Even though we have spoken a lot about nootropic drugs and similarly useful brain health habits, we haven’t talked about longevity and anti-aging much. There are plenty of drugs that we will cover over time, but for now just keep in mind this basic rule that can help anyone to improve their quality of life and (by proxy) their lifespan.

Wherever you have stress in your life, find ways to get rid of it as much as possible.

Some people like to spend a lot of money trying to make their life less stressful, such as going to spas, paying for massages, and a host of other related practices. While all of these are great, they can get expensive and will often be prohibitive in the long run. That is why developing your own home spa treatment will be a far more sustainable practice.

What About Stress is So Bad?

Humans were meant to use stress as a tool to overcome our environment. Consider when you get scared and your heart rate goes up, your adrenaline starts pumping, and you feel alert and awake. In our hunter-gatherer times, this would have kept you from getting eaten by a lion or killed my a neighboring tribe.

Today, this same response comes up when someone cuts us off on the highway, when we are frustrated things aren’t going our way, and in most cases it works against us. The stress tells the body that it is not safe and this keeps the body on guard in some way perpetually. This costs the body a lot of energy.

There have been direct correlations between stress and factors that are signs of aging, such as the telomere length. This is a major sign of aging and stress compounds any of the other symptoms that might create it.