Make Stress Your Superpower in Midlife and Menopause with Sharon Horesh Bergquist, MD (Episode 245)

Hit Play Not Pause

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.9 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We’re told stress (looking at you cortisol) is the enemy in midlife—but that’s too simple. In the right dose (and with real recovery), stress is good medicine that builds resilience and makes us stronger, in sport, at work, and in life. In this episode, we dive into the “stress that helps” with Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist—physician, researcher, and author of The Stress Paradox. We break down hormesis (the just-enough stress plus recovery cycle), how the right doses of stress in the form of training, plant phytochemicals, hot/cold exposure, and smart time-restricted eating activates cellular defense pathways that ultimately rebuild us to be stronger right down to our DNA. We also dive into how to stack stressors without tipping into overload, which is key for active midlife women, so we can live longer, healthier, and happier lives.

Sharon Bergquist, MD, is a board-certified physician, researcher, and pioneer in lifestyle medicine. She has led $61M in clinical trials on lifestyle interventions and early biomarkers of chronic disease. Her book, The Stress Paradox: Why You Need Stress to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier (HarperCollins, Mar 2025), unpacks how daily habits activate the body’s regenerative systems. An Emory University faculty physician since 2000, she earned a B.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, an M.D. from Harvard, and trained in internal medicine at Brigham & Women’s. Her TED-Ed lesson has 8M+ views, and she’s been featured by Good Morning America, CNN, ABC News, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. You can learn more about her and her work and sign up for her newsletter at drsharonbergquist.com

Resources:

The Stress Paradox book: drsharonbergquist.com/the-stress-paradox

Learn More and Register for our Feisty 40+ Strong Retreat: https://www.womensperformance.com/strongretreat

Learn More and Register for our 2026 Tucson Bike Camp: https://www.girlsgonegravel.com/camp

Feisty Menopause: @feistymenopause

Hit Play Not Pause Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/807943973376099

Support our Partners:

Phosis: Use the code FEISTY15 for 15% off at https://www.phosis.com/

Midi Health: You Deserve to Feel Great. Book your virtual visit today at https://www.joinmidi.com/

Previnex: Get 15% off your first order with code HITPLAY at https://www.previnex.com/

Nutrisense: Go to nutrisense.io/hitplay and use code: HITPLAY to get 30% off

Wahoo KICKR RUN: Use the code FEISTY to get a free Headwind Smart Fan (value $300) with the purchase of a Wahoo KICKR RUN at https://shorturl.at/maTzL

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Spotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Podscribe - https://podscribe.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:14.6	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help
0:21.2	you feel and perform you best, no matter what your hormones are doing.
0:25.0	This show is a production of Live Feisty Media.
0:30.8	Hello, strong feisty women.
0:33.0	I hope you all are well.
0:35.1	So before I get into this week's show, I just wanted to talk a little bit about
0:39.4	something that I struggle with that I probably don't talk about enough. Health anxiety. It's
0:46.3	something that I am sure we all deal with to a certain extent, but it can be really paralyzing,
0:52.4	and as anyone knows who listened to my show on breast health and mammograms knows that I 100% wrangle with.
1:01.6	And since I do a show that is pretty consistently telling people to work with doctors, I felt I should say loud and clearly that seeing doctors, getting evaluations, and just
1:11.5	engaging with the medical system is something that is hard for me.
1:15.9	I also have plenty of performance anxiety, which intermingles with health anxiety in
1:21.2	interesting ways, because I, as maybe many of you, hang a lot of my identity on being fit and healthy. And not being one or
1:30.8	both of those things definitely shakes me at a foundational level. And I have been working
1:36.7	recently really hard to get past that to look at both my health and my fitness more objectively
1:44.0	as things that don't necessarily
1:45.9	define me, but aspects of myself that are ever changing and always have room for improvement.
1:52.9	So as such, I'll tell you that I put on my big girl pants last week and I made a visit to
1:59.4	Eternal headquarters in New York City.
2:02.3	And if you don't know what Eternal is, it's a new high-performance health care program for athletes.
2:09.1	So you work with athlete-informed doctors and dietitians, as well as health-informed coaches,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Hit Play Not Pause, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Hit Play Not Pause and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.