What kind of stressors are the most damaging?

What we usually think of as stress-fleeting daily hassles like deadlines and getting the kids out the door-do not age our brain. It's the major stresses and nagging, prolonged little stresses that age us.

For years, researchers believed that a Type-A, high-wired personality caused stress-induced illness, but your brain doesn't age from the stresses you bring on to yourself-like working hard and trying to achieve your goals.

And your brain also doesn't age from the one-time, intermediate stressors, like that flat tire on your bike or the fender bender in the parking lot. These Important But Manageable events (I call them IBMs) do not cause us to age because they are problems we can solve.

Instead, illness comes mainly from events that constantly stress you-even if they're minor to other people-and do so for a prolonged period.

One category of these stressors is Nagging Unfinished Tasks (NUTs). For example, the nagging stress of sitting on a wobbly toilet seat and never fixing it will age you if it gnaws at you every time you use it.

The other category, as you'd expect, is from major life events such as moving, financial burdens, or the death of a family member. Nagging stress wears you out, but persistent stressors are true killers.

You can have a major impact on your youth by reducing stress in your life with friendships, exercise, meditation, and group affiliation. In fact, doing so will give back 30 of the 32 years that major life events can take away.