If you are talking about healthy aging, then you most probably talk about biological aging. There is even an apart science field about that, the geroscience, that studies how to slow down biological aging to live healthier and longer. However, it doesn’t traditionally look at the behavioral or (psycho)social aspects of healthy aging. And it should, according to a recent study, as the influence of these last two aspects on how fast people age, is significant.

Take, for example, chronic stress, negative early-life experiences, personality traits, low education, low income, unhealthy choices (such as smoking, overweight and problem drinking) and poor psychological state, like depression and loneliness. They all have a huge impact on our health and should be taken into account if we want to age healthy. Moreover, biological and social factors partially depend on each other, which is another good reason to incorporate them in the whole picture of “happy healthy aging”.

Want an example? Take, stress, for instance. If we have mild short-term stress, such as infection, exercise or cold, our body reacts positively on that by turning on mechanisms to repair and rejuvenate our cells and by slowing down the aging process. But if our stress is chronic and long term, it becomes toxic, resulting in accelerated biological aging processes.

Curious? HERE is the source