Your Stress is Killing You! But it doesn’t have to…

“Getting older sucks” I hear this from patients all the time.

I tend to respond, “It’s better than the alternative”.

While writing this, I am completely aware that my back is sore, my knees ache, and I probably should have slept a little more last night. So, I get it.

But age isn’t just a number. In fact, research has shown that stress can increase biological age.

We all know this to be true, even if we haven’t thought much about it. You’ve probably seen pictures of presidents before and after they took office and how the four years aged them by ten to twenty. Or you’ve seen before and after photos of methamphetamine addicts. Many look ten to fifteen years older than they are.

A recent study in Cell Metabolism shows that aging is fluid and not just dependent on time on the clock. It looked at how certain stressors such as surgery, pregnancy, or covid-19 could cause a transient increase in biological age.

But maybe even more important is that they found the increased age could be reversed with appropriate recovery.

In other words: we can overcome the damage done by stressful events.

You may be thinking, “okay sounds great, but what exactly is recovery anyway?”. That’s a good question.

I recently spoke with a patient that was under a lot of work stress. He’s healthy but ignoring some fundamental issues. I’m worried this is going to age him prematurely and possibly bring on health problems in the future.

We discussed the basics. Better sleep. Better food. And a little bit of exercise.

These 3 things are game changers for your health and for slowing down the aging process.

But for some reason, no one wants to do them.

Look I get it. You’re busy. You don’t have time to cook a good meal, work out, and sleep 8 hours a night. But if you don’t make time for these, then you’ll have even less time to do them.

Your stress is killing you.

So are you going to let it? Or are you going to fight back?

The choice is yours.

p.s.

Poganik JR, Zhang B, Baht GS, Tyshkovskiy A, Deik A, Kerepesi C, Yim SH, Lu AT, Haghani A, Gong T, Hedman AM, Andolf E, Pershagen G, Almqvist C, Clish CB, Horvath S, White JP, Gladyshev VN. Biological age is increased by stress and restored upon recovery. Cell Metab. 2023 May 2;35(5):807-820.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2023.03.015. Epub 2023 Apr 21. PMID: 37086720; PMCID: PMC11055493.