Water vs. Tech: How Moisture Ruins Your Devices & Why We Need Stress

Kibosh, chicanery, affluent and Seuss (as in Dr. Seuss) are words a lot of people mispronounce. This episode begins with the correct pronunciation of these and other mispronounced words you may not be aware you are saying incorrectly. http://mentalfloss.com/article/32273/11-common-words-youre-probably-mispronouncing You (or someone you know) have most likely dropped your phone in the toilet, spilled coffee on your laptop or had some other electronic device suffer “death by liquid.” Our electronic devices are very much NOT water-proof. Why is that? That horrible feeling you get when you get your devices wet is a combination of guilt, panic and horror. Yet, it happens to almost everyone. Why can’t they make these devices more resistant to liquids? That is an interesting question which I explore with Rachel Plotnick. She is a historian and cultural theorist whose research and teaching focus on information, communication, and media technologies. She is also author of the book License to Spill: Where Dry Devices Meet Liquid Lives (https://amzn.to/3Ru1xyz). Stress kills! But it is also good for you. In fact, GOOD stress can actually counter the effects of the bad stress in your life. So, what is the difference between good and bad stress? And how can you make stress work for you? Here to explain all this and the science behind it, is Dr. Sharon Bergquist, MD. She is an award-winning physician and visionary researcher renowned for spearheading a science-based approach to applying lifestyle as medicine. She has a Ted-Ed video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-t1Z5-oPtU) about how stress affects you which has been viewed over 8 million times and she is author of the book The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier (https://amzn.to/43XOj4B). Most of us have some trouble remembering the names of people right after we meet them. It seems doing something with your eyes and making a few movements with your body can help you recall names according to some research. Listen and I’ll tell you how it works. https://www.livescience.com/1473-moving-eyes-improves-memory-study-suggests.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:28Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, some commonly mispronounced words that even English teachers get wrong. Then, why aren't our electronic devices like smartphones waterproof? Because they're gonna get wet.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  I mean, it's pretty much a constant refrain where people are talking about, "Oh no, I had this liquid mishap. What do I do? How do I fix it? Am I supposed to put this in a bowl of rice?" Or, "You know, I ended up taking this to the store. They said I got it wet, even though I didn't."

• 1:56Mike Carruthers?

  Also, how making certain body movements can help you remember names. Maybe. And, stress. We tend to think of stress as something bad that needs to be reduced and avoided.

• 2:09Speaker 02

  However, not all stress harms. In fact, there's more recent science called "hormesis," it's the science of good stress, that is showing us how stress benefits us and it enriches and grows us.

• 2:22Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:27Mike Carruthers?

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• 4:09Speaker 03

  Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  You know, I was told a long time ago that it's impolite to correct someone's pronunciation.

• 4:30Mike Carruthers?

  But we're, we're gonna do it anyway. Hi and welcome. Thank you for listening to this episode of Something You Should Know. Probably all of us mispronounce some words. In fact, sometimes so many people mispronounce words that the new mispronunciation becomes the norm. But we're going to set the record straight, and then you can either pronounce them correctly or mispronounce them, but at least you'll know. And here's the perfect example of one I will never pronounce correctly. Seuss, as in Dr. Seuss. Almost everyone says "Seuss." But one of his college friends made a rhyme to teach you the right way to pronounce it. "You're wrong as the deuce, and you shouldn't rejoice.

• 5:14Mike Carruthers?

  If you're calling him Seuss, he pronounces it 'soice.'" Soice? Dr. Soice? I don't know. Kaibosh. That's the pronunciation, but some people say "kabosh." The accent is on the first syllable, "kaibosh." Celtic. An initial hard K-sound is the standard. But according to linguists, the S-sound, as in Celtic, goes back to the 17th century. Still, the preferred and official pronunciation is Celtic. But since it would sound ridiculous to talk about the Boston Celtics, you get a pass when you talk about the Boston Celtics.

• 5:56Mike Carruthers?

  There is a word that, when you read it, it looks like it should be pronounced. Comp-troller. That's the money person in a business, the comp-troller. But the correct pronunciation is "controller," like there's an N in there, and the PT is silent. Cash. As in C-A-C-H-E. Somehow, I guess it just sounds more elegant to say "cashay," but the word sounds just like the money, "cash." Chicanery. It's a word meaning deception by trickery, and it is easy to mispronounce. The beginning sound is not the typical CH-sound, it's an SH-sound. Chicanery, as in Chicago.

• 6:42Mike Carruthers?

  Affluent. The stress on this word is supposed to be on the first syllable, affluent. But stressing the second syllable became very mainstream back in the eighties. And dictionaries started validating that pronunciation, affluent. But technically, it is affluent. And niche. When the word was borrowed from the French in the 17th century, it quickly turned from niche to niche in English. But in the 20th century, more people embraced the more French pronunciation and decided to pronounce it niche. But according to most dictionaries, both are correct.

