We know today that people who are exposed to chronic stress age rapidly. The telomeres in their cells shorten faster and Inflammation, which is a feature of stress, accounts for the phenomenon of “infla-maging”. And in addition to aging itself, infla-maging can contribute to the development of several pathologies, including atherosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, and others. According to an article from Biomedicines, as published in the NIH, “Psychological stress is considered to be an important risk factor for numerous diseases. The common feature of these pathologies is cellular senescence, which causes functional alterations and is associated with cancer AND cardiovascular, neurodegenerative, and autoimmune disorders. All of the conditions are usually associated with whole-body aging, but, in the case of lasting severe stress, they can occur early in life, causing an older biological age. Numerous studies have shown a link between chronic psychological stress and mental disorders, such as major depressive disorder, & PTSD, as well as accelerated aging. Chronic psychological stress is also believed to stimulate pro-inflammatory cytokines release, thus triggering the inflammation. On the plus side, another recent study published in Translational Psychiatry found that even though chronic stress may contribute to accelerated (or faster) aging, as noted by bio-age testing, ...the good news is emotional regulation and self-control have been found to help. (1) This research reaffirms that stress is not just a feeling, and it WILL manifest physically. When we grow accustomed to constant levels of stress, we often don’t understand how out of control it has gotten. Stress will shape your life, and the responsibility is on you, and me, to remove the stress or be faced with accommodating it.
So we are going to dig into this today with my guest and good friend, Tanya Walker, who has an established practice as a holistic coach, somatic practitioner, as well as a breathwork and movement facilitator and teaches her clients how to make powerful shifts in their mental, emotional and physical health. She has operated multiple retreats and workshops, speaks at corporate events and will be presenting at the upcoming national ALS conference in Salt Lake City where she will talk about the power of the emotional body to heal illness.
Links:
Tanya Walker: http://linktr.ee/TanyaWalker
Show Website: http://www.BecomingAgelessPodcast.com
Show IG: http://www.instagram.com/BecomingAgelessPodcast
Robynn Lin Fredericks: http://linktr.ee/RobynnLin
(1)Harvanek Z, Fogelman N, Xu K, Sinha R. Psychological and biological resilience modulates the eects of stress on epigenetic aging. Transl Psychiatry. 2021;11(1). doi:10.1038/s41398-021-01735-7
(2)The Link between Chronic Stress and Accelerated Aging Yegor E. Yegorov, Anastasia V. Poznyak, Nikita G. Nikiforov, Igor A. Sobenin, Alexander N. Orekhov Biomedicines. 2020 Jul; 8(7): 198. Published online 2020 Jul 7. doi: 10.3390/biomedicines8070198 PMCID: PMC7400286
