Does Stress Make You Gray?

I am a President Obama fan, so I am in no way making any attacks right now, but I must share a photo retrospective:

President Obama just about one year ago:

and just this past weekend at the Rose Garden:

Clearly, our president is going gray – and sort of quickly!

It’s been said forever that stress ages you – Marie Antoinette famously went white-haired the night before her execution! But it makes me wonder about this in normal day-to-day situations. Like, clearly, the president has a more stressful job than I do. He is saving the world, I am conditioning my hair – but what is the root cause? Can boy problems make me gray? Or my visa bill? Is he just aging? Am I?

This is way too deep conversation for a Saturday morning. But the proof IS in the images. Obama is a pretty strapping dude still, and he is on a steady course toward white-haired! Scary stuff.

In reality, hair just goes gray when the cells in charge of hair pigment age out of function. However, if you are stressed out, hair sheds more quickly, so the hair that is not-gray will shed and leave beyond that hair that is-graying. That said, the old wives’ tale is true – stress can make you go gray. Just not directly!

So what can we do? Lead a cleaner life, try to have less stress, and sleep at night. i.e. My pal President Obama and I: BOTH DOOMED. At least he gets to be the most powerful man in the world while he’s at it. Alas.

Images: Zuma Press