Did the COVID lockdowns make us look older?
Commenter Rufus T. Firefly asks a question that I find interesting:
Has anyone noticed EVERYONE seems to have aged 5 or more years during the two years of lockdowns? I first started noticing this in myself, prior to the lockdowns most folks would guess my age 10 – 15 years younger than I am and think I was joking when I told them my actual age. Now, no one bats an eyelash when they hear my age. I, of course, noticed it myself. I see myself in the mirror every day. My appearance has changed more in the past two years than any other time in my life, except in infancy. But I started to notice the same thing with everyone I interact with. Even people I know who always looked very youthful… Everyone looks 5 – 10 years older.
Anyone else see this? Is it COVID? The vaccines? The stress of lockdowns? Many people gained a lot of weight, is that it? Is it the lack of social interaction?
I’ve noticed long before COVID that the aging process seems to proceed in a series of discrete leaps rather than a slow linear progression. I even wrote a post that dealt with the topic. In it, I wrote this:
I’ve noticed in my own life and among my friends, as well as for public figures, that visible aging doesn’t progress in smooth linear fashion. It advances in fits and starts and discrete bumps.
One year I look around at my friends at the Christmas party and everybody looks pretty darn good. The next year I wonder who all these old folk are. In their thirties and forties the aging process seems so slow and gentle as to be almost stagnant; most people seem to go on and on looking almost like they did in their twenties.
There’s a group who hit the aging wall in their mid-to-late forties, going almost overnight from young to oldish. They’re the canaries in the mine. Another bunch “turn” quite suddenly in their late fifties, with the early sixties a time of particular peril for many.
Well, I was younger when I wrote that, and the peril only increases.
So if the COVID lockdowns coincide with one of those “quantum leap” aging times for a person, that person is going to look more than two years older on emerging from seclusion. I think some of the observed aging is accounted for by that.
But not all of it. I haven’t observed accelerated aging across the board, but I have observed a certain amount. Some of it may be due to people getting out of the habit of preparing “a face to meet the faces that you meet.” For women, that can mean makeup and hair and weight and clothing. For men it tends to mean the latter two on that list. When we seldom see anyone but those we live with – or if we live alone and hardly go out – many people dispense with those things that as we get older are even more important in looking good.
There’s also a lack of exercise. Some people have used the lockdowns to get into great shape, but I don’t think that’s common. I know more people who say they’ve cut back on exercising, whether through inertia or for some other reason I don’t know. And of course, many health clubs were closed for a long time, and I doubt that everyone went back even when they opened again.
Don’t discount the effect of depression, either. The lockdowns themselves have been depressing, including the lack of concerts and plays to attend, things that tend to perk people up. Depressing also is the political situation, and I find that’s true no matter what side of the political spectrum a person may be on. And then there’s inflation – depressing, as well.
Depression doesn’t make people look good or make them look younger. It drags the face down and can make it sag. When my father-in-law died I noticed that my mother-in-law appeared to age a decade in what seemed like a matter of weeks. It can happen.
I don’t think any of this was from COVID itself, nor from the vaccines. It was the lockdowns, and the perception that we’ve been lied to and manipulated, and the resultant grinding social isolation. It hasn’t affected everyone to the same degree, nor is it the only thing that causes people to age more quickly. But I think it’s real.
Since I’ve been online dating for about 15 years, I can really see the aging; especially with blue collar women.
Yes – i’m conscious of creeping signs of aging, mostly lines around the eyes.
My advice is to go get a really good haircut. It makes me like my image in the mirror again. And the fellow who cuts my hair makes me laugh. That seems to relax my face.
COVID and the assaults on our culture all take a toll on us. Exercise helps a lot,
preferably moving to music with people. I am noticing I’m the oldest in the classes though. That was hard to process.
The other day I had a nice chat with a very charming woman of a Certain Age. When I mentioned that I went to high school with some kids who had her same surname, she told me about who grandfather who still lives in that area. It turns out Gramps is only two years older than me, a difficult pill to swallow.
It may be that concern about facial aging is one reason why some people don’t want to give up their formerly mandated face diapers– but (as an article from 2021 noted), some people (men as well as women) like the protection from public scrutiny that a mask offers, particularly the unspoken demand to look cheerful and friendly when out in public. Although the article doesn’t mention aging as such, it could easily be a factor in some older adults’ reluctance to part with their COVID masks.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/10/the-people-who-want-to-keep-masking-its-like-an-invisibility-cloak
And then there are remote on line work meetings where the upper level management despot requires that everyone have a webcam turned on.
