Recently, I wrote about a fascinating Yale study finding that people who hold positive beliefs about aging were significantly more likely to show measurable physical and cognitive improvement over time — in some cases, well into their 80s and 90s.
Shorter version: How you think about getting older shapes how you actually age.
Now comes the uncomfortable flip side of that coin.
A new study out of NYU suggests that if positive beliefs about aging can help you improve, anxiety about aging may be actively making things worse — not just emotionally but also at the cellular level.
The study
Researchers at NYU School of Global Public Health analyzed data from 726 women who participated in the Midlife in the United States (Midus) study, a large national survey tracking health and behavior across adulthood.
Participants were asked how much they worried about things like declining health, becoming less attractive with age, and growing too old to have children.
Researchers then examined blood samples using two “epigenetic clocks” — scientific tools that measure biological aging based on chemical markers on DNA, independent of how old someone is on paper.
The two clocks measure slightly different things:
GrimAge2 estimates cumulative biological damage over a lifetime.
DunedinPACE captures the current pace of aging — essentially, how fast your body is aging right now.
The findings, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, were striking.
Women who reported higher levels of aging anxiety showed signs of faster biological aging on DunedinPACE — meaning their bodies appeared to be aging more quickly than their birth dates would suggest.
“Our research suggests that subjective experiences may be driving objective measures of aging,” said lead author Mariana Rodrigues, a PhD student at NYU School of Global Public Health. “Aging-related anxiety is not merely a psychological concern, but may leave a mark on the body with real health consequences.”
Not all worries are equal
One important nuance: Not every type of aging-related anxiety showed the same effect.
Fears about declining health had the strongest and most consistent association with accelerated biological aging. Worries about appearance and fertility did not show a statistically significant link.
The researchers suspect health fears are particularly potent because they tend to be persistent and self-reinforcing.
While appearance or fertility concerns may fade as life priorities shift, health anxiety can create a feedback loop — fear of physical decline heightens bodily awareness, which amplifies the perception of threat, which sustains physiological stress responses over time.
Importantly, the association between health anxiety and faster biological aging held up even after the researchers controlled for sociodemographic factors, menopausal status, and existing chronic health conditions.
When they added health behaviors — smoking, alcohol use, and BMI — the association approached statistical insignificance, one theory being that these kinds of behaviors may partly explain how the anxiety gets under the skin, rather than disproving the connection.
“Our research identifies aging anxiety as a measurable and modifiable psychological determinant that seems to be shaping aging biology,” said senior author Adolfo Cuevas, an associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health.
In case this study about anxiety actually gives you more anxiety, maybe let’s focus on the word “modifiable” in that quote. It’s a deliberate signal from the researchers that this isn’t a fixed outcome.
The honest caveats
A few important limits worth naming.
First, the effect sizes here are modest — we’re talking about a 0.07 standard deviation increase in biological aging pace per unit of health anxiety.
Second, the study included only women, by design.
It probably won’t break news to suggest that aging anxiety might weigh harder on women, given pressures around appearance and health, and the researchers wanted to examine it in that context specifically.
Whether similar patterns hold for men is an open question.
Finally, this was a cross-sectional study, meaning it captured a snapshot in time. It can show that health anxiety and faster biological aging tend to show up together, but it cannot prove that one is causing the other. Longitudinal research is needed to establish that.
What it means, taken together
By itself, this study adds one more piece to an increasingly consistent picture: The psychological relationship you have with aging isn’t separate from the biological reality of it. They’re connected in ways that are measurable, even if the mechanisms aren’t fully understood yet.
Combined with the Yale findings from a few weeks ago, the direction of the evidence is hard to ignore: positive beliefs about aging appear to improve function, and anxiety about aging may accelerate decline.
Neither study proves the relationship is causal, but they do suggest the same practical implication.
Making peace with getting older isn’t just good for your mood. Your biology, it seems, may be taking notes.
Worth thinking about — ideally without worrying too much about it.
Other things worth knowing …
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The story behind those mind-bending Artemis II moon images. (USA Today / NASA)
It was another big weekend for family films, as “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” smashed the box office with a domestic haul of $190.8 million. It is yet another auspicious sign of the continued dominance of family films in cinemas. Although known franchises such as “Super Mario,” “Zootopia” and “Minecraft” have an obvious leg up due to their existing fanbases, original animated films like Sony Pictures Animation’s “Goat” and Disney and Pixar’s “Hoppers” have also had solid runs this year. (LA Times)
Thanks for reading. Photo by Marc Najera on Unsplash. I wrote about some of this before at Inc.com. See you in the comments.