When does stress help you and when does it hurt you? There is no doubt that stresses of the wrong sort can lead to anxiety, emotional turmoil — and eventually depression and diseases like atherosclerosis and cancer. Yet a central theme of this blog is that certain stresses are "hormetic": at the right dose and frequency, stress can actually make you stronger and more resilient. The many posts on this blog illustrate how stress can ...

Do adaptations to stress exposure show up as changes in blood chemistry or heart function? The answer appears to be "yes". In his Newsweek article "Lessons in Survival", Ben Sherwood reported on a very interesting study of elite Army Airborne and Special Forces soldiers that probed the differences between those who could and could not endure an extremely stressful 19-day mock-prisoner-of-war camp. The Resistance Training Laborator...