The most-stressed women had immune cells that looked 10 years older than the rest.
— Epel et al., 2004
That’s not a metaphor.
That’s what scientists actually found when they looked inside the bodies of women under long-term stress.
Their cells weren’t just tired, they were physically aging faster.
How?
Through damage to the telomeres, the protective ends of your chromosomes, which shrink as you age.
Stress made them shrink faster.
And the most stressed women? Their telomeres looked a decade older than normal.
-Nathan Crane