Today, Cait shares a podcast recommendation, an episode of Wellness While Walking Podcast, hosted by her friend Carolyn Cohen. Carolyn is a health coach that has designed her podcast as a way to inspire people to take the next step of their health journey. These episodes are 30 minutes long and are made to be listened to while taking a walk. There is even a handy beep at the halfway point in the episode to remind you to turn back around on your route. So, bundle up, put on some headphones, and take a stroll while learning wellness tips. 

It may sound strange to think about wanting to increase stress, but there actually is good stress that can result in physical and mental health benefits. In the same way that too much of a good thing is bad and too much of a bad thing is still bad, there is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle for everything. People need a certain level of hormetic stressors to thrive. Hormetic stressors are intermittent stressors of a certain duration and strength that can have systemic benefits. Some examples of ways to increase hormetic stressors are through temperature like hot and cold therapies, intermittent fasting, and high intensity interval training. By increasing hormetic stress, you can have increased energy, improved health, and even slow the aging process. 

Stress is not always a bad thing. Tune into today’s episode of FRIED. The Burnout Podcast for an exciting podcast recommendation from Cait. Listen to hear an episode of Wellness While Walking Podcast hosted by Carolyn Cohen and learn about the ways certain stressors can actually be beneficial to your overall wellness.

Quotes 

• “Sometimes we need to stress our systems for growth. And I'm not just talking about stress as we think of it, I'm talking about things like when we eat, what we eat, how we move, and other daily activities in our day. So tweaking them might give us more energy, improved health, and even could help slow aging.” (2:16-2:36 | Carolyn)

• “The fact that adversity can be good is also a concept that rings true within health.” (7:37-7:42 | Carolyn)

• “Stressing ourselves in one way likely has benefits across all our systems. So we can find the one thing that works for us and our health situation and our lifestyle and then it can often have systemic benefits.” (24:16-24:27 | Carolyn) 

• “Biologically, the lack of acute stressors prevents the intermittent episodes of cellular “housecleaning” activities that slow aging. So we just have to keep in mind that taken to either extreme, the stressors are problematic, and so we need to be careful if we pursue any of these hormetic activities.” (25:29-25:48 | Carolyn)

• “What I've always wanted to share here on the show is the question of nuance, just because a bit of something might be beneficial doesn't mean a whole lot better. And similarly, just because something is poison, or detrimental and extreme doesn't mean that the other extreme, there's none of this is optimal, either. There's nuance, there's dose to be considered. And sometimes that's not what we get from the headlines.” (27:00-27:22 | Carolyn) 

Links

Connect with Carolyn Cohen, Host of the Wellness While Walking Podcast

https://wellnesswhilewalking.com/

Connect with Cait:

Cait Donovan is a keynote speaker, author, and host of FRIED: The Burnout Podcast, specializing in burnout, mis/match, and sustainable performance at work. She partners with corporate leaders, teams, and professional associations through keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions that treat burnout as data, not failure, to help organizations reduce burnout without blame or shame and build healthier, high performing cultures.

To bring Cait to your organization or event, book an inquiry call here: https://bit.ly/bookcait

Learn more about Cait’s speaking work: https://www.caitdonovan.com/speaking

Short on time? Watch this 3-min video: https://bit.ly/caitdreel2025

https://friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/quiz

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