Читать книгу You: Staying Young: Make Your RealAge Younger and Live Up to 35% Longer - Michael Roizen F. - Страница 31

We tend to think that stress is like a pair of slippers – one size fits all. Either we’re stressed or we’re not. But the fact is that stress comes in different shapes, sizes and levels of intensity. Some of us certainly worry more than others, and some of us are much better equipped to cope with exploding dishwashers than others. But the danger is that stress – which often increases as we age – is a major driver of health problems. Stress wears on our immune system. Stress alters the variability of our heart rates, which leads to arrhythmias and even fatal heart problems.

In general, life’s stressors can be grouped into three categories, which all have different implications for your life and for your health.

Ongoing Low-level Stress. You work, you have a family, you interact with people who sometimes sneeze without covering their mouths. Life generates a constant hum of stress, no matter who you are or what you do. To expect that you can eliminate all stress is not only unreasonable but unhealthy because, as you’ll see in a moment, your ability to respond to stress can make you stronger.

Nagging Unfinished Tasks. One of the most influential forms of stress comes in the form of a chisel that chips and chips and chips and chips and chips and chips away at your brain cells a little bit at a time. Until. You. Can’t. Take. It. Any-freaking-more! Whether it’s a cluttered wardrobe, or cracked bathroom tiles that have been staring at you for years, or weekly paperwork that gnaws at you every Friday, these nagging unfinished tasks (we call them NUTs) are much more destructive than the low levels of stress we expect from life.

Major Life Events. You don’t need us to tell you the kinds of things that fit this category; things like a divorce, a move, a job change, a death in the family, a sudden illness and bankruptcy aren’t exactly on the same level as a mobile-phone battery dying. The stats show that three major life events in a one-year period will make your body feel and act as though it were thirty-two years older in the following year – meaning that it’s especially important to develop coping strategies and support systems to sustain you in times of crisis.

How do these types of stress affect us? Typically, the first kind of stress does its part to wear us down and fatigue us but really won’t be all that harmful healthwise. The last two kinds of stress are the ones that do the most damage. Understanding how they do – which we’ll now explain – is the first step in understanding how to stop it.