The more psychological stress you have, the faster you age! Oxidative stress and psychological stress
In today's stressful society, it is said that many people are living under stress. Stress from work pressure, test scores, personal relationships, anxiety about the future, etc., is causing more and more people to become physically ill from excessive stress.
What is stress?
What is "stress" in the first place? The following are some explanations of the causes of stress.
Causes of stress
To begin with, stress is a state of tension that occurs when we receive external stimuli. External stimuli include environmental factors such as weather and noise, physical factors such as illness and lack of sleep, psychological factors such as anxiety and worries, and social factors such as poor human relations and busy work. In other words, various changes that occur in our daily life (i.e., stimuli) can be the cause of stress. Even happy events such as going to school, finding a job, getting married, or having a baby are also changes (stimuli), so they can actually be a cause of stress.
From the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare: Let's start with what we know, a comprehensive website on mental health for everyone.
https://www.mhlw.go.jp/kokoro/first/first02_1.html
Changes that occur in daily life = stimulation is considered to be the cause of stress. Since change itself is a stimulus and a cause of stress, not only bad things but also good things can be a stimulus and a cause of stress.
Mental Stress and the Brain
Stimuli can cause stress, but there is a paper titled "What changes occur in the brain when mental stress occurs?"
According to the paper, inflammatory substances and oxidative stress substances increase in the brain when mental stress occurs.
Oxidative stress is the cause of rusting of the body, so if oxidative stress substances increase in the brain, it will put a burden on the brain.
Mental stress leads to aging.
When mental stress occurs, oxidative stress substances increase in the brain, which means that increased mental stress = increased oxidative stress.
A state of elevated oxidative stress is, of course, a state that is prone to aging.
The oxidative stress level in our bodies is lowest right after we are born as babies, and is quite low until our twenties. In other words, the oxidative stress level in the body increases with aging.
Excessive psychological stress can increase oxidative stress, which can lead to accelerated aging.
Finally.
When we are mentally stressed, oxidative stress rises. And increased oxidative stress can lead to aging and various diseases. It is important to live a life that suppresses oxidative stress in order to achieve a long and healthy life.
However, many people live with mental stress in their daily lives. It is difficult to live a non-stressful life every day, but I hope that a proper understanding of oxidative stress will help us to prevent diseases and live a healthy life.
The Division of Antioxidant Research, Collaborative Research Department, Center for Science Research Foundation, Gifu University, has been conducting research on oxidative stress and providing information on the evidence accumulated here. Please refer to it.
Reference articles