Been about fifty years since anyone bothered to suggest I look cheerful and friendly in public.
My apparent age seems to track with ten pounds more or less.
I’ve had a Princeton haircut since I was maybe fourteen. It seems to be age-neutral.
Others? At my age, things are irregular.
Mengele Mandates are first-order forcings of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Morlock Effect (CAME). That said, planned parent/hood aside, aging in 7-year increments would have socially justified “relieve the burden” of novel grannies, too. Millions served annually, globally.
the-people-who-want-to-keep-masking-its-like-an-invisibility-cloak
It’s a cargo cult with viable legal indemnity and social contagion with a portable petri dish and viral collectors. Non-sterilizing “vacciness”, too. Silent Spread.
There appears to be increasing evidence that the antidepressant fluvoxamine may help treat early COVID cases. So here’s our solution! Let’s all take antidepressants!
Being 78 already, I’m not looking noticeably older… My mirrors haven’t cracked, yet…
I’ve noticed it, not in my face as much as in my body, crepey skin, underarms flabbier, toenails I have trouble reaching…. I put it up to aging in general and a lack of smiling due to isolation.
I spent two weeks in the hospital from COVID and I feel and look 5 years older.
There was a meme on Facebook about the face mask that went something like “ If you have an ugly face, but beautiful eyes, this is your time to shine!” ?
I have noticed , also that people can age very fast. There was this one particularly beautiful middle aged woman at church a few years ago that seemingly aged overnight after a series of health problems. Perhaps, before her illness she had actually aged very slowly, maybe slower than many. But then the illness hit and she caught up and passed many of her peers in the aging department.
I looked older after Covid with the weight loss. I had wrinkles on my body where I did not previously have them. Having regained most of the weight, some of that has disappeared , but I have been active with work, but not the gym, and have never regained some of my arm muscle, that I had been slowly loosing for a number of years. In my early thirties I hit the gym a lot, sometimes twice a day. Now 52. I coasted for years, with physical labor buying me time, but Covid accelerated that loss.
I suspect breathing problems at night, such as sleep apnea, accelerates aging, especially wrinkles on the forehead.
I don’t know about older, but the lockdowns made us look stupid.
Unlike Rufus, I have not noticed increased aging in myself, my husband, family members nor friends. Perhaps the difference is that we live in California, and even though we had crazy masking laws (amongst others) we exercise a fair amount (daily on my part and also my husband), eat fairly well, go outside and get fresh air everyday-and luckily didn’t gain any weight. We are (so far) fortunate we didn’t catch COVID. As physicians our stress level regarding COVID also decreased significantly following the data from the Diamond Princess. We began in January 2020 thinking the world was going to undergo a small pox like pandemic and were terrified. By April, although we were not dismissive of COVID, we were not freaked like many people increasingly became. The worry, probable lack of exercise/fresh air, and weight gain took its toll on people’s psyche and probably their looks.
“I know more people who say they’ve cut back on exercising, whether through inertia or for some other reason I don’t know” …
“Don’t discount the effect of depression, either. The lockdowns themselves have been depressing ”
Yes indeed. At grocery stores, I’ve been intensely aware of the despair & anxiety in people’s eyes. Especially older people. This post makes me wonder how old they looked PRE-COVID.
Depression has been a huge consequence, I believe.
Those above 50 likely know more people who died of covid. Maybe even alone. Which makes me want to contribute money to put certain people behind bars.
I just went to my 36th year reunion (delayed 35th) a couple of weeks ago. Everyone of us 53-54 year olds looked great – everyone looked a good decade younger – but many commented that maybe that is self-selecting since if you don’t look good, you probably wouldn’t attend (50 out of 300 in the class showed up, four deceased that we know of over 35 years: one suicide, two car wrecks, one heart attack).
On aging I’ve had the same step-function theory most my life as I’ve seen it myself. I had a neighbor in his 60s who looked great then aged 10 years with a hunchback stoop in less than a year, sad to watch.
Really interesting to read your perspectives. Through observing myself and others throughout the years I agree aging often seems to be in discrete leaps.
