It has been shown that chronic stress can have many negative effects on your body.
One such negative effect is that it can age you much quicker. Science can back up the
fact that stress can accelerate the aging process. When you are under stress that is
ongoing, it begins to create a feeling of fight-or-flight within your body. This, in turn, has
a way of releasing stress chemicals into your body that will begin to cause harm. These
chemicals can also cause many biological changes to start the premature aging
process.
Ways That Stress Impacts the Aging Process
Premature aging caused by stress happens on a cellular level. As an example, people
who have a lot of work-related stress will begin to get harmful effects on their DNA
within the cells. Work stress has been known to shorten the DNA’s telomeres. When
these begin to shorten, a person becomes more at risk for things such as type 2
diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
Chronic stress has also been found to stress the brain as well. This can lead to the
development of Alzheimer’s disease and is more prevalent in women over men. Lastly,
stress over long periods of time has been contributed to things like hearing and vision
loss and unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Ways to Reduce Your Stress to Slow The Aging Process
There are many ways in which people can slow down the aging process by simple
reducing the amount of stress in their lives. The reduction of stress can be
accomplished in a variety of ways. Some of the best ways are mentioned below.
Reduce Your Sugar Intake – Most people are aware of the negative impacts that sugar
can take on our health. However, many do not realize that sugar can dramatically age
our skin and steal away our youthfulness. Too much sugar, particularly fructose and
glucose, like to dehydrate our skin’s protective proteins. This process is referred to as
advanced glycation. This process makes your skin lose its elasticity and will look duller.
Drink More Water – One of the easiest and best things you can do for your body to
reduce stress and slow down the aging process is to drink enough water. Chronic
dehydration is a very common culprit for premature aging. Water can help to lubricate
joints, flush damaging toxins out of the body and restore and hydrate our skin’s
elasticity. It can hydrate on a cellular level to give us a more youthful appearance.
Get Plenty of Rest – Another great way to reduce stress is to get plenty of rest. When
you don’t get enough sleep, fatigue can begin to set in. When you get less sleep than
your body requires, the beginning of an imbalance of hormones starts. This imbalance
of hormones can increase a body’s cortisol levels by ten-times. The result of this
increase can lead to imbalanced blood sugar levels and oxidative stress which can
cause you to lose your youthful glow. Sleep is necessary to repair our human growth
hormones which are what is necessary for the anti-aging process.