Ben GreenfieldFounder, Ben Greenfield Life

The Link Between Physical and Spiritual Discipline

20 Sept 2023 · 1 min

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The speaker (Ben Greenfield) argues that comfort is detrimental and that stress and discomfort (e.g., fasting, physical discipline) trigger beneficial biological responses—autophagy, telomere growth, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)—which support longevity and resilience. He links physical discipline closely with spiritual discipline, saying they run parallel and that physical discipline facilitates spiritual discipline.

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Spiritual comfort is actually not our friend. Those who are comfortable, you know, you sit more, you don't move as much. Your body really needs to be like fasting does it, you know, it kicks in autophagy and telomere growth and brain derived neurotropic factor and all these things under stress. So your body's adapting under stress. So if there's no stress, you actually longevity is hindered as well, because your body is created to react to these stressors and to become stronger and build your, your, your immune system up and all these other areas up even better. And so that's why spiritual disciplines, or even physical disciplines, I should say that to me, physical and spiritual run parallel. I know spiritual is more important, but if I'm, if I'm disciplined physically, I'm also going to be disciplined in the spiritual things as well.