As we get older, our skin gets thinner, drier, less flexible, and less able to heal itself after being hurt. By the time we are forty, our skin has wrinkles, creases, and lines from ageing and wear and tear.
Hair starts to grow in weird places.
As far as we know, no study has shown a link between ear, nose, back, or chin hair and how attractive someone is thought to be.
You experience more aches and pains.
Body wear is cumulative. Understanding your boundaries, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, stretching, meditating, and contacting your doctor when anything doesn't seem right might help you cope with turning 40.
Your hangovers become more intense.
As we age, the liver becomes less effective, and persons with more body fat and less body water experience the effects of alcohol more intensely than those with more muscle mass.
Your teeth become less sensitive.
If your teeth were sensitive when you were in your teens, 20s, or 30s, here's some good news. As you get older, more dentin, the hard tissue inside your teeth, grows between the enamel and the nerves.
It takes you longer to recover from an injury.
Some say it's because of something called "cell exhaustion." Others say it's because there are fewer hormonal changes, which makes it take much longer for muscles to heal. Still others say that as we get older, our bodies' inflammatory response to injury gets worse.
Your prostate grows.
When a man turns 40, he now has a prostate exam as part of his annual physical. Your doctor is looking for signs of prostate cancer, and an enlarged prostate is often one of them.
You catch fewer colds.
By the time we're 40, we've been exposed to more cold viruses and built up immunity, so we get sick less often.