By Jill Suttie, Photo: From article, Greater Good Magazine, February 15, 2023
Are you suffering from chronic stress? Many of us are—whether we’re stressed out by our jobs, complicated relationships, caregiving responsibilities, or the general state of the world.
That’s where Elissa Epel’s new book, The Stress Prescription, comes in. A health psychologist and director of the Aging, Metabolism, and Emotions Center at the University of California, San Francisco, Epel explains how stress affects our bodies and minds—including our health, happiness, and longevity—and how to manage it in the best way possible.
Too many of us are in a constant state of alertness, she argues, which makes us ill-prepared to navigate the everyday stressors and bigger upsets that occur when living a full life. We may think we’re relaxed, but we’re actually maintaining a low-level vigilance that’s hard on our bodies. Constant physiological strain can shorten our telomeres (the caps at the ends of our DNA that protect it from aging)—a process she wrote about in her bestselling book, The Telomere Effect.
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