• 7:23Mike Carruthers?

  And that is something you should know. So you have your electronic devices, right? You have a phone, maybe a laptop, a tablet, perhaps a smartwatch, or a Fitbit, whatever else. And other than the day-to-day wear and tear on those devices, what is the one thing that will instantly and permanently ruin them? Liquid. You spill coffee on your laptop, goodbye. You drop your phone in the toilet, or accidentally take it into the pool, or in my case, the hot tub, that's the end of that. You can try to repair it, but even if it works again, it never, it never seems to work like it used to. And then there's that thing about putting it in rice.

• 8:07Mike Carruthers?

  I've heard that it works, I've heard that it doesn't work, and then I've also heard it's bad for your phone. Death by liquid is such a common occurrence for personal electronics that I bet it's happened to you, or someone you know. So why can't these devices be made water-resistant? I mean, the people who make watches figured out how to do that a long time ago. This is actually a really interesting topic that I'd never thought much about before. But you know who has? Is Rachel Plotnick. She is an historian and cultural theorist, whose research and teachings focus on information, communication, and media technologies.

• 8:46Mike Carruthers?

  She's author of a book called License to Spill: Where Dry Devices Meet Liquid Lives. Rachel was here a while ago talking about pushing buttons, and now she's here to talk about this. Hi, Rachel, welcome back.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  Thank you so much, glad to be here.

• 9:02Mike Carruthers?

  So when I first saw this, Rachel, I thought...

• 9:06Mike Carruthers?

  How is this an issue? Because my sense is the reason that my devices are not waterproof or water resistant is they don't need to be because it's my responsibility, my personal responsibility, to take care of and protect my very expensive and sensitive electronic equipment. That's my job, not the job of the guy who made it.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I think that's a really interesting point and probably a lot of people feel that way. My intuition is that we've been, though, very socialized to feel that way, that it's our problem, it's our fault. If it breaks, it's not up to the manufacturer and we as consumers are the ones who take the blame. But I do think that that's problematic, given how important these devices are to our everyday lives and, as you pointed out, how expensive they are to repair.

• 9:54Mike Carruthers?

  And then, and then, what's interesting, as I thought about it more, but isn't it interesting that you don't have to ask too many people and you will hear a story of phone in the toilet, phone in the hot tub, phone in the pool, phone in the washing machine? So it happens a lot and so you would think, well, okay, maybe that's a feature that they ought to build into this if that's possible, because it happens frequently.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Everyone's got that horror story and I think what always comes along with that horror story is the feelings of panic and freaking out about, oh, my goodness, what am I going to do? And the fact that these things do happen so often points out that we're negotiating this kind of wetness and messiness in our everyday lives all the time and these devices are our companions now. They really do accompany us to the bathroom and the pool and the laundry room. And so I think it's naive to imagine this kind of total separation between our technologies and these kind of wet experiences of everyday life.

• 10:56Mike Carruthers?

  And so what's the answer if you ask the people that make the phones and the devices, why aren't these waterproof? My guess would be because that would cost an awful lot of money, that's not our job. I mean, I don't know what they would say, but has it ever come up and what do they say if it has?

• 11:19Speaker 01

  I do think we're seeing some improvements in this regard. Partly, it depends on whether you're looking at aftermarket solutions like various cases or coatings that you can get put on after the fact versus you're buying a product that's water resistant or waterproof. You're right that cost is often a big factor in these situations and a lot of times you have to make the product like a smartphone bulkier or a little bit more difficult to use in order to also waterproof it. So part of it is a logistical issue. The other challenge, I think, is when it comes to really clarifying to people what's the difference between something being water resistant and waterproof. I think consumers have a lot of confusion about this. Coatings can wear off and degrade over time.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  And so it's kind of a murky area, I think, between making some design improvements, but also helping to better educate consumers about what their devices can tolerate and what they really can't.

• 12:10Mike Carruthers?

  What is the difference between something being waterproof and water resistant? I've always felt like, you know, we'll call it water resistant, so if something happens and water gets into it, we didn't say it was waterproof. It's just like, we try to keep the water out.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Actually, what's interesting is that in the watch industry, the term waterproof was actually banned in advertising because it was misleading and companies would use it all the time. Oh, sure, it's waterproof. And so the Federal Trade Commission actually did pass some legislation saying companies weren't allowed to use the term waterproof anymore. That's not true across all industries, but I think it is somewhat of a taboo word now in many situations because companies don't want to over promise in terms of what the device can withstand. And even when it comes to thinking about water resistance, it's a really complicated topic. It has a lot to do with how the device is tested. So it might have to be, you know, is it splashed in water? Is it submerged in something? How long is it submerged?

