Can stress really affect your DNA? How stress resilience can slow down genetic aging.

There are different kinds of stress: good stress and bad stress.

Good stress, also known as eustress, can motivate us to meet a deadline at work or perform well in an important meeting. On the other hand, bad stress, or distress, is the kind of stress that overwhelms us and can be too much to manage. This bad stress can lead to mental and even physical health problems. Positive stress is fine. It’s the negative, long-term stress you want to avoid. Negative stress, especially chronic stress, has been shown to increase depression, anxiety, and even reduce your life expectancy. that those exposed to high amounts of stress and perceive stress to affect their health have an increased risk of premature death. Negative stress can also alter your DNA by changing how your DNA expresses certain genes. 

How stress resilience can change your DNA

Epigenetic aging refers to changes to your DNA as you age. These changes can be influenced by lifestyle choices, environmental factors, and (as we now know) stress. If exposed to chronic stress, such as bullying in the workplace or an abusive relationship, neural pathways can develop that may do more harm than good. The amygdala, where the stress response originates in the brain, increases in size over these long stretches of chronic stress. Ultimately, the amygdala becomes more sensitive to stress, resulting in a vicious circle.

How to combat bad stress and help fight genetic aging

Thankfully, research shows that stress is not all doom and gloom. While we can't change our genes, we can influence how they are expressed. This is where stress resilience comes in. When you embrace stressful situations and experiences and develop healthy coping strategies, you build stress resilience, which has been shown to alter your body's cells at a genetic level and could slow down the aging process. By participating in activities that regulate the nervous system, such as meditation, exercise, and other relaxation techniques, we can not only lower the amount of stress we experience at the moment, but also reduce our sensitivity to stress over time. The more we build stress resilience, the more likely we will combat those changes to our DNA.

By strengthening the neural connections between the thinking and emotional parts of our brains, we can increase our ability to control the amygdala. Doing things like reaching out to friends and family for support with stressful events or approaching potentially stressful situations as if they're exciting can help you manage stress and improve your resilience. Other things that promote resilience include filling your life with positive experiences and emotions. Things like reading, listening to music, spending time with loved ones all create positive emotions that can help you cope better with stress in the long run.

‍Scientists don't yet know how much resilience can do to change the aging process, but it's clear that stress management isn't just a good idea for your mental health. It's good for your DNA too.