Worrying about getting old makes you age faster

"Cheer up love, it might never happen!"

- Helen Coffey, The Independent

If you want a guaranteed way to grind a woman's gears, simply use this line beloved by builders everywhere. (Then watch her eyes go black and sparks start issuing from her nose and mouth.) But patronising and infuriating as it might seem, the sentiment behind this invitation to slap on a smile and adopt a more “hakuna matata” mindset could just be some of the best advice she'll ever receive. New research has suggested that, in the ultimate example of a self-fulfilling prophecy, worrying about ageing is speeding up the ageing process in women. That's right: the thing we're anxious about is potentially happening faster because of that anxiety.A recent study from New York University’s School of Global Public Health found that women who reported higher levels of anxiety about ageing exhibited signs of accelerated biological ageing at a cellular level, measured by looking at markers in their blood and using “epigenetic clock” technology. Published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, a journal dedicated to the mind/body connection, the study came to this conclusion after analysing blood samples from more than 700 women in the US. “Our research suggests that subjective experiences may be driving objective measures of ageing,” s