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Can it tolerate being in soapy water versus, you know, a clean sink? So there are actually quite a bit of nuances when it comes to really what counts as resistance or different kinds of wetness.

• 13:18Mike Carruthers?

  I also was thinking as I saw this, because it's such an interesting topic to discuss because, you know, as we said in the beginning, people think, well, that's my job to make sure it doesn't fall in the toilet. So that's why it isn't. But. But phones are also not fire resistant or heat resistant. In fact, if your phone gets hot, it stops working. And so, I mean, the phone can't be indestructible.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely not. I think you're right. And, you know, we don't want to have unrealistic expectations about our technologies. In the end, everything that we use is fragile. Over time, things corrode, they break, they crack. But on the other hand, I think that the business models of a lot of companies around our devices are not built for durability. They're built for upgrade culture and replacement. Oh, you're going to use this phone for six months a year, 18 months at the most, and then you'll have to replace it. And so I think that there's a lot of profitability in fragility. And things can be built in a way to last longer and work better. But that's not always the primary criteria or, you know, the best way to think about durability. That's not what comes to mind first for companies.

• 14:28Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you know, I'm not one of those people that gets a new phone every time one comes out. I've had my phone for a long time. But I have been amazed how many times I have dropped it, kicked it, whatever, and it works fine. It does seem, to some extent, pretty indestructible, except for the water thing, the fire thing, you know, the extremes. But day-to-day wear and tear, phones seem to be able to handle that pretty well.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  It does seem like there's been a lot of improvement in that regard. I think making devices increasingly drop-proof and stronger glass is something that they've really worked on over the years. That seems like a significant area of improvement. But if you look at liquids, on the other hand, a lot of them, you know, you have to purchase this extra accidental damage from handling. It's called ADH policy, where you have to get that extra warranty or insurance if you want to prevent against that kind of damage. And they'll often allow one or two incidents. They're very, very restrictive in terms of whether they'll let you replace the device or get it fixed. And they also have these liquid contact indicators inside the device that can be tripped, even sometimes just due to humidity or moisture in the air.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Like, maybe you took your phone into the bathroom and it happened to be near the shower. So I think, as opposed to thinking about cracks and drops and things like that, liquids are still kind of far behind when we think of the penalties that kind of get assigned to us just for existing in everyday life.

• 15:57Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about why it is our electronic devices are so easily damaged and destroyed by liquids. And my guest is Rachel Plotnick. She's author of a book called License to Spill: Where Dry Devices Meet Liquid Lives. This episode is sponsored by Vinted. You know, I remember interviewing an organizing expert who offered this really clever trick for figuring out which clothes you should get rid of. You go to your closet and you look at the clothes hanging there. And chances are, the ones toward the middle are the clothes you wear most often. But the clothes pushed way over to the left or the right, some of those you probably haven't worn in years. And yet there they hang, taking up space.

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• 19:32Mike Carruthers?

  Are there any statistics as to how many devices or how many people this happens to?

• 19:37Speaker 01

  I've seen different ones over time. It's hard to know exactly which numbers are right. But from my research at least, it looks like this is quite a frequent occurrence. If you go online even and just look at different forums from phone manufacturers. I mean, it's pretty much a constant refrain where people are talking about, "Oh no, I had this liquid mishap. What do I do? How do I fix it? Am I supposed to put this in a bowl of rice?" Or, you know, "I ended up taking this to the store. They said I got it wet, even though I didn't." People are adjudicating this quite often, from my estimation.

• 20:08Mike Carruthers?

  And so what about the rice thing? Because I've heard, at first I heard it was a good thing to do, then I heard, "Oh God, don't ever put your phone in rice." And so I don't know. I want... Well, let's start with that question and then I'll go on to my story.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  So the rice thing actually isn't a good idea. That's a wives tale. It's not the best way to dry out the phone and in fact can end up doing more harm than good over time. So the best thing to do is power off the phone immediately, take out the battery. If we're thinking about phones specifically, let all the components dry as much as possible. But a lot of times bringing it into a service repair place as quickly as you can too is also a better thing to do. But the rice thing is fascinating to me because I think it's one of those internet wives tales that just spread like wildfire and now a lot of people do just assume it's the best thing to do.

• 20:59Mike Carruthers?

  My sense and my experience, because I once took my phone in my pocket into a hot tub, which it just, I got out of the hot tub and felt my pocket and went, oh God. And of course, it didn't work. And I took it to the place. And my sense is that if you, if your phone is submerged in water, it's never going to work right again. I mean, it's never going to be, come back to where it was. Maybe it can work again, but it seems like it's always going to be something's, yeah, I dropped it in water. So it doesn't do that thing anymore.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  I think that's usually the case. And a lot of times it's not immediate damage that we see. Maybe it does bounce back in the short term, but over time, those parts corrode because you can never fully kind of get that moisture out of the device. Again, it also depends a lot on the type of liquid that we're talking about. You know, if it's in salt water, if it's in the ocean, if there are chemicals in the water, chlorine, all those things are going to have a different impact on the device than if it's fresh water. And much of the time, these liquid resistances are tested only on fresh water. So they don't really take into account the other kinds of things that we're likely to encounter.

