Does Stress Age You Even Faster? What To Know

Highlights:

Stress is a biological response that can be beneficial to the body in some cases and detrimental to the body in others.

Chronic, low-level stress can cause you to age biologically faster, resulting in an age that could be even greater than your chronological age.

Eating healthfully, getting plenty of exercise, and taking a longevity supplement, like fatty15, can help reverse your biological age and undue some of the damage caused by this type of stress.

Stress gets a lot of press, primarily because every human experiences it to some degree. Most of us deal with stress daily. There are smaller stressors of making it to work or school on time, and there are major stressors like relationship troubles or financial woes. 

The question we’re all asking ourselves is, will this stress cause us to age faster? The short answer is yes, but there are major caveats. 

Not all stress is created equally. In fact, some stress is beneficial to us. However, stress that lingers day after day with no end in sight can lead to a decline in health and an increase in the biological aging process. 

Let’s explore the difference between good and bad stress, how it affects your biological age, and what you can do to balance stress and avoid accelerated aging. 

Is Stress Always Bad?

There’s good stress, and there’s bad stress. If you’re being chased by a lion, your heart rate accelerates, adrenaline courses through your veins, and your blood vessels expand to allow for more blood flow to your limbs. This stress response enables your body to identify a threat and take measures to reach safety. 

Stress is also important in situations like:

• Competitions
• Training for an athletic event
• Meeting a deadline for work or school
• Learning new skills

In each of these situations, stress motivates, promotes, and supports your ability to succeed. This type of stress is also short-term, meaning that when the event ends (such as completing a race, a game, or escaping a lion), your body returns to its normal state.

“Bad” stress is ongoing. Also known as “distress,” it is the type of chronic, underlying, and unrelenting feeling of worry and burden that accompanies situations such as relationship problems, financial woes, losing one’s health, or losing a job. 

Chronic stress can also switch gears, which means it isn’t always situational. You may find yourself stressed without an apparent reason, due to conditions like depression or anxiety. Chronic stress can chip away at your well-being and begin shortening your lifespan. 

How Chronic Stress Ages You Faster

Your body is built to handle short-term stress, but when stress hangs out too long, it suffers. Hormones, like cortisol, stay elevated too long, causing a chain reaction that takes a toll on your body and accelerates your aging.

Weakened Immunity

The immune system is a stress-response system. When your immune system senses something like a pathogen or an injury, it sends out white blood cells to start the healing process. This is a short-term stress response. 

Chronic stress causes the immune system to malfunction. Cortisol, which normally regulates the immune system, suppresses immune responses, which could cause you to get sick more frequently. 

Increased Inflammation 

You’ve probably heard that low-level inflammation underlies many illnesses. Chronic inflammation has been associated with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even Alzheimer’s disease. All of these illnesses can shorten a person’s lifespan, especially if they go undetected for years or are not well managed.

DNA Damage

Too much stress can damage your DNA. One of the hallmarks of aging is shortened telomeres. Telomeres are the caps at the ends of your chromosomes. Every time DNA replicates, the telomere shortens. When telomeres are too short, DNA becomes damaged, and that damage replicates, causing changes to your DNA structure. 

Sleep Problems

It’s no surprise to anyone who has dealt with chronic stress: sleep is a struggle. Adults, on average, need between seven and nine hours of sleep each night. The body and brain repair during periods of sleep, but when sleep is absent, the repair shop is closed. Without necessary repair and restoration, a person’s overall health will begin to decline. 

Weight Increases

There is a direct correlation between chronic stress and visceral fat, or the fat that collects around the midsection. This type of fat collects near a person’s vital organs, making it particularly problematic. Carrying additional weight can reduce your life expectancy and increase your risk of metabolic disease. 

Brain and Cognitive Health Declines

Over time, chronic stress can cause certain areas of the brain to shrink. Studies link changes in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory and emotional regulation, with chronic stress. 

In short, chronic stress won’t just make you feel older. It will cause you to age biologically faster. 

Biological Aging vs. Chronological Aging

Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m only 30, I can’t age faster than the calendar.” That’s only true for one type of aging. 

Chronological aging is the age you are due to your birthday. And it is true, you cannot manipulate that age any more than you can teleport into the future. Biological age, however, is malleable. Biological age refers to the age of your cells, the very foundations of every tissue, organ, and system in your body. 

Your biological age can change based on numerous factors, like:

• Lifestyle choices (like alcohol and drug use, or smoking)
• Underlying illness
• Diet
• Exposure to environmental toxins
• Genetics

And yes, chronic stress can play a role in aging you biologically faster by the mechanisms listed above. It’s a scary thought, but thankfully, your biological age can also be reversed.

Reversing Your Biological Age

Aging in reverse may seem like the stuff of science-fiction novels, but ask people living in Blue Zones (where residents consistently live to be 100+) and they’ll tell you it is entirely possible. 

Here are some of the hacks to help you reverse biological age.

Manage Stress

If you’re dealing with chronic stress, it’s time to learn to manage it. Managing stress is not a one-size-fits-all fix. 

Some people may find that meditation helps ease their stress, while others may lean on workout programs or therapy. In many cases, a combination of approaches may be necessary. Find what works for you and do what you can to reduce your stress levels.

Eat Healthfully

Eating a balanced diet and avoiding too much caffeine can also help you reduce stress. Choosing anti-inflammatory foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can help protect your cells and make you feel better.

Take Steps To Improve Your Sleep

Sleep is more important than you think. Getting adequate sleep can help reduce your stress levels and give your body the time it needs to repair and restore. 

