{"id":378048,"date":"2026-03-10T17:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/378048\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T17:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T17:44:11","slug":"dealing-with-difficult-people-might-make-you-age-faster-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/378048\/","title":{"rendered":"Dealing with Difficult People Might Make You Age Faster, Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A recent study links difficult relationships to &#8220;faster biological aging&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Each additional \u201chassler\u201d in one\u2019s life may add approximately nine months to biological age<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Researchers also claim that family members seem to have the most pronounced effects on aging, while marital relationships have less influence<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Dealing with difficult people may speed up the aging process.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to a study published in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/full\/10.1073\/pnas.2515331123\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Proceedings of the National Academy Sciences<\/a> on Feb. 18, researchers found that hasslers, defined as \u201cpeople in one\u2019s close social networks who create problems or make life more difficult,\u201d are often associated with faster biological aging.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;Having more hasslers is associated with accelerated biological aging in both rate and cumulative burden,\u201d the study reads. \u201cEach additional hassler corresponds to approximately 1.5% faster pace of aging and roughly 9 [months] older biological age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While researchers acknowledged that other stressors, including financial strain or workplace stress, also contribute to \u201cincreased inflammation, compromised Immune function, and elevated risk for cardiovascular and other diseases,&#8221; they could not overlook the evidence that hostile relationships\u00a0have similar biological effects.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cEach additional hassler is associated with faster biological aging, with especially pronounced effects when the hassler is a family member,\u201d the study continues. \u201cThese findings together highlight the critical role of negative social ties in biological aging as chronic stressors and the need for interventions that reduce harmful social exposures to promote healthier aging trajectories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Furthermore, not all hasslers have the same influence. While family members and friends showed \u201cdetrimental associations,\u201d marital hasslers did not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><strong>Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/people-news-daily-newsletter-sign-up-8692701\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:PEOPLE&#039;s free daily newsletter;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;PEOPLE&#039;&quot;}\" class=\"link \"><strong> PEOPLE&#8217;s free daily newsletter<\/strong><\/a><strong> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Woman taking deep breath (stock)Credit: Getty\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0a34d76053e18e184e4a21c614aa7904.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Woman taking deep breath (stock)<br \/>Credit: Getty<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cOur analyses show clearly that not all hasslers are the same,\u201d the researchers explained. \u201cThe nature of relationships and the network context substantially condition both the exposure to hasslers and their biological consequences. Ties characterized by obligation, shared space, or structural interdependence, such as parents, children, coworkers, or roommates, are more likely to be hasslers than voluntary, self-selected ties such as friends, church members, and neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As for why spouses do not fit into this category? Research suggests that \u201cthe ambivalent mix of support and obligation within intimate partnerships\u201d separate marital relationships from familial ones, which are \u201coften emotionally salient yet hard to abandon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">While the researchers have landed on the hypothesis that hasslers are associated with faster biological aging and poorer health, researchers ultimately emphasized that these relationships \u201cdo not, on their own, establish a causal effect of negative social ties on aging processes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">After all, researchers must consider the possibility of reverse causation, which indicates that &#8220;individuals experiencing accelerated biological aging may become more irritable, thereby eliciting more negative interactions,\u201d in addition to possibilities of perceptual or reporting bias and unobserved traits that \u201cjointly shape exposure to negative social ties and biological aging.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Read the original article on <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/dealing-with-difficult-people-may-contribute-to-faster-aging-11922918\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:People;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;People&quot;}\" class=\"link \">People<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEED TO KNOW A recent study links difficult relationships to &#8220;faster biological aging&#8221; Each additional \u201chassler\u201d in one\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[173951,173953,173954,18,135,19,17,173952,17406,139361,173955],"class_list":{"0":"post-378048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-aging-process","9":"tag-biological-effects","10":"tag-difficult-relationships","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-marital-relationships","16":"tag-researchers","17":"tag-social-networks","18":"tag-social-ties"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116206126052239697","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}