• 22:14Mike Carruthers?

  Are there other situations or other devices that I'm not thinking of that apply to this discussion?

• 22:21Speaker 01

  There are actually a huge range of devices, I think, that encounter moisture that we might not necessarily think about. We already mentioned wristwatches, but we can also think about smartwatches and particularly fitness devices like Fitbits and Garmins and trackers that people wear going to the gym and just encountering sweat on your wrist or your arm. I found so many instances of people talking about exercise and how sweat might interfere with the heart rate sensor or the device would glitch or not work properly. We see a similar kind of wetness around sweat with people who wear VR headsets, which is just a very, very hot device to be wearing on your face. And then there are lots of other examples, just even things like Bluetooth speakers that people take into the shower,

• 23:04Speaker 01

  AirPods and headphones that people wear, you know, when they're running down the street or taking them to the pool or the beach. So what I found in my research was actually wetness is kind of everywhere. It seems like these are maybe very specific use cases, but people are talking about them all the time.

• 23:20Mike Carruthers?

  In your research into this, is this a topic that comes up much in the halls of Apple and the other manufacturers of these electronic devices? Or is their position more that it's really up to the consumer to take care of these things once they buy them?

• 23:38Speaker 01

  That's a great question. I think my sense is that for most of the history of media technology devices, this wasn't a primary concern unless you were designing for people who were deep sea divers or maybe photographers who were going underwater, things like that, very specific use cases. But more recently, I think particularly around smartphones, it's kind of become an issue that a lot of manufacturers can't ignore now because, one, I think over time, people have gotten a little bit fed up with their devices breaking so much and not being able to use them in certain situations. And two, we just have so many more expectations that our technologies go wherever we go. And so I think in the last few years, you're beginning to see a lot more of these companies kind of

• 24:22Speaker 01

  lean into that advertising and that design around these water resistant features. You know, even 10 years ago, it was considered only a kind of niche feature that a few companies would offer and they would primarily be targeted at people like industrial workers, people in construction, outdoorsy, you know, people who fish or who ski or snowmobiles or swimming, things like that. But now it's being recognized that this is a feature that consumers, I think, just widely desire.

• 24:50Mike Carruthers?

  Well, these devices have become so much a part of our life that when you think about all the times we interact with them, just the law of averages is going to say there's gonna, there's gonna be accidents. Things are gonna go wrong and they're gonna break.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think that's why we need as much as possible designs that support the way our bodies are. We all fumble. We all get busy. We all make mistakes. Our hands don't always work the way they're supposed to. People have tremors. People have Parkinson's, arthritis. There are so many different reasons as to why we might knock over a cup of coffee or drop something accidentally. And so I think that design needs to kind of adapt to meet the messiness of our bodies and the messiness of our environments because it shouldn't be so costly just to be a human being that dumps over a cup of coffee.

• 25:40Mike Carruthers?

  What is it that happens to the phone when it, I mean, as you said, it depends on the liquid, but, but just with regular freshwater, what is it that it does to the phone that makes it so if it just dries out, it wouldn't, it should work fine. I have, you know, the, the key fob from my car, I've put it in the wash twice now. Works fine after it get dry, you know, it, it doesn't ruin it. Of course, that's just a key fob. It's not a, a computer, but still, what, what is it that happens that makes, that is so fatal to the phone?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  A lot of it has to do with what parts of the device the liquid gets into and how far it gets in there. You know, so you're dealing with sensitive electronic equipment, you're dealing with chips and lots of connections. And as I mentioned before, that issue of corrosion is a big one. So in the short term, you might not see any issue at all, but metal corrodes very easily from liquid. And as it corrodes over time, you're going to be able to see, you know, maybe your phone is just running slower, maybe it isn't charging as effectively. Basically, those insides are withering over time. And that's one of the real challenging parts about liquids is that it's not necessarily just that immediate incident. It can be, hey, even three, six, nine months from now, I'm going to see that something's just not working quite right because that corrosion is taking place over time.

• 27:07Mike Carruthers?

  But you're not suggesting, I don't think, you're not suggesting that manufacturers are up to something here, that they're trying to not make them more water resistant so that they can make more money? Or are you?

