Are your relatives or friends making you old?
We all have them in our social circles. That annoying uncle or infuriating friend who regularly creates problems or makes things more difficult for you. A team of American researchers suggests that these so-called hasslers could be doing more harm than just ruining our mood or making us feel drained. The study measured how much these annoying people are speeding up our biological clocks. The researchers analysed data from a health survey in the US state of Indiana involving more than 2 000 participants. They were asked to evaluate their overall health in the previous six months and the amount of stress caused by hasslers in their inner circle. In addition, the research team gathered saliva samples to examine each respondent’s DNA changes that may signal biological ageing.
The cellular toll of habitual hasslers
Study outcomes showed that hasslers are capable of accelerating the rate at which cells age by about 1.5 %. This means that the cells age around 1.015 biological years for every calendar year. “We do not know whether hasslers actually cause people to age,” co-author Brea Perry, professor of sociology at Indiana University at Bloomington, told ‘The Washington Post’(opens in new window). “What we observe here is a kind of association between having hasslers and the rate of aging.” The results revealed that regular hassling causes the same biological damage as chronic stressors such as financial strain and workplace anxiety. The findings were published in the ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’(opens in new window). “We found that a lot of these hasslers are family members,” added Perry. “Those are people who are embedded in your life in ways that are difficult to escape or difficult to kind of renegotiate.” The study also found that women normally had more hasslers than men. “[I]t wasn’t that surprising to us that women might have more people who cause problems in their lives, in part because they are probably more likely to perceive the problems that others are having and to feel them and to sort of take those on as stress,” she explained.
Biology of the boundary
Perry advises to minimise the time spent with hasslers. “I think for me, boundary setting is important. As soon as you recognise that someone who is a hassler has these negative biological consequences for you, set limits on the effort you’re putting into that relationship.” It’s not just about managing the difficult people, it’s ensuring you’re actively encouraging the supportive ones, too. “If you have enough non-hasslers in your network or environment, there might be some kind of calming effects on your aging,” commented lead author Byungkyu Lee, assistant professor of sociology at New York University. “To me, one of the more striking things as somebody who studies this [topic] is social isolation,” commented Debra Umberson, sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s just very important to have relationships. I wouldn’t want to overlook that part of it.”
