When stress is good for you: straining to stave off cognitive decline

Exercising to the point where your body is under mild to moderate pressure can, among many benefits, help to stimulate DNA repair and add years to your life 

After 30, our total mass of muscle fibres gradually diminishes and is accelerated if we lead a mostly sedentary existence. Picture: iStock

We have long been told that being too stressed out can be seriously damaging, but a growing body of research is showing that we need a certain degree of mental and physical strain in our lives to stay healthy, especially as we get older.

One of the first experts to suggest that stress could offer positive benefits was American psychiatrist Firdaus Dhabhar, who now runs a research laboratory studying stress and resilience at the University of Miami. As Dhabhar explained in a 2009 TED talk, spikes of short-term stress were initially developed as a way of helping our ancestors fend off predators.