How to reduce stress in just 14 minutes

Here's an anti-aging secret: Reduce stress to soothe your telomeres. Fitness expert Mike Clark, DPT, reveals the link between your telomeres, stress, and aging, and how vigorous exercise helps keep you young.

Transcript

00:00

Lots of things can accelerate the rate at which telomeres age, including stress. But stress seemed to have no noticeable effect in women

00:07

who said they got at least 42 minutes of exercise over a three-day period.

00:29

Few things speed up the aging process like chronic stress. But it takes just a few minutes to undo the damage.

00:35

In a small study of middle-aged women, all it took was 14 minutes of vigorous exercise each day to protect their cells from the aging

00:43

effects of stress. You could knock that out with just a brisk mile and a half walk each day. Researchers examined women's telomeres,

00:50

which are the little end caps on chromosomes that reveal a person's rate of aging. Lots of things can accelerate the rate

00:56

at which telomeres age, including stress. But stress seemed to have no noticeable effect in women who said they got at least 42 minutes of exercise

01:05

over a three-day period. That's just 14 minutes a day. But not just any kind of exercise does the trick.

01:11

The anti-aging benefits in the study came from vigorous exercise, the kind that gets your heart pumping and your body sweating.

01:17

Think of brisk walking, fast stationary cycling, laps in a pool, or any type of physical exertion