Aging due to stress: what is it and how to avoid it?

Do you know the difference between biological age and chronological age? Have you ever wondered how the degree of aging of the body is determined? We all know that time is irreversible, the hands of the clock turn constantly and we age at its rate. And while it's true that we can't do anything about our chronological age, our biological age is different and much more flexible.

Now you might want to find out what is the difference between these two terms. Well, chronological age is one that has to do with the body and the functional state of the organs. It can be said that it is the time elapsed from birth to the present moment of the person's life. On the other hand, the biological age is related to the real condition of the organism, taking as a reference the chronological age in comparison with the internal functional state. Therefore, the biological age does not have to coincide with the chronological age of the person. Sometimes aging can be greater, but also less.

Biological age takes genetics and lifestyle into consideration. Within this,

severe stress plays an important role since, according to experts, it can increase the biological age and thus accelerate the aging process of the person. In today's article, we will analyze how a feeling that we have all experienced at some point in life life such as stress, can significantly harm us in various areas, including aging. Also, stay to discover that, fortunately, the signs of aging due to this feeling are reversible once calm returns.

• We recommend you read: "Chronic stress: causes, symptoms and treatment"

What is stress?

Stress refers to the mechanism that is set in motion when a person is covered by various situations that exceed their resources.. Therefore, the individual is overwhelmed by the moment and by the amount of demands that are demanded of him. Consequently, the person experiences an overload that can influence both their physical and psychological well-being.

The causes that can cause stress are many since in order to adapt to the demands, we activate the stress process to allow us to adapt adequately to the situation. In addition, thanks to this process, reactions arise such as speeding up thinking, using more energetic behavior, increasing efficiency to overcome certain situations successfully, among others. Therefore, stress can be beneficial to some extent. However, it begins to be harmful when the energy or resources spent are not recovered and therefore, significant wear and tear on the body occurs.

What is aging?

Nowadays, most of the population has a life expectancy equal to or greater than 60 years. It is portrayed that all countries are experiencing an increase in the number of older people in the population. Thanks to the incredible advances in science and the awareness that individuals are taking about maintaining healthy habits throughout life, such as following a balanced diet, regular physical activity, abstaining from tobacco and alcohol consumption is what has managed to reduce the risk of diseases, improve physical and mental capacity and, ultimately, delay as much as possible the dependence on care.

Looking at it from a biological point of view, aging is the accumulation of a wide variety of molecular and cellular damage throughout the life. time, leading to a gradual decline in physical and mental abilities and consequently to increased risk of disease and, ultimately, to death.

Relationship between aging and stress

We all know the physical symptoms of stress such as diarrhea or constipation, headaches, lack of energy, a stiff jaw, tiredness, etc. But what is interesting is that in recent years various studies have discovered that stress is capable of significantly accelerating aging.

Certain stressful events such as undergoing surgery, having COVID-19 or experiencing a pregnancy are known to accelerate the rate of aging.. Likewise, the Cell Metabolism magazine offers indications that this damage is reversed, in most cases, in a matter of days or months when the cause that caused it disappears.

In order to corroborate this approach, the authors Poganik and his team collected data from the stressful situations mentioned above. To do this, they examined blood samples from elderly patients who underwent heart surgery. emergency, obtaining samples collected immediately before surgery and a few days after surgery. same. In turn, they also analyzed blood samples from people who were admitted to the unit of intensive care (ICU) due to COVID-19, and people who were in different stages of the pregnancy.

The results were surprising since it was possible to observe how biological age increased in stressful situations and reversed when the stressful factor was resolved.. It is easily understood when mentioning that the laboratory results of those people who underwent major surgery showed signs that the biological age increased among them. However, they returned to baseline values ​​4 to 7 days after surgery.

Similarly, in the case of the effects of pregnancy on biological age, researchers verified a pattern where the biological age increased during pregnancy until the moment of giving birth. light. Finally, among patients hospitalized for COVID-19, the authors concluded that the increase in biological age was also reversed by the time they were discharged from the ICU.

In conclusion…

By now, it is clear that stress takes its toll on us and makes biological age accelerate by leaps and bounds. However, it is not all bad news since the negative consequences of stress are completely reversible once the feeling stops. In this regard, some researchers wanted to study the role of resilience in stress and aging.

Psychological resilience, that is, the ability of a person to adapt to adversity, plays a very important role. on the subject in question. The researchers found that participants who scored high on psychological resilience or the emotion regulation and self-control were more resistant to the effects of stress on aging. Therefore, this suggests that an optimal way to minimize the adverse consequences of stress is by strengthening emotion regulation and self-control.