Feel like it takes longer to recover from everything these days—whether it’s an injury or poor sleep? That’s the reality of what time is doing to our bodies. Researchers call our ability to bounce back from health stress “biological resilience.” Evidence suggests that it declines with age, driven by biological and other factors, including parenting, work stress, changes in exercise habits and menopause. Often, these stresses pile up from early life and can reach a tipping point in our 30s and 40s.
“There are these moments where the whole system seems to undergo like a vibe shift,” says Dr. Heather Whitson, a geriatrician and clinical investigator who directs the Duke University Aging Center.
These midlife declines in resilience parallel emerging science suggesting that aging itself doesn’t happen in a linear way, doctors and researchers say. A small study out of Stanford that looked at biomolecular shifts in the body found two aging “waves” appear to occur around ages 44 and 60.
