received her degrees from Yale College and Harvard Medical School.