Stress and the aging immune system.

Immune functioning decreases with normal aging and with stress. Social and psychological stressors are a part of daily life and the source of life changing events. Across the lifespan, individuals encounter numerous stressors with effects that accrue at sundry rates due to differential stress exposure, differential stress buffering, differential stress reactivity, differential stress duration (recovery), and differential restorative processes. Research on stress in older adults provides evidence that these processes contribute to effects that mimic, exacerbate, and possibly accelerate the effects of aging on immunity.