Get FREE Instant Access
To your online Video Fighting Course.
Click Here For FREE Instant Access.

Peanuts, Hormesis & Training for Weakness – By Mark Hatmaker

I’m old. I can prove it with the following sentence.

When I was a kid, I cannot recall one child in my school ever having a peanut allergy and you could eat peanuts and peanut butter sandwiches willy-nilly. (Willy-nilly is a word that old men are legally obligated to use, I don’t make the rules.)

As my daughter was growing up the world changed, peanuts were (and are) treated in schools with more prejudice than teeny bottles of shampoo are by the TSA. (That’s why when I travel my luscious locks never look as firm and bouncy as when at home. Thanks TSA.)

We go from no kids in my childhood memory having a peanut allergy (I’m sure there were some I just never encountered them) to apparently 1 in 10 being fragile to the mere fumes of this deadly legume. (I’m
surprised there are no warning labels on a jar of JIF.)

What happened?

Well, it seems an over-correction to what was a problem in a minute few became dangerous and even lethal to many others. When it was well publicized that this minute few can indeed have severe reactions to peanuts, some parents erring on the side of safety and love decided “No peanuts or peanut butter for my kid.”

I get that decision, one borne of concern.

The government quickly followed the “concerned” trendline and mandated peanuts peanuta non grata in schools for fear of mass death.

This exclusionary policy by parents and government alike has had (and continues to have) a perverse iatrogenic effect, that is, it created more peanut allergies in the population by sheer dint of zero exposure.

Let’s ponder that, to keep children safe from peanut allergies we fostered more peanut allergies.

Now how does something like this happen?

Look at this way, the human body (more often than not) responds positively to low-dose stressors if the stressors are chosen (exercise, mentally and emotionally challenging activities, etc.) the positive effect of such low-dose exposure is called mithridatics, if the low-dosing is accidental or a by-product of living (as in the case of children reared on farms or in the countryside having lower incidences of asthma by having been dosed to “allergens” from an early age) it is called hormesis.

Either way, stressors robustify and strengthen the body, the mind, the immune system and I daresay the spirit. Overcoming challenges is what makes the individual thrive.

Let’s play this thought experiment. Let’s say we are told by “experts” that a certain activity can lead to rapid heartbeat, a rise in blood-pressure, flushed skin, labored breathing, and copious sweating in children in under one minute. This alarming reaction to the activity may cause some to protect children from these ill-effects, after all a human body is not observed to suffer such effects in the status quo.

Now let’s say we are told the activity that caused these symptoms was playing a gloriously active game of kickball. The symptoms no longer sound like symptoms and rather by-products of an activity that if continued over time will lead to a conditioning effect resulting in hardier children.

Now lest anyone thinks I speak a tergo (out of my ass) regarding the peanut allergies I would direct you to the following statement regarding the National Institute of Health’s (NIH) change of heart.

“Proactivity may be the solution to peanut allergies… the more susceptible a kid is to a peanut allergy, the earlier he or she should start eating peanuts. The advice is a big shift from pediatricians’ previous advice to avoid giving at-risk kids peanuts until they are 3 years old.”

Hmm? Sounds sensible and suspiciously like all mithridatic advice, you condition your body with fitness training by gradually ramping up the stressors as your threshold increases. This slow-approach is far wiser than going from couch potato to Tough Mudder in 12 hours.

The key though, is that there must be exposure to the stressor to protect from the stressor. No exposure, you increase the odds of adverse reaction. With exposure you either reduce reaction, eliminate it altogether, and, as in the case of many things pleasurable, turn what was previous thought a hazard (a peanut butter cookie or a game of kickball) into a pleasure.

If we keep our eyes open we might ask ourselves “what is the faux peanut allergy in my own life?”

Do I thwart my own immune system’s chance to do what it might be capable of addressing on its own each allergy season by popping Claritin and like products or do I take a chance on dosing myself with the real-world? (BTW – I have done just such Nature-Dosing, works like a charm.)

Do I invariably bump the thermostat up or is there any wisdom in robustifying to one or two degrees cooler than my chosen “average” every now and then?

Do I view “stressful” situations as reasons to post my woes to Facebook or do I have an opportunity to view them as emotional cardio/situational free-weights to build patience and social fortitude?

Now keep in mind we are talking small controlled dosages of certain stressors, not poisoning the self as in the zero to Tough Mudder example. But I will wager that in more areas than we might admit, more domains than we may even realize there is a robustifying effect in purposefully allowing a bit of exposure to occur.