If you have trouble sleeping, consider reducing your caffeine intake after 12:00 p.m. and avoiding exercise within three hours of bedtime. You can also set yourself up for sleep victory by avoiding screens close to bedtime. 

Stay Connected

Staying socially connected is one way to help you reduce stress and improve your longevity. Research shows that social connection is key to a long, healthy life. 

Staying socially involved can be a challenge with age, but maintaining friendships and staying engaged with others can improve your health, help you manage stress, and even lengthen your lifespan. 

Support Your Cells

Your cells are the keystone of biological aging, which makes them pretty important. If you want to double down on slowing down the process of aging, there’s a way to do it with a simple, one-ingredient supplement called fatty15 that has been shown to decrease aging at a cellular level.

Fatty15 is the first and only supplement discovered by scientists researching longevity that contains the vegan-friendly, sustainable version of C15:0. To understand how this number-letter combo can help you slow the aging process, you’ll need a proper introduction. 

C15:0: The Longevity Nutrient

C15:0 is an odd-chain, saturated fatty acid and the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in almost 100 years. Essential nutrients are those that our bodies cannot make and we must obtain them through our diet. This fatty acid was recently discovered by a team of doctors and scientists from the US Navy studying healthy aging and longevity in bottlenose dolphins. 

Dolphins with higher levels of C15:0 in their diets had a reduced risk of age-related illness compared to populations whose circulating levels of this fatty acid were lower. They took their research further and discovered that the same health benefits were available to humans, too. Since their initial publication in Nature’s Scientific Reports in 2020, there are now over 100 peer-reviewed studies validating the health benefits of C15:0.

How It Works

C15:0 works by integrating into and strengthening our cells, targeting the processes that cause cells to age too quickly. It does this by:

• Strengthening cell membranes by up to 80%, even after they’ve experienced age-related breakdown. As we age, cell membranes wear out, leaving our cells vulnerable and unable to maintain their function because they cannot maintain their shape. C15:0 integrates into cell membranes to strengthen them.
  
  
• Rescuing mitochondria. The mitochondria in our cells wear out and slow down with age. They produce less ATP (energy) and more ROS (free radicals). Fatty15 restores mitochondrial function by amping up their energy production and reducing ROS output. In one study, C15:0 improved ATP levels by 350%. Improved mitochondrial function means improved cellular function and more energy throughout the cell.
  
  
• Activating PPARɑ and PPARẟ receptors. By activating these receptors, C15:0 has been shown in peer-reviewed studies to support metabolic, immune, heart, and liver health.
  
  
• Restoring homeostasis. C15:0 helps restore homeostasis by activating AMPK, which plays a role in glucose uptake and immunity.

C15:0 has been shown to significantly calm overactive immune systems and lower proinflammatory cytokines, key drivers of aging. By activating AMPK, C15:0 effectively clears away senescent cells and helps regulate immune response. Additionally, C15:0 lowers ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol, improves liver enzymes, and improves the gut microbiome. 

C15:0 is so important for our bodies that not getting enough of it causes a deficiency known as Cellular Fragility Syndrome. Cellular Fragility Syndrome underlies numerous metabolic illnesses and is closely associated with ferroptosis, a particular type of cell death that, until now, had no known etiology.

Thankfully, there’s an easy fix for elevating your C15:0 levels and preventing Cellular Fragility Syndrome. Taking fatty15 once per day gives you all the C15:0 you need, and nothing you don’t.

Why a Supplement Works

C15:0 is found primarily in full-fat dairy products like whole milk. Increasing your intake of whole milk would mean increasing your daily calories (by about 150 per glass), taking in excess sugar from lactose, and increasing your intake of the “bad” even-chain saturated fat. 

While you’d get some C15:0, you’d get more unhealthy ingredients that could do more harm than good. Not to mention, vegans and people who avoid dairy would be out of luck. Fatty15 to the rescue. At just one calorie per dose, it’s the easy way to get the C15:0 you need without involving cattle or calories. 

FAQs

How do you know if you are aging too fast?

Premature aging can manifest in various ways, including skin changes, hair loss, and decreased physical and mental function. While some degree of aging is natural, certain signs can indicate premature aging, prompting lifestyle adjustments for potential slowing down.

What happens if your body is under stress for too long?

Long-term stress that is not well-managed can lead to heart disease, heart attack, high blood pressure, stroke, sleep issues, trouble maintaining a healthy weight, and memory and focus problems. 

Can you reverse wrinkles from stress?

If the stress is short-term, you can take steps to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, but long-term stress may make your wrinkles permanent. 

Easy Does It

Stress can be helpful in short bursts, but it can also shave years off of your life if it lasts too long. If you’ve been stressed for over two weeks, it’s time to act. Recognizing the difference between good stress and bad stress can mean the difference between aging healthfully and having a shorter lifespan. 

Take steps to manage your stress today, and take control of your biological age. With lifestyle choices and fatty15, you can make huge investments in your long-term health and wellness. 

Sources:

How stress affects your health|American Psychological Association.org

Immunology of Stress: A Review Article | PMC

Chronic tissue inflammation and metabolic disease | PMC

Chronic Stress Increases Vulnerability to Diet-Related Abdominal Fat, Oxidative Stress, and Metabolic Risk | PMC

Stress and Brain Atrophy | PMC

The importance of connections: Ways to live a longer, healthier life | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Efficacy of dietary odd-chain saturated fatty acid pentadecanoic acid parallels broad associated health benefits in humans: could it be essential? | Scientific Reports

A review of odd-chain fatty acid metabolism and the role of pentadecanoic Acid (c15:0) and heptadecanoic Acid (c17:0) in health and disease | PubMed