2023-05-08 05:30:00
Stress causes us to age biologically – but fortunately the effect can be reversed. In addition, people have known for a long time how to prevent stress-induced aging in the first place.
Many people find flying particularly stressful. However, how much this experience causes us to age biologically is very individual.
Flying is “pure stress” for her. Every flight makes you feel older by a few years. In these drastic words, a young patient once described to me the effects of her fear of flying. The conversation I had years ago came to mind when I was recently talking about a new one scientific work came up, which was published by an international team of researchers in the journal Cell Metabolism. She studies the effects of stress on biological age.
The fact that stress can have a negative impact on health is nothing new. In the medical sense, stress is the reaction of the organism to strong physical and psychological stress factors.
Blood pressure and heart rate rise, breathing accelerates, blood sugar levels rise, attention and sensory perception are sharpened. From an evolutionary perspective, this reaction makes a lot of sense: After all, the body has to mobilize all its reserves to flee from the saber-toothed tiger.
Relieve the pressure with exercise
On the other hand, if you are exposed to stress without any significant physical effort, for example in the hustle and bustle of everyday office life, unfavorable health consequences are inevitable. This is especially true for chronic stress conditions. The same mechanisms take place as in primitive man. But it has detrimental effects as the resources provided are not used to achieve the peak performance they are intended for.
This can result in a variety of disorders, such as high blood pressure, immune deficiency, sleep disorders, anxiety, muscle aches and headaches. Sugar and fat metabolism are also confused. “The stress hormones then do all sorts of mischief,” as one of my professors casually put it. My patient was not wrong in assuming that stress is causing her to age.
This can be demonstrated both in animal experiments and in humans using biochemical age markers. A high level of stress causes us to age faster biologically. This is shown in the work using the example of emergency interventions after serious injuries, the stress of pregnancy and childbirth, and Covid-19 disease.
Good news: stress can be reversed
The good news: The biological aging processes observed in the study were – as far as they could be measured – reversible. Treatment and recovery measures restored baseline levels in both animals and humans. Although there are still many unanswered questions, the scientists conclude from their results that stress prevention can prolong life and be a key to healthy aging.
We have known for a long time how this works: Regular exercise, healthy nutrition, enriching social contacts, relaxation techniques or simply music and dance, not smoking and limiting alcohol consumption are all part of it. But depending on your circumstances, this is easier said than done.
My patient made it for her specific stressor. After completing a coaching program to combat her fear of flying, she can now fly again without any excitement.
In the weekly column “Main thing, healthy” the authors take a personal look at topics from medicine, health, nutrition and fitness. Texts that have already been published can be found here.
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