Here’s what made us look ten years older – and the photographs to show it

Most of us like to believe we look years younger than we really are, gracefully ageing ever so gradually. But, as every woman who has ever got a shock when they opened their ­camera phone the wrong way round knows, Mother Nature can be a cruel mistress.

And now it is officially confirmed thanks to new scientific research revealed last month. Rather than experiencing a slow, gradual decline, our bodies change dramatically around the ages of 44 and 60. The Stanford ­University study discovered rapid bursts of ageing occurring at a molecular level at these ages, describing them as ‘cliff edges’ of sudden deterioration.

Although, typically, these changes happen in our 40s and 50s, dramatic ageing can happen at other times in our lives too – with researchers claiming this may be tied to a stressful lifestyle or ­behavioural factors.

Here, three brave writers reveal the year they fell off their own ageing ‘cliff edge’, examine why – and share the pictures that prove it.

At 54, chronic financial stress made me unrecognisable

By author Kate Spicer

I turned 54 last year and, almost overnight, I started schlumping about like an old fridge that needs to go to the tip.

My body morphed into a shape I barely recognised. When I say body, I mean my face. Or what used to be my face. In 2023, I did a shoot for a newspaper story. I was make-up free, wore old clothes and needed a haircut. I wasn’t expecting to look beautiful in the pictures, but I was shocked by my grey, doughy skin, raisin eyes and shapeless lips.

Looking at the photos I felt a stab of distress. Who even was I? Where had the former me gone? I’m not saying I’m a supermodel, but I looked like an old lady, not the lively woman I thought of myself as. It was a hell of a reality check.

I needed a break but was flogging away as a freelance writer just to get by. I didn’t have the disposable funds to freshen up my look or buy clothes that reinforced a sense of self and pride.

In fact, my taste in clothes had gone peculiar. Cooking lunch for friends one day as I wore a gigantic woolly sweater dress in our chilly kitchen, both my boyfriend and friend remarked that my outfit was ‘questionable’. Brown cable knit to the knees being the fashion equivalent of a sack of spuds. ‘You look like Friar Tuck,’ someone said.

I used to love the whole process of getting ready to go out. I could do it quickly because I used the odd visit to a cosmetic doctor to ensure I could wear minimal make-up and still look polished. I’d add a dab of filler here, a prick of Botox there for a good 15 years. That rather pricey habit had had to go.

What complicated matters is that my partner was doing super well and was super busy in his super ­successful life. He’d arrive home talking about some important-sounding international deal and I’d tell him, while sitting in tracksuit bottoms, that my book proposal had been rejected by another publisher and what kind of excrement the dogs had rolled in that day. I couldn’t escape the ­suspicion that he found me a bit disappointing compared to the woman I had once been.

I had low energy and never seemed to get enough sleep. I had pains in my neck, knees and big toe. Wearing heels was excruciating. If I sat down to write, my hip flexor was so stiff, by the end of the day I’d dramatically hobble and gasp. I was also officially in menopause.

However, I think this ageing event was compounded by financial stress. At times, I wondered whether I’d make the mortgage or cover my credit card bill. I was always in fight or flight mode. Was I depressed? I am not so sure. But that heinous photo did galvanise me.

This April, I took steps to combat my chronic stress and my moment of rapid ageing seemed to stall somewhat. I went all out on a healthy diet and back on a daily dose of fish oil. I walked more and used the car less. I had a haircut, bought a cooler pair of jeans and I gave away the brown, oversized jumper dress. I splashed out on a £329 Ultrahuman Ring Air, a smart ring that helps me monitor things like sleep, my heart rate, stress and exercise.

I get up off the floor using no hands (it’s a great test of agility and strength); and swing off the monkey bars in the children’s playground when I walk the dogs. In short, I do small things to care for myself.