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Well, that's a good question. I think historically, it hasn't been a big priority for a lot of companies. And I think that phones that break make more money than phones that work. So is this, you know, a major conspiracy where they're all sitting around in a room saying, yeah, let's make phones that break? Not necessarily. But I do think that some of that fragility and breakability has been built into the business model for a long time. But on the other hand, you know, there are also just, there have been technical limits to, to what extent we can protect these devices. And I think those are improving over time. One of the newer technologies is nano coating, where you can basically put an invisible film on the phone. It's dunked into this special solution that you can't

• 28:00Speaker 01

  even see. And that's proven to be very effective at waterproofing phones and other devices. But it still has some limitations. It can kind of degrade over time. We do have oleophobic coatings on our devices. That's what keeps our screens from developing fingerprints and things like that. And that technology has gotten better over time as well. So I think it's, it's a combination of how we understand the business models behind our devices, and also prioritizing, you know, technical developments in this area and saying, yes, this is a priority for our consumers. And yes, we want to develop this technology to the best of our ability.

• 28:36Mike Carruthers?

  Because it does seem that, that all these products are tested, to some extent, for durability. They must throw them around and kick them. And, I mean, they must put them through their paces. Because as we were talking about before, I mean, my phones Been kicked and hit and dropped and works fine.

• 28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, we actually call this torture testing, which I think is really fascinating. And in my work, I look at how there's all this language around punishing the device and using words like torture and abuse. And as you said, you know, putting it through its paces. It's very interesting to think about the language that we use around testing the devices because it's almost treating it like a soldier that's going through battle and like, all right, let's see if it can survive. But I think that those are good tests to do, right? It's certainly important to think about what can the device withstand and what it can't. But that language, I think, is problematic because it still kind of implies that there's a taboo around getting your device wet or mucky or dirty and that only if it's kind of put through this, you know, these torture chambers and abuse systems, will it hold

• 29:38Speaker 01

  up? Will it have the metal to survive? So I do have a problem with that kind of language because I think if we want to normalize these different uses and think about life being messy, then we need to stop kind of thinking that we're torturing our phones necessarily.

• 29:51Mike Carruthers?

  But it does seem, it does seem that people, people know going in, it's not like when you drop your phone in the toilet that you're shocked that it doesn't work anymore. I mean, you, you know, you should have not done that and, and that you probably shouldn't have brought the phone into the bathroom in the first place. It, like, it's not a, it's not a educational thing. People know that there's, they're fragile to some extent. It's just that life happens and that's the intersection where things go wrong.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  I think that's definitely true. And, you know, there's a counter argument to be made, which is pretty interesting, that basically says, hey, fragility is sometimes a good thing because it encourages us to not bring our phone in the bathroom. Some people say, hey, don't make it waterproof because then I can't take it in the shower and then I have to have my nice, quiet, peaceful shower without worrying about my phone ringing or having to respond to a text message. And in fact, I've seen a number of movies and things lately, television shows, there are often plots where the device breaks because someone drops it, you know, in whatever liquid situation and the person's really relieved, like, now I get a break from this thing. So there is that flip side to the story, I think, is that sometimes fragility ends up being a way to not be connected to our devices all the time.

• 31:05Mike Carruthers?

  You know what I like about having this discussion is that For everyone who has had this happen to them, where you've dropped the phone in the toilet or taken it into the pool by accident, and it's happened to apparently just about everyone, you feel so foolish, you feel so guilty, and you feel like you're probably the only one that's ever done this. And I love taking this topic out of the shadows, and now we all know, we all do it, it's gonna happen, and maybe someday they'll find a way to fix this. Rachel Plotnick has been my guest. She is a historian and cultural theorist, and she is author of a book called License to Spill: Where Dry Devices Meet Liquid Lives. And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes.

• 31:50Mike Carruthers?

  Rachel, it's always a pleasure. You always have really interesting topics. Thank you.

• 31:55Speaker 01

  I appreciate that. It's great to talk with you, and thanks again for the opportunity.

• 31:59Mike Carruthers?

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• 32:43Mike Carruthers?

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• 33:28Mike Carruthers?

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• 34:56Mike Carruthers?

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• 35:13Mike Carruthers?

  You have probably noticed that people tend to talk a lot about how stressed out they are. And they don't mean it in a good way. No one says, "Oh, I'm so stressed out, and boy, does that feel fabulous." No, most of us think of stress as a bad thing. But it appears we may not be thinking about stress in the right way. There is good stress and there is bad stress. And the more good stress you can bring into your life, the more it fights the negative effects of the bad stress. That's according to my guest, Dr. Sharon Bergquist. She's an award-winning physician and researcher, known for her science-based approach to lifestyle medicine.

• 35:57Mike Carruthers?

  She's contributed to hundreds of news segments, including Good Morning America, ABC News, and The Wall Street Journal. She has a TED Ed talk about how stress affects you, and it has been viewed over eight million times. She's the author of a book called, "The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier." Hello, Sharon. Welcome. Thank you for coming on Something You Should Know today.