In my case I assumed it had a lot to do with anxiety and/or depression. I’m typically fairly upbeat and stress doesn’t linger with me long, but I lost a position I was certain I’d retire from due to the pandemic and it threw a gigantic wrench in my and my wife’s plans for the next decade. Personally, the last two years have been the most difficult of my life.
So I wasn’t particularly shocked to see the changes in myself (and I was still exercising fairly vigorously, fairly regularly and had even dropped some weight when I suffered through a COVID infection), but about a year into it I started noticing everyone had degraded.
You all make some great points about depression and a lack of human contact. Getting up in the morning, making oneself presentable to go to the office or market or gym.
The human toll of our governments’ responses to the pandemic have done massive damage to so many people. I hope it is reversable as we re-engage with one another and resume a psychologically more rewarding lifestyle of social engagement.
Although virtual, the words I read on this blog were a tremendous help in this two year period, as well as taking time to record my own thoughts here.
Thanks to all!
Perhaps one reason folks seem to have aged during covid is because they were indoors more during the winter months. Winter heated indoor air is very dry and will literally suck the moisture out of your skin.
Just a speculation.
I would think that one cause of sudden aging, or perceived sudden aging, is a person’s hair turning gray or white.
FOAF, my hair turning more silver is the only change I see in the mirror over these two years, but it is a significant one.
Kate,
For what it is worth, there is a neighborhood that I do a lot of handyman type work in. Near the entrance there is a house with a lady with all light silver hair often working in her front yard when I drive by. I have never been within normal conversation distance of her, except for passing by. But that lady is a mature looking beauty, if I ever saw one. From a distance, she does not have wrinkles and she wears her hair in a very neatly combed ,very feminine , middle aged way.
I do think that is not just the color of hair, but the style that makes a difference as well.
There is such a thing as “ old lady styled hair”. And there is such a thing as styles which are middle aged, but still distinctly feminine.
At one point I noticed a lot of hair on the floor after showering. Once I saw that I started looking after each shower and noticed it continuously. Within a few weeks as I brushed my hair or looked in a mirror I noticed my hair was thinning. Since this had happened to most my friends 5 or more years earlier I thought, “well, it’s your turn, Rufus.” But then I noticed this thinning hair in a woman I know after she had recovered from COVID so I went to the Internet. Sure enough, a lot of folks were claiming hair falling out in clumps after contracting COVID.
So I did some more research. Seems like something called biotin is an ingredient in a lot of hair restoration products. Science had learned long ago it’s an important nutrient for human hair and nail growth. So I bought a bottle and started taking a tablet daily. It really seems to be helping. So, at least one of the signs of rapid, aging onset seems to have been COVID related and it seems like it is reversable.
My appearance has definitely aged since the start of this whole thing. I blame Covid and the two years that have passed since it began, but mostly the two years.
Rufus T. Firefly:
I have a friend who came very close to dying from H1N1. She was put in an induced coma and on a respirator, I forget for how long. She nearly died and her recovery was long. She told me it took at least a year for her to feel even close to normal. She was in her early fifties at the time. One of the many things that happened during that year is that her hair fell out in big clumps. It grew back but it took a while.
Something similar may be happening to you, hairwise. The biotin may or may not have anything to do with it.
I think most people are not aware of the fact that many viruses can wreak havoc with a person’s body and can take a long time to recover from, not just COVID. H1N1 was very formidable as well, as this friend’s story demonstrated.
For that matter, I have a relative who in his mid-twenties was very healthy, and who came very very close to dying from pneumonia. No one knew why. This was in the 1970s.
It seems like the early strains of Covid could have some wild symptoms and dire consequences.
Omicron, from what I read, has moderated into something much like garden-variety colds and flus.
Huxley, garden-variety colds and flus don’t cause you to have night sweats (with no fever) and accompanying lucid, almost hallucinatory dreams.
That speaks of that brain barrier crossing issue that has been observed.
Omicron seems dangerous in a more acceptable way.
Huxley, garden-variety colds and flus don’t cause you to have night sweats (with no fever) and accompanying lucid, almost hallucinatory dreams.
Ed Bondarenka:
Cite? I haven’t run into accounts of such symptoms for omicron. Which doesn’t mean they don’t happen.
