We know that smoking can speed up your aging. But new research has made some interesting findings about psychological issues that can actually cause you to age even faster than smoking.
Certain factors play a key role in how you age, such as your genetics, medical history and lifestyle (for example, smoking, what you eat and your stress levels). And a new study has found that your mental health can play as much a role in how fast you age as your physical health. Researchers from Deep Longevity Limited in Hong Kong found that when certain psychological states are combined, it can increase a person’s biological age more than smoking.
The research, which was published in the journal Aging, was intended to look at how people can boost their physical health by focusing on improving mental health, and revealed the certain aging processes are impacted by one’s emotional state. The study data found that aging pace was affected by smoking and sleep issues (both which increased aging pace) and being currently married (which lowered aging pace) but that the psychological factors they examined (which included depression, loneliness and feeling rarely hopeful) accelerated aging even more than smoking (by 1.65 years compared to 1.25 years for smoking).
For more details on the aging clock the researchers developed for the study, along with a neuropsychologist’s tips on how to take care of your mental health, check out the full Medical News Today article here.
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