• 36:22Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.

• 36:26Mike Carruthers?

  So there seems to be some confusion about what stress is, what it does, and all. So can you explain exactly what stress is?

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Well, stress is a medical concept. It was introduced around 90 years ago by a Hungarian endocrinologist, Hans Selye. And most of the medical research and what we know about stress since that time has been on how stress harms us. And as a result, most people associate stress as something that we need to avoid and draw boundaries around. However, not all stress harms. In fact, there's more recent science called hormesis. It's the science of good stress that is showing us how stress benefits us and it enriches and grows us. And this is going to sound really counterintuitive, but we actually need some of the good stress

• 37:21Speaker 02

  to build our resilience against the harmful types of stressors that we're trying to avoid. So really, with stress, what I emphasize for my patients and the people I work with is that our goal isn't to avoid it or to draw boundaries. It's really to optimize stress.

• 37:41Mike Carruthers?

  And the difference between those two types of stress, the kind that is harmful and the kind that is not, is what?

• 37:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's really a wonderful question. So what differentiates good stress from bad stress are three Ds. The design, the dose, and the duration. So by design, there are certain stressors to which our biology has adapted throughout most of our human history, and those are the types that enhance us. By dose, hormetic stressors are mild to moderate. And duration, they're generally brief and intermittent. So our biology was designed for these types of mild to moderate intermittent stressors, followed by a period of recovery. What we are not adapted for are the chronic stressors

• 38:31Speaker 02

  that are prolonged and continuous. These are things like relationships that are difficult, job situations that create a ton of uncertainty. So those are the three key features.

• 38:45Mike Carruthers?

  Doesn't it seem, though, that, as you pointed out, like it could be your job, or it could be some event in your life that's causing you stress, but you're creating the stress, not the event? The event is the event, it's how you deal with it.

• 39:00Speaker 02

  Yes. How you respond to stress ultimately determines whether that stress is beneficial or harmful. And to take it one extra step, when you are adding these hormetic or these beneficial stressors, they are all deliberate. So you can choose to add good stress, and that can be a way of building your resilience to the types of stress that aren't always controllable or predictable.

• 39:31Mike Carruthers?

  And the idea of when people talk about, "Oh, I'm so stressed," or "This is so stressful," or, I mean, they're never talking about the good stress. They're always talking about, or what they perceive to be harmful stress, that this is too much, that I can't deal with this, this is really hard. It isn't like, "Wow, this is great stress." No one uses that term and says, "God, I'm so stressed today, and isn't it wonderful?"

• 39:56Speaker 02

  And that's because the predominant type of stress in our life is the type that's harmful. And what I hope that people realize is when we take on these deliberate good stressors, we are actually mitigating some of that harm. And when we avoid the good kind, we are reducing our ability to handle the types of stress that we always, you know, talk about as the kind that's weighing us down. So one way to really tell the difference is when we go through the harmful types of stress that are so prevalent, we are left exhausted, depleted, we feel more burnt out.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Good stress energizes us, it renews us, and literally at the level of ourselves, we now know that we remodel and reconfigure our body in ways where we are prepared to handle future stress better.

• 40:51Mike Carruthers?

  So can you take some real life examples? Because we're talking about the stress in response to something going on in life. Let's add in the things that are going on so we get real examples rather than talking in the abstract of, here's something that happens and here's how you handle it, or maybe how you don't handle it well, so we get a better sense of what you're talking about.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  If a person is dealing with a type of stress that's weighing them down, where they're feeling exhausted and burnt out, for example, if they are in a work situation where they are not getting along with their boss or their team, and that's wearing on them. If a person, you know, just perseveres in that situation and feels stuck, that is not a healthy way of saying, hey, stress is good for you. This is not advocating for being tough in situations where stress is harmful. Instead, if we seek situations of stress that are mission-driven, that align with our beliefs, or that are generative, where we feel we're contributing to a greater good.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  That type of stress releases a completely different biochemistry, a different set of neurotransmitters and hormones. So for example, when it's something that is purpose driven, we release dopamine, which is our reward hormone. When it benefits other people, we release oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone. When it's something that brings us joy, we release serotonin. These chemicals and hormones are the trifecta for mitigating cortisol. So it's a way of buffering ourselves from the harm of the stressors that we can't control.

• 42:41Mike Carruthers?

  But going back to your example of being stuck in a work situation, well, if you're stuck, you're stuck. It seems hard to make that into good stress when you feel horrible.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  You can't always avoid some stressors in your life. So in an ideal world, you would be able to change that situation that's creating the chronic stress, but we all know how difficult that is. This is really an alternate way of managing stress. So one tool is to mitigate that chronic stress or, as you've pointed out, to change how you perceive it, right? There are techniques such as meditation and mindfulness so that we don't just ruminate on these stressors and take them home with us. However, that doesn't work for everybody. So good stress is a different set of tools where you are making yourself stronger

• 43:41Speaker 02

  in your situation where you have to cope with these chronic stressors.

