Any kind of long-term stress can affect your body. “We’ve learned a lot about what stress does to your body and your organs and how it accelerates the aging of your cells,” Arline Geronimus, doctor of science, professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and member of the National Academy of Medicine, tells SELF. “This has helped me understand how lived experiences become biology,” says Geronimus, who first coined the term “weathering” with her landmark 1992 Ethnicity & Disease hypothesis on the subject.

More about Geronimus’ research – Biological Weathering and Its Deadly Effect on Black Mothers >