# Shock to your system---good for you?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shock-to-your-system-good-for-you/615352>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 10, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shock-to-your-system-good-for-you/615352 "2012-03-10T00:54:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hakuna\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hakuna\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakuna_Matata)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shock-to-your-system-good-for-you/615352/1 "2012-03-10T00:54:00Z")

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Normally I take the ferry home but today I drove on the freeway, and glanced away for a moment and when I looked back, saw lots of red! Luckily I was able to stop in time but got that big adrenaline rush and after I calmed down I started to wonder if a shock like that now and again is good for your system.

Sort of like kids who never get exposed to everyday normal germs and then they play with someone and get really sick. Their bodies don’t adjust to the spectrum so to speak, whereas it seems kids who get exposed to all that stuff seem to weather the storms pretty well.

On one hand living a calm everyday life sounds safe, but if you never have a big scare, when you have one is it too much for your system to handle? So physically is it better for our bodies to get that jolt now and again or is it better to live a calm never get scared kind of life?

My gut is that in general stress tests are good for us but is there any scientific support for that thesis?

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**Author:** ![Surreal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@Surreal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surreal)\
**Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shock-to-your-system-good-for-you/615352/2 "2012-03-12T04:49:39Z")

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Possibly.

The term for what you are describing is “hormesis”, a process whereby a beneficial effect is observed at a low dose of an environmental stressor that would otherwise be damaging at a high dose.

> **[Hormesis Defined](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2248601/)**
>
> Hormesis is a term used by toxicologists to refer to a biphasic dose response to an environmental agent characterized by a low dose stimulation or beneficial effect and a high dose inhibitory or toxic effect. In the fields of biology and medicine...