• 43:47Mike Carruthers?

  So it's not a matter of trying to reframe bad stress into good stress. It sounds like you're talking about you're going to have bad stress and you do what you do with that. The trick is to find the good stress because that will help protect you from those bad stressful things.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. So you are mitigating some of that harm and biochemically in your body, you're building resilience so that you can handle more stress and handle it better. So yes, it's an alternative approach and it's more than just reframing the stress in your life and simply recognizing that stress can be beneficial and viewing stress as a beneficial rather than harmful event in your life, that alone affects how much cortisol you release in a stress situation and it reduces the cortisol release.

• 44:45Mike Carruthers?

  And so how do you create good stress in your life? I mean, is it the, that's why I guess what I'm not understanding is like, is it the way you respond to situations? Or do you go out and seek situations, go get on a roller coaster because that'll give you good, I'm not sure how you bring this into your life.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  There's psychological stress that can be good stress and then there are physical stressors that can be good stress. So stress in a technical sense is anything that challenges you. So from a psychological perspective, if a stressor aligns with your belief system and if it's mission driven, that is good stress and it kind of straddles this realm of pushing you outside your comfort zone, but not to the point where it's overwhelming. And it's, you know, the equivalent of if you were going on a roller coaster ride, like

• 45:46Speaker 02

  you know that you're not going to get injured, but you also have this brief, pleasant stress response.

• 45:55Speaker 02

  So those are the types psychologically, but what's really fascinating about good stressors is things like plant chemicals called phytochemicals, exercise, particularly high intensity exercise, limiting eating to 12 hours or less, and doing most of your eating earlier in the day, heat and cold, these are all physical ways that have beneficial effects on our bodies and make us more resilient down to the level of our cells. And when we make our cells healthier, we make our entire body healthier. Because the same cells that are healthier are in our heart, they're in our muscle, they're in our brain.

• 46:40Speaker 02

  And when a neuron is healthier, our ability to handle stress is better, our ability to make decisions is better, our mood is better. So you're driving at mental resilience through physical stressors, and you can do it vice versa. It's a phenomenon we refer to as cross-adaptation.

• 47:01Mike Carruthers?

  So I get that those have health benefits to them, but I guess I'm not seeing how this relates to stress. I just, I see there are health benefits, but how does reducing when I eat related to stress?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  The common thread behind all the things that I just mentioned is that your body perceives them as a form of biological stress. These were the stressors that were inherent in our environment for our ancestors for 2.4 million years. These are the stressors that shaped our genome and our entire physiology. So stress is much more broad than a psychological or emotional response. Stress is also anything that challenges our body. And it throws our body out of this natural balance that we call homeostasis. And our body strives really hard to reestablish that balance.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  With all stressors, you either return to a balance that is better than your starting point, so you build resilience, or a balance that is weaker or lower than your starting point, and you've reduced your resilience. But it's basically because how we view stress is more broad than just a psychological phenomenon, and we can use our body, so stressing our body physically, as a way to build mental resilience and vice versa. So it's really saying that our heart and our mind, even our spirit, are converging down at the level of our cells, and that we have many ways of managing stress that are far beyond our current techniques.

• 48:52Mike Carruthers?

  Well, what about the managing of bad stress? Is that something not to concern yourself with? Or, I mean, it seems, again, it seems like these are two very different things, good stress and bad stress. You're focused on the good stress, but is there something to managing your bad stress?

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Yes. There's no question that the bad stress or the chronic harmful stressors chip away at our health. I mean, we've published studies on its effect on heart health. There's a plethora of data on that. And to the extent that we can control these bad stressors, or even strategically plan for recovery, so that we can lower the effects of the chemicals that are released that cause the harm, there's clear benefit to that. That is, stress management, really historically, and that is the common approach.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  What I hope to bring to light is that we have an alternative approach by adding in the good stress and not just feeling that if we can't control the bad stress, that we don't have any alternative choice. So to put this in a different way, the first half of my career, I would talk and give lectures to people and students and different keynotes about how stress harms. And the biggest feedback I got from people was that they were getting stressed, hearing about the harms of stress.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  And the key behind that is because some of the situations that create the harmful stress are simply ones that we didn't choose, they found us. The good stressors are deliberate. They give us hope, they give us freedom because they are in our control. And the amazing part is that they not only build our resilience at a literal biological level, but the same pathways that build resilience actually make us healthier and they make us younger because

• 51:14Speaker 02

  these mechanisms repair, they do all these housekeeping functions, they regenerate ourselves. So it goes even beyond the conceptual framework of resilience to a biological equivalent of becoming healthier and younger in the face of stress. So it's reframing our relationship with stress to think about it more broadly. And of course, there's merit to reducing the chronic stress, but that is just a lot easier said than done.