I’m not so sure night sweats don’t happen with colds and flu either. I went through a phase of night sweats during AIDS and worried a lot, but never found out what that was.
There’s some chatter on the internet about Emma Watson (Harry Potter?) looking older.
Whether due to age, COVID, diet/veganism, or becoming a social justice warrior … not sur.
Premature harpy-ism, the curse of the Woke.
Huxley, I don’t have anything but anecdotal evidence, but several of the patients who come to our little one-doctor office have reported the night sweats, the dreams, and lingering skin problems. A few have had hair fallout, but it grows back eventually.
CDville:
Good to know. But how prevalent is this with omicron vs earlier variants and compared to colds and flus?
My point is that omicron, from what i can tell, is *generally* less weird and less virulent than the previous Covids
I’d bet that there are plenty of people who have weird reactions to colds and flus as well, if one attended to *all* the data, though I don’t know.
My then 75 year old mother lost a lot of hair with Covid, though months later, it is coming back.
I had night sweats with Covid.
I don’t know about Covid, but being President ages you more than the calendar years of your tenure.
Which is why electing the already not steady Biden was a foreseeable problem.
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-presidents-aging-before-after-2016-12?op=1
Trump to Johnson (although some differences are just due to camera angles and lighting, IMO, they are representative).
I think worry is very aging, and there was a lot of worrying going on.
AesopSpouse and I have not visibly aged in the Covid Years (maybe just a plateau?), but we decided very early in the “lockdown” that the evidence did not support the hysteria (reasonable precautions were fine), did not obsess over the virus, and lived as normally as possible — which, being introverts, was not as big a problem as for some people.
It was hard getting used to being in the house together all day, but retirement was coming up last fall anyway, so we were just getting a head-start.
We didn’t see our kids and grandkids as much, but maybe that helped with the non-aging. 😉
No shots or disease, but I am still confronted by that old bastard in the bathroom mirror. I keep grabbing for loose change, hoping that he will go away, but maybe that isn’t a good idea.
Huxley, it happened to me, so I posted about it and mentioned it on air.
Got a lot of response from people who had similar experience;
Quick DuckDuck found this: https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/red-noses-night-sweats-unique-symptoms-omicron-variant-san-diego-covid-coronavirus-vivid-dreams-taste-changes-sore-back-blooshot-eyes/509-69d0c0b4-e2f2-414b-8b90-8f35f9c443fd
“…Emma Watson…”
The way she’s seen “right” to treat JK Rowling, it would be Dumbledorean retribution were she to go from 0 to 60 at the speed of the Hogwarts Express…
The real question, of course, is “Did the Covid lockdowns make us look fatter?”
The answer seems to be yes, but most web pages have trouble getting to the point without a lot of throat-clearing about how one mustn’t be fat-phobic or racist.
Plus the reminder that some people lost weight because they were so nervous about Covid.
O/T….perhaps…
Did the Covid Lockdowns make us any WISER?….
Does this invasion of Ukraine make me look fat?
Neo, there are days when I look in the mirror after I shave or days when I accidentally catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror (as I did in an elevator last week) and I say to myself “That cannot be flipping accurate”. Stress ages you quickly.
My observations align with neo’s: “I’ve noticed in my own life and among my friends, as well as for public figures, that visible aging doesn’t progress in smooth linear fashion. It advances in fits and starts and discrete bumps.”
And–COVID, the modern civil war among Americans (which includes George Floyd and Jussie Smollet being made media heroes), the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the West’s leaders weakly responding, all add stressors that increase aging.
I had night sweats so bad with COVID (pre-Omicron variant) it was nearly unbelievable. If our bodies are about 60% water mine would be down to about 2% by morning.
I had an infection with severe flu like symptoms about a decade ago and long after feeling 99% fine, the night sweats continued.
Speaking for myself and my wife, yes. We were very healthy fit people prior to the lockdown, which is probably largely the reason we did not get sick. The dark circles under my wife’s (she is a teacher, one of the good ones) eyes have finally begun to abate now that mandates have been lifted and she can travel overseas again for a much, much deserved respite from the madness. Human beings, like most living creatures, were not designed to live in captivity. And that is exactly what they did to us.
Jamie,
That is great news for your wife. I used to travel overseas often for my work and I do miss it.