DELETE DAMAGING STRESS IN 2024

Happy new year to you all!

Here at the Age Well Project, we love a new year. It’s a chance to reflect on all that we’ve done, and to ponder any alterations we might want to make in the future. If the previous year was good, we can mumble, sing or shout a Thank You.  If it wasn’t so good, we can wave it goodbye and imagine/hope/plan ourselves into a better year.

For me, 2024 holds some emotional uncertainties.  Because I’m entering the new year with a little trepidation, my resolutions (such that they are) are focused on preserving a sense of serenity – and I’ll get to this, and why it’s so very very important, in a moment.

What’s on my mind? Nothing that really warrants feeling stressed but that’s the irritating thing about stress. Of course, I’m worried about The Husband’s health. After a small stroke, he decided to take a break from work and is now at home (also a teeny source of stress as I work from home and am used to having the place to myself).

I’m a little anxious about my new book (Sleepless: Discovering the Power of the Night Self) going out into the world, as it’s both a touch provocative and deeply personal. You can sign up for the Zoom launch here (7pm UK time on 31 January but registered attendees can watch in their own time). Susan and I will be discussing the grief that follows sudden bereavement, how sleep, insomnia, circadian rhythms and spiritual needs change over time, why LED lights need addressing, the (creative, even reckless) Selves we morph into at night, and why we might find answers in darkness that we can’t find during the day.  Not to mention the secrets of better sleep, naturally!

I’m also feeling sad and unsettled about the empty nest that I must finally confront when my last child finishes school in a few months time. I’ve dreaded this for years – and now it’s here. Another milestone that promises emotional discomfort and change.

And finally I must find homes for my father’s ashes, which have been beneath my desk for three years, fortifying me in immeasurable ways.

I know many of you will have been through similar (and far worse) experiences.  But here’s the thing: However emotional stress finds us, it can – when it lingers – have a profound effect on our bodies. A new study published this Autumn found that the bio-chemicals produced by a stressed body dramatically impede the work of vital immune cells known as T-cells.

T-cells are a type of white blood cell known for countering infections and fighting cancer. When researchers investigated T-cells in human tissue, they were surprised to find that a surfeit of noradrenaline (a hormone we produce when we’re stressed) bound to T-cells using a special receptor.  Exhausted T-cells (those that had been battling away on our behalf) were particularly vulnerable, accumulating more receptors than necessary and using these to tune into the hormones being pumped out by our stressed brain, rather than the pathogens or tumours they should have been fighting. Instead, these exhausted T-cells formed clusters around the molecules of noradrenaline.

This sounds complicated but can be roughly explained with an analogy: years back, when I was in the middle of a very difficult birth, surrounded by tired midwives, my husband fell off his chair with a theatrical crash.  The kindly midwives all rushed to his side, using their flagging energy to check he was ok – and leaving me abandoned in the throes of labour.  Think of the midwives as exhausted T-cells, me as the tumorous cell in need of repair, and The Husband as a pulse of stress hormone. And now imagine this happening constantly. For every minute of every labour, up and down the country. You get the gist.

Back to the medical experiment… The researchers then used beta-blockers to dampen the production of stress hormones (in my analogy this would be the equivalent of placing cushions round The Husband’s chair). Under the calming effect of beta blockers, the exhausted T-cells started working normally again (analogy: the midwives didn’t need to check The Husband over, thanks to the cushions, and could instead deliver our baby!).

‘Our study [shows] that nerves contribute to the process of T-cell exhaustion in tumors, where T-cells become worn out and less powerful,’ explained the researcher, Anna-Maria Globig.  Countering stress using beta blockers (or anything else for that matter), could ‘create more resilient killer T-cells that resist exhaustion and fight cancer better.’

We don’t know why T-cells make their exhausted way towards circulating stress hormones rather than back to the tumour or pathogen. It may be an age-old mechanism, whereby saving ourselves from a lion was more important than fighting a future tumour. After all, our bodies are wired to fend off immediate danger.

Either way, this new line of research suggests that mental stress and our physical health are more intimately bound up than anyone knew.  We also know (from a recent study of 450,000 people) that a lifetime of repeated infections could raise our risk of neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s, dementia and Parkinson’s. No one is quite sure why. But learning to counter stress, so that our T-cells behave themselves, might be the single most important thing we can do this year.

Walking in nature is brilliant for this.  A new study investigating why people living amid greenery have better health and younger biological ages, suggests it’s down to telomeres. When researchers at North Carolina University examined 7,827 people and their home environments, they found that those living near parks, gardens, trees and other greenery had longer telomeres – the caps that sit on the end of our DNA, preventing it fraying. Longer telomeres are consistently linked to lengthier and healthier life. We wrote about telomeres here.

In other words, greenery can affect us at a cellular level. Researcher Scott Ogletree thinks this is because greenery counteracts the stress (among other things) that ‘influence how quickly our telomeres wear down.’  In fact, his study found those who spent the most time in green places lived for around 2.5 years longer.

So in 2024 I’ll be continuing my walking adventures in green and wild places.  A study from China suggests that 55 minutes a day, six times a week, is the perfect amount of exercise for a calm mind.

And I’ll be continuing with my daily cold therapy (60-80 seconds of cold shower) which sounds stressful but actually triggers a rise in norepinephrine, beta-endorphin, and dopamine, all of which  mitigate our body’s response to stress.  If you missed Michael Mosley’s December series on Cold Therapy, you can find it on BBC Sounds.  Don’t go cold-plunging if you’ve a heart condition, however, as highlighted in this article on the potential perils of a cold-swim.

There are lots of other stress-regulating activities to experiment with – from breathwork to star-gazing and yoga nidra.  And then there’s the fascinating work coming out of the Stanford Mind & Body Lab which shows us how to turn stress to our advantage. We’ll be digging into the evidence as the year progresses, so watch this space.

Finally, in 2024 I’ll be experimenting with red lipstick.  I’ve never thought of myself as a Red Lippy Girl (in fact I rarely wear make-up), but after listening to India Knight talking about beauty for the older woman on The Shift podcast, I feel emboldened. Always good to try something new, so why not a new lip colour?

If you missed my recent discussion of the latest science of walking you can find it at the Karl Henry Real Health podcast. Here I talk about the remarkable science of sea air, the joy of movement (thank you, endocannabinoids) and why I like to feel the ground beneath my feet.

In the meantime, if you see a woman wandering the countryside, possibly backwards, perhaps after dark, with a slightly anxious expression and bright red lips, do say hello. It could be me…

Annabel