• 51:47Mike Carruthers?

  Isn't that the truth? Is this fairly new research? Because, you know, generally you hear when people talk about being healthy, you know, it's movement, take a walk after dinner. It isn't running up the stairs three times a day. It's much more lighter and fluffier.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is new because the key here is that you want to not just move, but move enough with enough intensity where you are activating a stress response. The stronger the stress, the more your body adapts and becomes resilient.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  So that that is the difference and it's changing some of the messaging, right? Because, for example, we tell people as they get older, oh, you should slow down, you should do less, and that is the worst advice we can give people because it actually takes a little bit more of a stimulus for our body to adapt as we get older. And we want to continually grow and regenerate and renew our bodies. And our bodies work through bioplasticity, which is the biological equivalent of use it or lose it. So if you challenge your brain, you grow brain pathways through neuroplasticity where your brain is sharper.

• 53:14Speaker 02

  If you challenge your heart through, you know, some level of exercise, that really raises your heart rate, you're making your cardiovascular system stronger. If you challenge your muscles, I mean, we all know that if you lift heavier weights, you grow stronger muscles. This happens at every level. And the corollary, though, is that when we don't, when we do not have enough of this good stress in our life, we become more vulnerable. And that is really why the messaging around these health effects, like you said, the ones that are a little more fluffy now, we need to reintroduce that intensity because that is ultimately what we need to thrive.

• 53:59Mike Carruthers?

  Lastly, and maybe you've already talked about this, but I want to maybe talk about it in a more concentrated... The benefits of the good stress are health benefits and other benefits, but talk specifically about how they mitigate the bad stress.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  How they do it is because we have different stress responses. The one we're familiar with is the fight or flight. Everyone describes stress as running from the saber-toothed tiger. But that is a very small portion of a larger stress response we have.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  What happens at the level of our cells is that we repair proteins and DNA. We actually incur 10,000 injuries in our DNA on a given day. And our bodies are constantly repairing. We have the ability to recycle old and damaged parts. We have the ability to generate energy in our cells and increase our energy making capacity. So when we experience these good stressors, that is the type of repair and regeneration we are doing. So every day we are all incurring harm. And our bodies try to recover from that harm, especially at nighttime when we're resting and recovering.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  Good stress activates these mechanisms. And when we are exposing ourselves to adequate amount, we give our bodies a chance to really make up for a lot of the damage. But the fact that we are removing these good stressors in this greater effort to reduce stress in our lives in general. We are reducing our ability to repair and mitigate the everyday harm that's happening from our environment, from pollutants, from smoke exposure, from pesticides. All the things that we know are probably harming us and there are many that we don't even know about. So that's what's happening at a cellular level.

• 56:03Speaker 02

  And even at the level of hormones like cortisol. We know that when we expose ourselves to good stress, for example, a high intensity interval workout. You get a spike of cortisol, but what really matters is your baseline or basal level. After the workout, the cortisol level comes below the baseline of where you started. So what is happening is that your basal level, again, this is what matters for health in protecting us from the harm of stress. You want your baseline levels of cortisol to come down.

• 56:42Speaker 02

  Similar with exposure to cold, you get a spike of cortisol, but afterwards your levels are lower. And that's ultimately what we want. So that is how the good stress is protecting us.

• 56:58Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you know, I've never heard anyone explain stress this way, and it certainly has given me a much better understanding of what it is, what it does, and maybe how to even make it work for you. Dr. Sharon Bergquist has been my guest. She is an award-winning physician and author of the book, "The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier." And there is a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Sharon, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for being here.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Thank you so much. I appreciate it so much.

• 57:33Mike Carruthers?

  The next time you're in that awkward position that we all find ourselves in, that you can't remember someone's name, try shifting your eyes from left to right for about 30 seconds. According to a British study, that move, just shifting your eyes left to right, can improve your instant recall by engaging both sides of your brain, which activates long and short-term memory. Now, if shifting your eyes doesn't work, you could try swinging your arms or rocking back and forth. According to the study, that reduces stress and resets your brain. It also may scare away everybody you're talking to, so there would be no need to remember their name. And that is something you should know.

• 58:18Mike Carruthers?

  You are the secret weapon in keeping this podcast going and growing by telling people you know and suggesting they listen, and leaving us a rating and review on whatever platform you're listening on. And you might think, "Yeah, well, but what's one more listener?" Or, "What's one more rating and review?" Well, you would be surprised. I think you would be amazingly surprised how much difference it does make. And if you had a podcast, I would leave you a rating and review, and I'd tell all my friends. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 59:09Speaker 04

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