There are many things in our everyday lives that stress us out. Relationships, politics, work, education and so on. Our lives revolve around things that stress us out and some people have it harder than others. Take a look at president Obama. He looks vastly different today (right) than he did at the start of his presidency in 2008 (left picture). His hair has been drained of color and he looks much older. That got me thinking about if stress actually accelerates our aging or not.
An article written by Vivian Diller for the Huffington post explains how aging can be seen as a series of processes in our bodies. Chemical reactions in the body producing adrenaline and cortisol as well as biological factors like glycation produce effects that give off the appearance of aging.
Looking at aging as a natural process instead of the passage of time makes this situation a bit harder to look at. How do you distinguish the effects of the passage of time from processes in the body producing effects that appear similar to old age?
As it turns out, there is a whole field of scientific study that deals with this question. Britannica defines Gerontology as “the science of the finitude of life as expressed in the three aspects of longevity, aging, and death, examined in both evolutionary and individual perspective. Gerontologists also study the “physiochemical processes of aging” and how those factors affect the longevity of an organism’s existence.
One journal written for the oxford journals of gerontology titled “Stress Biology and Aging Mechanisms” starts to answer the above mentioned question about stress.
Dr. Elissa Epel describes how their basic research has concluded that short term stress builds up cellular responses to that stress, almost like a resistance. This means that the stress would slow signs of aging. But, taking a look at this information, the word “basic” is something that draws my eye. If these are “basic” tests then it is entirely possible that there could still be a myriad of other things they are not looking at in regards to the experiment. Also “short term” draws my attention. In my example above, Obama’s levels of stress would not be considered short term in my opinion. Eight years in office is a long time, and the increased timespan and exposure to stress may have caused the rapidly aged appearance. Another confounding variable may be the level of stress intake. Being president is no easy job after all.
One study in Nature looked at 178 healthy women, 90 of which were mothers with a child diagnosed with autism, and the other 88 were classified as “low stress controls”. They found that the mothers with higher stress levels had a decreased amount of longevity hormones that control aging, thereby increasing the appearance of aging. This study is much more acceptable to look at. The split is almost exactly 50/50 and the sample size seems adequate enough for looking at stress levels in different people. Plus, Andrew talked about how Nature is one of the best when it comes to scientific journals so the information here is solid.
In conclusion, higher levels of stress do affect the appearance of aging in mothers exposed to higher stress than others. Stress also has physical and physiochemical effects on the human body. I think it is entirely likely that stress does in fact accelerate aging and its byproducts.
I think it is suitable to use presidents as the example of your article topic ebcause the pressures Obama has indeed acclerates aging. But I wonder if genetics affect age accelerating? Using myself as an example, I face pressures as well from colleges, parents and future jobs as many of my other friends do now. There will be some people look older than me because of our different family genetics. My father looks really young even he is almost 60 and he has stress from works, but comparing to my friends’ fathers, their fathers are much younger in age but they seem a lot older than my father. For me, I am the olderst in age but look youngest in the appearance. So I guess genetics play an important role in age accelerating. And here is an article about Genetics and the Specificity of the Aging Process: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5611/1351.full
Nice post. I definitely agree that I think stress accelerates aging as well. It can be seen in some people. My dad is 64 years old now, and he has one of the best heads of hair a 64 year-old could ask for. He’s a very stress-free type of guy, and loves what he does for a living (he’s always working, but because he actually does love it). All of my friends tell me they don’t believe me he’s 64. He has friends from college that work as lawyers and financial advisors and other high-stress jobs. Not one of them has aged nearly as well as my pops. Again, I think stress does accelerate aging. As studies may prove stress to directly cause it, stress itself comes with indirect variables that can also accelerate aging. Some of these complements to stress can be sleep deprivation, overeating, respiratory effects and god-forbid alcoholism. Maybe something about what habits are associated with stress/accelerating aging would be something cool to look in to a follow up post.
http://www.healthline.com/health/stress/effects-on-body
This post is really interesting! A lot of people talk about the comparison picture of Obama that you posted. I defiantly do agree with those who say stress ages people. It is known that constant stress can effect the body negatively. Other factors such as your genes or how you take care of yourself, obviously play a big role in the aging process as well. People even say that stress can shorten your life. I found an article supporting the idea that stress can shorten your life http://www.naturalnews.com/036730_stress_DNA_damage_life_span.html
Stress can definitely cause grey hairs and tired eyes, but I think there are a lot of confounding variables that can be considered. Diet, exercise, and personal hygiene play a huge role in ones appearance. Is it possible for a teenager (our age) to significantly change in appearance due to stress? Or is it more common in older people?
I absolutely think stress can contribute to “aging”. Obviously stress will not speed up tome, but it definitely is not good for us. All I had to do was type in “stress and health” into google and so many articles pop up about how it can effect us. If you were to continue to look into this it would be interesting to study how stress effects different genders or people of different ages. This Article briefly discusses the possible difference between the genders and the way they cope with stress, but it was not the most detailed. Would it be possible to conduct a double-blind experiment involving stress? Would it be ethical to intentionally put the experimental group under pressure while the control group is just chilling? Stress and “aging” definitely correlate, but I am wondering if there is another variable?
Hi Nicholas,
This article was very interesting to read. But I couldn’t help but think while reading, “how do we know that President Obama wouldn’t look like that without all of the stress he was under?” For instance, if President Obama was not President of the United States and had a low-stress job as say, a librarian, how do we know that he wouldn’t look the same as he does now due to the natural aging process? I definitely agree with this study that stress can change the appearance of someone because of some anecdotes in my own life. My father has an extremely stressful job where he is constantly traveling and never gets a break at home. For a 60-year-old, that is a lot. He looks a lot older than most men his age. But again, that is only one instance. I’m sure that depending on your genetics, and even your race, can play a role in how much stress effects your appearance.
-Claire
This is something that I am sure everyone has been told at one point or another. The evidence is all here but I also find it interesting that low levels of stress can help aging. In this own source I found http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0891584996001621it goes over how dietary changes and things like that can slow aging as well how ever too much speeds up aging. That is basically how everything works. Too much and its bad too little and it is also bad. Finding a balance is very important in everything.