Hormesis, activated by intermittent stressors, leads to profound antioxidant, anti-inflammatory responses, and can increase stem cell production or autophagy.

“So this concept is referred to as hormesis. This is a little bit of stressful challenge that activates these stress response pathways in a beneficial way, that is a net positive, that actually has a very profound antioxidant, anti-inflammatory response, or whatever the response is. It could be the production of more stem cells. These are cells that help regenerate different cells within tissues, or something like autophagy, which is a process that can clear away all the gunk inside of our cells, pieces of DNA, protein aggregates.”