How stress speeds up aging and how to reset your response

Stress has a bad reputation, but the science is more nuanced. Stress scientist Dr. Elissa Epel, speaking with neurobiologist Andrew Huberman, explains why the problem is rarely the stressor itself. What matters is how you respond and how well you recover.

What stress actually is

Technically, stress is any time you feel overwhelmed because the demands exceed your resources. There is good stress and bad stress, and acute and chronic stress. When something happens, you mount a stress response and then you recover, which is healthy. The modern problem is that we keep the response alive in our heads. Our thoughts are the most common form of stress.

Three bins of strategies for overthinking

When you cannot let go of a difficult conversation or an irritating event, Epel groups the tools in three categories:

Top down: Awareness of how your mind works and beliefs that help you view stress more positively.
Bottom up: The body changes the mind. You work stress out of the body, burn it up and metabolize it, which shifts amygdala activity and moves you into a more sensory state.
Change the scene: Get away from stress triggers and add safety signals such as comforting pets, pictures, smells and music.

Short, medium and long term stress

Stress is also measured in the body. Many of us are sympathetically dominated, meaning our body stays vigilant and scans for cues even when we do not report feeling stressed. This is expensive. The stress response uses large amounts of ATP, the energy made by mitochondria, so being vigilant all day is exhausting.

There are three time scales:

Acute: Brief events that you meet and recover from.
Moderate: Events that take days or months to cope with, where daily restoration is important.
Chronic: Situations that last for years, such as caregiving, which you cannot easily change.

Epel studies how chronic stress accelerates cell aging and finds large differences between people. Some caregivers look biologically as young as, or younger than, people without a tough situation.

Why some stress is better than none

Having no stress would mean not engaging with the challenges that give life meaning. Epel describes a study in which retired adults tutored at risk students in schools. They moved from feeling safe but under challenged to feeling challenged and purposeful. Brain imaging showed growth of the hippocampus, particularly in the men.

Threat versus challenge

Two people can face the same stressor and show different physiology. In the threat response, you feel your survival or your ego is at risk. Cortisol and blood vessel constriction go up, blood pressure rises, and recovery is slow. In the challenge response, you think "I can do this". Blood pressure also rises, but through more cardiac output, which means more oxygen to the brain and better problem solving.

Lab studies show that people with more challenge responses have less inflammation after an hour or two and longer telomeres, which suggests slower aging. Psychologists have shown you can tilt people toward that response.

Be the lion, not the gazelle

Both animals have high blood pressure, but the gazelle has a threat response because it might die, while the lion has a challenge response because it is excited about dinner. Epel suggests building strength statements, or stress shields, that feel true to you, such as "I got this" or "I have what it takes".

A second shield is to stop getting stressed by stress. When your heart races, remind yourself that your body is excited and doing what it should. In studies by Wendy Mendes and colleagues, people trained to view stress as positive performed better, felt more positive emotion, solved problems better and recovered faster.

Mitochondria, mood and the evening test

In a study of young mothers, caregivers had significantly lower mitochondrial activity, which means less capacity to make energy. Those caregivers who had better mitochondrial enzymes reported more positive emotions, especially in the evening. This matters because how positive you feel at night after a stressful day predicts long term health, including less depression, less heart disease and less early death a decade later.

Radical acceptance: drop the rope

For unwanted situations you cannot change, Epel recommends radical acceptance. Ask yourself which situations in your life are unwanted and unchangeable, and how much time you spend thinking about them. Two questions in a momentary check in are revealing: how much are you wishing things were different, and how engaged are you in what you are doing? Wishing things were different and not being present predicts unhappiness and shorter telomeres.

Imagine pulling a rope attached to a brick wall. You care, so you pull and pull, but the wall will not move and all you get is chafed hands. What if you drop the rope? The wall remains, but your hands are free to act where you do have control.

Comfort with uncertainty

We love control because predictability lets us relax. People who tolerate uncertainty have less anxiety and depression and recover faster. Try a mindful check in, reframe uncertainty as the mystery of life and change your posture. Instead of leaning forward in go mode, lean back, take slow breaths and let time come to you.

Conclusion

You will never remove stress from your life, but you can change your response. Shift from threat to challenge, work stress out of your body, add safety signals, accept what you cannot change and keep a sense of purpose. Your mitochondria, your mood and your cells will likely benefit.