“Because stress changes the way the brain’s neurons communicate with each other, chronic stress can cause our brains, nervous systems, and our behavior to adjust to a vigilant and reactive state,” says Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist from Rockefeller University.

This broad and evolving concept of stress biology places the brain at the center of the response to experience, as it integrates information about the internal and external environment and shapes responses at both the systemic and behavioral levels (McEwen, 1998).

Stress doesn’t just make a person feel older. In a very real sense, it can speed up aging. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that stress can add years to the age of individual immune system cells. The study focused on telomeres, caps on the end of chromosomes.

Situations that may lead to the development of allostatic load/overload are: (a) exposure to frequent stressors that may determine a status of chronic stress and repeated physiological arousal; (b) lack of adaptation to repeated stressors; (c) inability to shut off the stress response after a stressor is terminated; (d …

Stress can cause wrinkles to form because high amounts of cortisol, the stress hormone, can break down the skin’s collagen and elastin. Research has found that chronic stress can increase inflammation, causing skin aging and accelerating the formation of wrinkles.

General adaption syndrome, consisting of three stages: (1) alarm, (2) resistance, and (3) exhaustion. Alarm, fight or flight, is the immediate response of the body to ‘perceived’ stress.

To summarize, some important ways to reduce stress on your body are:

1. Increase mindfulness.
2. Exercise regularly.
3. Engage in subtler forms of body manipulation like Tai Chi and massage.
4. Become active within your community and cultivate warm relationships.
5. Eat nutritionally dense foods and avoid sugar.

Those aged 18-33 years old suffer the highest levels of stress in the nation, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). In a gauge measuring stress, the millennial generation scored a 5.4 (on a scale of 1 to 10), compared to the national average of 4.9.

Allostatic systems promote adaptation to stressful experiences and are generally most useful when rapidly mobilized and terminated. When they are prolonged or not terminated promptly, allostatic systems undermine mental and physical health—primarily because of their effects on brain plasticity (see below).

Regulatory model. The term allostatic load is “the wear and tear on the body” which accumulates as an individual is exposed to repeated or chronic stress. Allostasis involves the regulation of homeostasis in the body to decrease physiological consequences on the body.

The stress theory of aging, sometimes referred to as hormonal theory, supports the notion that the cumulative effects of stress and stressful environments causes disrupts normal cellular function, cause cellular damage, which eventually is expressed in system dysfunction and aging (12).

Stress can make you look much older than your real age, and it can lead to pimples, pigmentation and hair fall. There are a few things that adversely affect your looks like stress.