I used to look really young. The sort of young where people would ask my sister and I whether we were twins – and she was 10 years younger than me. Then almost overnight, I caught up. I got pregnant and seemed to immediately look my actual age.

Since then I am sure ageing has accelerated at an incredibly unfair rate. The main culprit – worry. Motherhood has developed and honed this “skill” to the extreme.

I worried about falling pregnant, staying pregnant, giving birth, protecting my child, feeding my child, being a “good” parent, milestones, not doing work well enough, not doing mothering well enough, not doing wife-ing well enough. AHHHHHH!

As my first child approaches his ninth birthday and my youngest is nearly seven I am, for the first time in years, finding that I have enough head space to look back and reflect on why I worried so much and the impact of it.

Worry is a complex emotion that is hugely influenced by a tiny part of our brain (smaller than a pea) called the habenula.

This unassuming collection of cells, which controls the expectation of negative events, is linked to sleep-wake cycles, pain and stress responses.

The habenula has been a part of the brain of animals and humans for a long time and is therefore thought to play a role in survival – by tracking previous negative experiences to enable us to better predict and avoid an impending negative event.

The evolution of worry is also related to the evolution of intelligence. This doesn’t necessarily mean that people who worry are more intelligent (as much as I would like to think so!). Instead there is evidence that the parts of the human brain related to intelligence have evolved alongside those involved in worry and anxiety.

Coming back to survival of the fittest, what this suggests is that people who were about to anticipate and avoid a dangerous event were more likely to live to see another day.

So worry may well help us to survive but it is a double-edged sword. Worry is also linked to ill health. Particularly the early onset and severity of heart disease.

There is conflicting evidence on the impact of worry on the gut and immune system though there is compelling support for the impact of stress on these systems.

For me, worry and stress are not easy to separate, not just in the way they feel, but also in the biochemistry of the brain. Worry triggers the release of stress hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain the same as other forms of stress. There is also research showing that people who are experiencing high levels of worry are more prone to addictive and negative behaviours such as gambling.

You are likely to only see these health effects after prolonged periods of worry.

But what about my transformation from bright-eyed youth to crow-footed Yoda?

On a molecular level worry and natural ageing look very similar. Add both together and – wham – ageing is accelerated both inside and out. Now that’s something to worry about!

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