Have you ever noticed that your face looks years older in the mirror after a stressful series of days?

Well, you're not just imagining it. Stress is now known to contribute to physical aging of the body, and this includes the skin.

Dr. Nicholas Perricone would say that's exactly the case, and that not handling stress can result in many health issues including skin problems.

Specifically, says Perricone, author of "The Wrinkle Cure" and "The Perricone Prescription", stress causes hormonal changes in the body, which can seriously affect the functioning of the cells in our vital organs, which can result in unhealthy skin.

Want to know exactly how stress causes your skin to look older? Then read on.

At issue is cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone whose levels increase as we get older. While other hormone levels decrease, taking with them our libido, muscle mass and sometimes bone mass and bone density, cortisol is always increasing.

You might be familiar with cortisone, which is used as a topical medication, but cortisol is a hormone that is essential as it helps the body maintain balance during times of stress, exhaustion and physical trauma.

Studies have shown that when people are young and placed under stress, their cortisol levels increase rapidly, but they also decrease back to normal levels relatively quickly. When that same measure is done in older people, the cortisol levels also rise rapidly during stress, but they don't return to normal for several days, rather than hours.

Unfortunately, the natural cortisol in the body continues to increase the older you get. A 65-year-old person, for example, has a significantly higher level of cortisol in their system than a 25-year-old person.

Now, the danger in having all this cortisol in the system is several-fold. First, our bodies are extremely sensitive to the effects of cortisol on the system and it can affect our brain cells in particular. In fact, it's toxic to the brain cells, which helps to explain the decreased number of brain cells in older people.

Too much cortisol can also weaken the immune system, leaving you susceptible to colds and other illnesses, and it lead to shrinkage of vital organs and thinning of the skin.

All of this leads cortisol to be called "the death hormone" because it badly breaks down the body as we get older.

All this might make you come to one obvious conclusion - it pays to learn how to control stress in your life. As you get older, stress will wreak havoc with your body and skin as the cortisol levels increase, so learning to control the stress will, by extension, be a way to control cortisol.

Now, in many people stress also causes skin problems that are brought on by the increased levels of cortisol. In many adults this can manifest itself as acne, even in older adults. It's not always accurate to think that you're safe from acne. In times of stress, it might come back to you.

The end result here? Learning to control stress in your life will likely provide you with two major benefits - the aging process will be easier on your body and your skin will look and feel better as you age.

So to look and feel younger, learn to relax and laugh more, and enjoy the benefits this brings to your skin and your entire body.