Remember the flip-side of Post Traumatic Stress is Post-Traumatic Growth. Often what flips the switch from one to the other is the dosage and the determined decision.

In many such matters, the choice is in our hands; there may be more metaphorical peanut butter sandwiches to enjoy than we currently realize. The key is to wake up, take small bites, and grow from there.

Click Here For More Instruction From Mark Hatmaker

Leave A Reply:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

11 thoughts on “Peanuts, Hormesis & Training for Weakness – By Mark Hatmaker”

  1. There is a term for using the “hair of the dog” approach to healing the body and strengthening it for future encounters. I am a sceptic of modern medicine (chemical warfare) so I try to always find the holistic approach to all ails. As in the example you gave; you can’t go from couch to triathlon without some training. It takes months to to train for even the most basic triathlon, and more to be a mudder, that is a reflection of the outer. So it is with your inner you. You build up your tolerance to things slowly. Working at a sewage plant you hate the smell your first few weeks, then it gets to where you no longer even notice the smell. The same goes for allergies, exposure to your allergens in small doses builds a tolerance till you are no longer allergic. Again, holistic is the way to go in all things. The outer and inner both benefit from starting small and working up to big. Lift weights; start with ten pound weights and work your way up to hundred pound weights. Takes time and effort. Same for the inner, start small and work your way up to stronger.

  2. Dear Mark,
    How right you are, I like you are older, I won’t admit to old.
    Another example is learning to ride our bikes, when I learned we didn’t have helmets, knee pads, elbow pads etc. we fell off, got scraped up and figured out how not to repeat the mistake.
    It is my considered opinion that this cotton wool generation is coming about partially at least by the desire to have families much later there by not allowing time to have other children if one loses their child at middle age.
    We are breeding a generation who are afraid to do anything but think, play on computers and as soon as they are out of parental control, participating in extreme sports and trying to kill themselves because they have never learned boundaries.
    OK, soap box over.

  3. Correctly observed. Protect your child from everything and it will not be able to defend itself in allrespects.
    Children in the streets from India play in dirt and have the lowest rate of civilisation diseases.
    From my heart, I exposed my kid to all possible and at her job she has logged only 4 sick days in 10 years

  4. Enjoyed this article,plus it had no cost.
    I enjoyed your first articles ,in fact Iv kept them but not the long drawn out sales ones.
    The quick fix fight situations are superb,I can relate as Iv been envolved in martial arts all my life,Iv even thought of coming over and meeting you at some point ,yours Jim mcallister uk

  5. I agree with your logic. Our society is much to clean so we don’t get enough exposure to various bacteria, viruses and other pathogens to develop an immunity.
    I just became an octogenarian. I grew up on a dairy farm in SE Michigan and was exposed early on to everything you can expect to encounter in that environment. Having a degree in sanitary engineering, I have been in and around sanitary sewers, wastewater treatment plants and sanitary landfills for over forty years. I don’t take aspirin or its associates, believing that pain is an indicator something needs to be addressed, not something that should be ignored or masked. I do take vitamin and mineral supplements. I still work as a consulting engineer, four days a week for seven hours per day. Most people marvel at my strength and health. While I believe good health is a blessing, we have a responsibility to try to maintain it.
    I highly recommend TacFit Commando as a conditioning program. It is effective for balance, flexibility and strength conditioning. It uses body weight only, so is not likely to over stress your body unless you go wild.

  6. Thank you Mark, Nor did I ever here of a child in our school ever having a reaching to peanuts But I have heard never give a new born infant honey because their system is not fully develop to handle the botulism that honey has. Is this true Mark? Thank you for your reply

  7. Thanks for the interesting article, but I would like to point out that certain vaccines contain peanut oil, though in minute quantities. As it is introduced straight into the bloodstream, and not filtered by the body’s normal way of digestion, I think this is what is contributing to peanut allergies.
    Cheers
    Tim

  8. I have to say with over 55 years of experience in life. I started eating peanuts with my family and grandparents as early as I can remember. We would walk barefooted through plowed fields after my dad and grandad or another family member plowed up a garden spot. We never had an allergy or were sick other than a cold growing up. I believe that tolerances were built up at an early age from doing this. Now at 57 I still do not have allergies to grass or animals and love the peanuts. I hope this helps with others, if not still fun to reminisce.