Do you choose a high stress life? or circumstances not totally in your control have created a stressful life? I have no wrinkles, salt and pepper hair (pretty obvious by 25) with zero balding. I think a raw meat diet would help prevent wrinkles.
I doubt anyone chooses stress, although they might choose a career or an activity that they know involves stress because they enjoy it nonetheless, or they want the economic rewards, or because it might lead to something else, etc. Not being in control of one's circumstances is indeed recognized as one of the more egregious stressors, as I recall. Everyone's lives contain some stress, yet some people are healthy nonetheless. Some fighter pilots are calmer than some monks (I have personally known a couple of calm fighter pilots and a highly stressed monk who prayed, meditated and worked outdoors a lot). Like djr, I find that a RPD makes stress much easier to handle--stressful situations usually just sort of wash over me now.
Where I'm coming from, is some physicians and relatives attributed some of my health issues to "stress," and recommended meditation, yoga, and exercise, which I had been doing already as a result of my own research and knowledge and these things had a tiny positive effect, but not much. Of course, one can often never do enough of that stuff to satisfy such people. No matter how much you do it was never "enough," and if you do a ton of it they may even turn around and say you did "too much." If you don't improve greatly they claim you didn't follow some precise magical meditation or exercise formula correctly (even if you followed their instructions exactly). Ironically, I usually was doing more meditation, yoga and exercise than the people who claimed I must not be doing enough and could do more advanced yoga poses than any of them. I find it's the same with supplements, herbs, homeopathy, etc.--even if you follow their instructions exactly on how much to take and when, some folks will claim you must have done something wrong if you didn't get a benefit.
When I inquired about diet and nutrition, many of these same people downplayed it, or rejected it as a possible factor, or gave me bad advice like "eat lots of whole grains and fiber and cut back on red meats and saturated fats." Yet, diet is what eventually helped me more than everything else combined, and the diet that worked was pretty much the opposite of what had been recommended to me. The benefits for me re: stress and overall health came quickly and easily, dramatically, organically, and unconsciously with dietary change, once I figured out what worked for me. It didn't require any mental effort or positive thinking on my part, though it did require some discipline to stick to it.
I did get something out of yoga. I can impress people with my poses and balancing at get-togethers. I was always more flexible than average in some joints, but one of the interesting things is my balance and flexibility increased dramatically when I changed my diet, so that I now can impress people even more with my poses (although I'm not really advanced), even though I practice yoga less now. So now I do it more because it's a fun ability I have without any practice, due to the flexibility, balance and relaxation that the diet provides me, rather than a practice I do to attain improved flexibility, balance and relaxation. It's a lot like Taubes' explanation that people who eat healthier diets have more energy to exercise and get more fun and less pain from doing it than people who eat crap and exercise to try to get healthy.
I've noticed that a lot of people use stress as an excuse or as a conveniently vague catch-all to explain anything for which they don't know the cause (I'm not saying that anyone here necessarily does that). I know someone who refuses to try further modification to her diet when her husband suggests it (and her former doctor, who was one of the rare excellent primary care physicians, gave her a diet plan that cut out all refined flours and dairy--but she ignores it)--even though the changes she did make generated significant benefits. She attributes her remaining health issues to "stress." The media happily supports her in this notion, and encourages her to continue taking medications to treat her "stress."
As always, your mileage may vary.
