Premature Aging: Does Stress Age You?

Wondering how to look younger or which anti-aging treatments are worth the trouble? Don’t get too stressed about it…because not getting stressed just might be the single most effective anti-aging treatment. Bottom Line Personal asked Stephen Sideroff, PhD, founder and former clinical director of the Stress Strategies program at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, for details…

The Hallmarks of Aging

There are 11 known “hallmarks of aging”—cellular and molecular mechanisms that are thought to play a role in the human aging process. These are complex processes with names like “telomere attrition” and “cellular senescence.”

Longevity researchers and pharmaceutical companies are investigating these hallmarks in hopes of finding ways to extend the human lifespan, but while that work is ongoing, it’s already clear that reducing stress is an excellent way to avoid premature aging. Stress hasn’t just been linked to one or two of those hallmarks of aging—it’s been linked to all of them.

Stress reduction isn’t a fountain of youth—it probably won’t make you look and feel younger than your years. But if stress currently is making you look and feel older than you actually are, reducing your stress could help you roll back that premature aging.

Recent finding: When a team of researchers at institutions including Harvard, Duke and UCLA examined blood samples from elderly patients who had broken their hips and required emergency surgery, they found that samples taken on the stressful day of surgery showed clear signs of elevated biological age…but within a week, those patients’ stress levels had subsided and blood samples revealed that their biological ages were back down to pre-injury levels. The researchers found a similar pattern when they subjected mice to stressful surgeries—the stress led to premature aging, but that premature aging was unwound when researchers removed the source of stress. Trouble is, lots of stress isn’t just caused by rare, one-off events like emergency surgery—it’s part of people’s daily lives.

Too Much Stress

In some ways, stress can be beneficial. It can encourage us to work hard…make us feel excited…and protect us from danger by triggering the fight-or-flight response.

Unfortunately, most of us endure much larger and more frequent doses of stress than is helpful—extreme and chronic stress doesn’t drive us forward…it grinds us down and holds us back. Here are four reasons why most people experience more stress than is useful…

Our stress levels evolved to serve the needs of our ancient ancestors, not the modern world. The extreme stress that triggers the fight-or-flight response was a lifesaver when humans had to worry about being eaten by lions, for example, but it’s counterproductive for someone worried about his/her retirement savings.
Our brains tend to pair stress and success. Life’s greatest successes often are achieved in part by enduring stress—perhaps you worked long hours to earn a big promotion …or maybe you pushed yourself through pain and fatigue to complete a marathon. Stress and success are so often paired that the brain can come to see them as inseparable, subtly encouraging people to seek out stress rather than attempt to reduce it.
Our upbringing can leave us with a lifetime of stress-inducing self-talk. Children who grow up with an anxious parent often internalize the lesson that the world is dangerous. Children who have an overly judgmental parent tend to conclude that they’re not good enough. Children who have a depressed parent tend to harbor a deep-seeded sense that they’re to blame for that parent’s suffering. Living with these inaccurate beliefs is stressful for children—and it doesn’t end when those children grow up. Childhood beliefs such as these shape inner voices that are likely to serve up stressful “self-talk” for the rest of their lives.
Stress triggers outnumber reassurances. There’s a dramatic imbalance between the stimuli that activate our stress and those that deactivate it. Example: A noise that wakes us in the night signals potential danger, creating stress…but the silence that follows doesn’t prove that we’re safe. It simply leaves us lying awake, heart pounding, wondering if danger lurks in the darkness

How to Roll Back the Stress and Age Slower

Four strategies that can foster resilience and reduce unnecessary stress…

Cultivate a growth mindset

Don’t settle for the person you are now—challenge yourself to increase your capacities. Continually search for ways to improve what you see as your shortcomings. Ongoing self-improvement doesn’t just boost one’s skillset, it encourages a hopeful outlook on life rather than the bleak outlook that often is linked to excessive stress. A growth mindset must be paired with self-acceptance. As opposed to feeling like you are digging yourself out of a hole, challenges and growth create hope and a sense of control, both of which lower stress.

Break free from stress-inducing lessons learned in childhood

What messages do you hear from your inner voice and self-talk? For many people, these messages are dominated by stress-causing negativity, self-doubt, a need for approval from others and/or a sense that anything short of perfection is unacceptable. Whatever your inner voice is telling you, you’ve probably been hearing messages on this same theme ever since childhood—but the fact that you’ve lived with these messages for a long time doesn’t mean they’re true or what you actually believe…and it doesn’t mean that you can’t escape them.

Whenever you receive a stress-causing inner message or hear an unhelpful inner voice, identify it as something separate from your own opinion and voice…then reply to it with a nonstressful message of self-acceptance, compassion, care, love or joy. Example: Your inner voice might tell you you’re dumb when you make a mistake. Remind yourself that you’ve made many smart moves in your life…reassure yourself that even smart people don’t make the right choice every time…note that you’ll learn from the misstep…and consider that you’ve already paid some price for your misstep, so there’s no need to pile on by beating yourself up.

Find time for relaxation every day

Relaxation isn’t just something for weekends and vacations—it’s something our bodies require on a daily basis, even on busy days. There is no one best way to relax. Some people find meditation tremendously relaxing, while others prefer long walks in nature…sitting by a lakeside…listening to calming music…or something else entirely. Do whatever relaxes you—but note that you’re not really relaxing if your mind continues ruminating about problems.

Finish your emotional unfinished business

Virtually everyone lugs around painful memories from their past. Maybe you’ve never gotten over being wronged by someone…or maybe you never told someone how bad you feel about something less-than-wonderful that you did long ago. Letting these feelings out can free you from a significant source of ongoing stress. The most obvious way to do that is to raise the topic with the other person or people involved in the unfinished business, but doing that isn’t always possible or prudent—the other person might no longer be around…or raising the topic might have more downside than upside. Other options for letting such feelings out include writing them down or yelling them when no one else is around to hear. Once you let the feelings out, make a conscious decision to let them go.