Stress Less, Age Better: 5 Proven Strategies to Reverse the Clock and Boost Your Well-Being
Stress. We’re all familiar with it - usually, too familiar. In between the demands of work, parenting, dating, trying to be healthy and still have a social life, how do we balance everything without feeling stressed?
Research is clear that chronic stress has a negative impact on our physical health.
As a 2020 review in the journal Biomedicines states, “psychological stress is considered to be an important risk factor for numerous diseases. The common feature of these pathologies is cellular senescence [a.k.a. aging], which causes functional alterations and is associated with cancer and cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and autoimmune disorders.” 1
The thing we have to be aware of is that stress compounds and can become cyclical.
If you wake up and immediately start thinking about your to-do list tasks for the day, you’re starting your day off operating from a place of stress. From there, we’re often rushing to get ready, exercise, shower, pack lunches, and grab a bite to eat before running out the day. When you add the dynamics of what your family members have going on, it can add more inputs to your stress load. You go into the rest of your day carrying that stress load and adding to it every time a stressor pops up.
There’s a way of moving through your daily routine and accomplishing what you need to without being pulled into a stressed state.
Why does our stress load matter?
Stress can impair our physiology and make our bodies age faster. Not to mention, it doesn’t feel good to exist in a chronically-stressed state!
The hallmarks of aging - including cellular aging - are impacted by stress. While we may already have a sense that our stress load contributes to our wrinkles, graying hairs, and fatigue, research underscores how stress can impact aging and health.
In the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, a 2022 review states “experiences of chronic stress and adversity that elicit a stress response might drive biological aging. The findings highlight several key hallmarks of aging that are modified by exposure to chronic stressors and stress hormones, including cellular stress, DNA damage, telomere shortening, inflammation, mitochondrial function, and cellular senescence.” 2
Even though we can’t control all the stressful situations we’re faced with navigating in life, we can improve how we respond to stress by learning how to regulate our internal stress response. You can actually start to move the needle on this fairly quickly, although consistency is key for long-term improvement.
And when you improve your stress-regulation, you can slow the effects of stress on aging.
Here are 5 strategies to improve how you deal with stress:
Make a list. When you feel overwhelmed, there are usually a lot of thoughts swirling in your head. Writing down those thoughts in short-form, like a list or bullet points, can make a world of difference. By literally putting pen to paper (or typing in your phone/computer), your mind relaxes because you have recorded the things that it’s stressing about. Those things won’t get lost - they’re on your list. Doing this daily as a practice, and adding to it throughout the day whenever you need, helps free up mental space too. If you tend to ruminate at night, write a list before you go to bed for the same reason: on the paper = clearer mind.
Give yourself a buffer. It’s amazing what a few extra minutes can do for your nervous system. Notice when you’re rushing to get things done, and then determine how you can free up 5-10 extra minutes before or after it. First thing in the morning? Set your alarm slightly earlier and/or don’t hit snooze. Getting dinner ready by 6? Buy the pre-cut veggies, prep protein ahead of time, or meal-prep for the week on Sunday. Sometimes things are less in our control, like back-to-back meetings - if you can’t adjust your schedule, mark down a short list of actionable items to return to later (see #1 above) and then take a quick bathroom break in between meetings to reset.
Use your senses to ground yourself. When you start to feel overwhelmed, take a breath and look around. What are 5 things you see? Name them. What do you hear? Name it. What do you smell? Name it. Keep naming these things that you are aware of with your senses. As you do this, you are bringing attention to your physical present moment. Being aware of your immediate presence through your senses is very grounding. This also shifts your attention from your thoughts to what you’re seeing and sensing! This is a fantastic practice for kids to use too (sometimes referred to as the 5-4-3-2-1 method, each for a different sensory organ).
4-square breathing. Your breath literally regulates your nervous system, which is responsible for your stress response. It’s a cycle: when you’re stressed, you naturally take shorter breaths vs. when you’re relaxed, your breaths are longer. Start to learn how to regulate your nervous system through breathing by inhaling as you count to 4 in your head, then holding for a count of 4, then exhaling for a count of 4, holding for a count of 4, and repeating. (This strategy gets its name because you can visualize tracing a square as you count each 4.) Not only does breathing more intentionally help your nervous system, the counting also gives your mind something to focus on rather than thought.
Release during transitions. We are so used to moving from one thing to another without a pause throughout our day. When we bring a little awareness to the transition from one activity to the next, we can use that to shed stress. This can reduce the impact of compounding stress - instead of allowing stress to accumulate more and more throughout the day, take a small pause and reset between different parts of our day. There are different ways to reset, so choose what works for you. Some great examples: play an upbeat song and even do a little dance wherever you are (office/car/bathroom/etc.); do a few rounds of 4-square breathing (see #4 above); repeat the word “release” slowly and intentionally for 30-60 seconds (set your phone timer). You’ll feel better afterwards.
An Incredible Tool
Another way of improving your stress response and resetting to a healthier baseline is through HeartMath, which is an empowering tool you can use for stress management. HeartMath sessions feature biofeedback technology based on HRV, or heart rate variability offer practical strategies on how it supports improved psychophysiological health. Read more about HeartMath here.
While chronic stress can wear on us all, there are many ways to improve your internal physiological stress response AND feel better in general. When you do this, you up-level your quality of life.
Get Started Now
Set the intention to employ one of these strategies, and bring that intention into your everyday life to start to improve your stress regulation.
When you’re ready, give us a call at (203) 883-0346. We’re here to support you.
Sources:
1 Yegorov YE, Poznyak AV, Nikiforov NG, Sobenin IA, Orekhov AN. The Link between Chronic Stress and Accelerated Aging. Biomedicines. 2020 Jul 7;8(7):198. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines8070198. PMID: 32645916; PMCID: PMC7400286.
2 Polsky LR, Rentscher KE, Carroll JE. Stress-induced biological aging: A review and guide for research priorities. Brain Behav Immun. 2022 Aug;104:97-109. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2022.05.016. Epub 2022 May 31. PMID: 35661679; PMCID: PMC10243290.
*This blog and website do not provide medical advice. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and should not be relied on to make decisions about your health. Always check with your own healthcare provider before taking a new supplement and before making any significant diet, lifestyle, exercise or other changes. Never ignore professional medical advice in seeking treatment because of something you have read on this site. If you think you may have a medical emergency, immediately call your doctor or dial 911.
