What Is Hormesis?
Hormesis is a biological phenomenon whereby a
beneficial effect results from exposure to low doses of an agent that is
otherwise toxic or lethal when given at higher doses.
You certainly did not have a moment of epiphany from reading
that small definition up there but I can guarantee you that the next 5-10
minutes that you spend on understanding what hormesis is and how it applies to your
life will pay back positive results 10 times or even 100 times to the amount of
little energy and time you spend on reading these two articles below.
To get a thorough understanding of what hormesis is and why I
hold it in such high regards, I urge you to read these two posts on hormesis
first: This and this.
If you could really comprehend, what hormesis is from those
articles and how amazing it is as a concept for life, your mind should be full
of questions like ‘does hormesis apply to every single thing in life? Why is
hormesis not more famous and mainstream? Is XYZ caused/possible by hormesis? Are
there any exceptions to hormesis?’ and so on…
If the articles didn’t captivate you enough to make you ask
such questions to yourself, I assume you either already knew what hormesis is
or really haven’t understood how deep it’s application is, and in the latter
case, trust me, you will have your moment of epiphany someday soon.
Hormesis and Sleep Hacking
If you are wondering about what the connection is between
hormesis and sleep hacking, let’s take a look at few of the examples of
hormesis discussed in the above articles and you will notice how a similar
pattern applies to sleep hacking too.
1. Exercise/ Physical
stress
2. Sunlight
I am going to restrain myself to only two simple illustrations,
which also happen to be fairly relatable to everyday life, up there because
hormesis has been verified
to be true for around 5600 dose-response
relationships till date and I believe you have a fair idea of
what hormesis is by now.
So does the concept of hormesis apply to sleep hacking too
and how? Yes! It surely does and here’s how.
3. Sleep
Hacking/Polyphasic sleeping
A sudden transition from the usual 9 hour sleep schedule to
the Uberman or the Everyman sleep schedule or a total deprivation from sleep
completely for a period of over a few days results in a high dose of stress
which your body cannot adapt to and has harmful effects such as adverse effects
on mental health or even death in some cases.
However, just like other stress agents, sleep deprivation is
highly beneficial when applied in lower doses and will actually make your mind
and body stronger and more efficient.
The Easy
Sleep Hacking guide uses the same principle of hormesis and talks about the benefits of sleep
hacking in depth when applied in a small dose using a progressively decreasing transition,
while at the same time giving the body enough time to adapt to the changes in
sleep schedules.
Your body is Better than
you think it is
Most people are extremely worried about placing even the
tiniest discomforts and stresses on their mind and body thinking that if they
happen to do so, their minds and bodies would just breakdown.
They forget that the body has a progressively adaptative
mechanism for literally every sort of stress as long as the stress is not extremely
heavy in nature. Way too much emphasis is placed on eliminating the tiniest
discomforts while forgetting the fact that the human body has adapted itself to
survive different kind of stresses which even the dinosaurs and other fierce
beasts couldn’t survive. We as a human race would have never made it this far
had we not been able to adapt to the stress our surrounding presents us with.
Maybe Friedrich Nietzsche’s adage “That which does not kill
us makes us stronger” is too general as a statement. But at the moment, I can
hardly come up with even one single agent (sunlight, physical stress, etc) that
is lethal in higher doses but NOT beneficial in lower doses. Can you?