I am not an old fridge. I am me. I’m 55 now. Life’s still a bit of a mess but I bounce back better. And a few months ago, despite feeling awfully guilty, I went to have a few millilitres of filler on my shrinking middle-aged bones and I cannot tell you how much that cheered me up. Call me shallow, call me vain, but you can’t call me an old biddy yet!

Caring for my parents – ‘the long goodbye’ – took its toll on my face

By beauty expert Ingeborg van Lotringen

I always believed I looked younger than I was. It was what people told me, but by the time I hit my late 40s, they had stopped guessing I was five years younger than my real age, so I should have taken a hint.

Still, it wasn’t until 2021, at 51, that my age caught up with me, fast. My eyes, jawline and neck all collapsed at once. Which made me furious because frankly, I felt I had a right not to age badly. With a drill sergeant-like attitude to exercise and self-control, I thought my healthy lifestyle combined with lucky genes would keep obvious signs of deterioration at bay for, well, ever.

I’d suffered from insomnia since the age of 39 and was well aware how sleep deprivation can do serious damage to the lifespan of cells, but until my 50s, my skin still glowed. As a beauty journalist, I also took for granted my access to great skincare and injectable skin boosters including the fillers Profhilo and HArmonyCa.

The sleepless exhaustion was compounded by losing my father – and my job as beauty director of Cosmopolitan – in 2019.

Grief and stress really takes it out of you. My mother wasn’t doing well either (she is now in a home suffering from dementia), and I realised I was on a path I call ‘the long goodbye’ – a slow, painful letting-go of my parents and my childhood home.

Two years into this, I was in a state of chronic anxiety, helped along by the menopause which, even using HRT, did its utmost to deplete my body and mind at a point when I needed every ounce of physical, mental and emotional strength.

My eyes went from tired to ­perma-bleary, with droopy lids and under-eyes that managed to be crepey as well as puffy. The skin on my face (and body) thinned, heralding deepening lines, saggy jowls and a neck with folds. I even developed perioral dermatitis, a stress-­related condition leaving me with angry little blisters when I try to use anti-ageing skincare.

I became aware of my situation, identical to middle-aged women everywhere. I mourned the loss of a carefree youth, shouldered too many work and family responsibilities and felt wary of where life might be heading. No one gets away with that stuff not being etched in their face. I suppose I should consider myself lucky it took so long.

‘I was acing midlife, then on the eve of 60, my body collapsed’ 

By wellbeing expert Jane Alexander

I was just shy of 60 when my body fell apart in spectacular fashion.

It started with a bang – or rather a quiet thump – in 2019, five months short of my birthday. My 50s had been a joyful surprise – I had never felt so good and I don’t think I looked too shabby. My career was cruising nicely; I had navigated a separation and a radical downsizing house move with relative aplomb.

I figured I was acing this midlife malarkey. Then I caught my trainer in the hem of my trousers and plunged head — and hands — first into the street. Everything changed. I had broken my nose and my left elbow and smashed my right wrist. Doped up on painkillers and unable to exercise, my weight climbed and my confidence tumbled.

In 2020 everything fell to pieces – and it was not just because of the accident. My freckles became age spots, my gums started receding, my eyesight fell in a ditch. Badger stripes appeared in my hair, I developed a moustache, my jawline gave up the ghost, and my eyebrows went feral. I kept piling on weight until I was 3 st (19 kg) heftier than 12 months before.

My back started hurting, then went into spasm. I was diagnosed with stress fractures in two ­vertebrae. I have no idea how it happened. All my joints ached. My mental health took a nosedive too. As my self-esteem ­evaporated, my old adversaries depression and anxiety came knocking. I didn’t want to take antidepressants (I’ve taken them before) so I muddled through.

What felt unfair was that I had done everything I could to keep fit and healthy in my 50s. I ate well, I exercised every day, I practised yoga and meditation, I took supplements,I didn’t smoke and barely drank.

Now, at 64, I’ve started HRT. I watch my blood sugar and I’m giving the keto diet a go. I owe it to myself and my family to stay fit and healthy as long as possible.