![The Conversation | K Vedfelt/Digital Vision/Getty](https://ifp.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/1-198.jpg)
The Conversation | K Vedfelt/Digital Vision/Getty
A 2023 study of stress and aging over the life span – one of the first studies to confirm this piece of common wisdom – found that four measures of stress all speed up the pace of biological aging in midlife. It also found that persistent high stress ages people in a comparable way to the effects of smoking and low socioeconomic status, two well-established risk factors for accelerated aging.