Kyle Bourassa is a clinical psychology researcher at Duke University’s Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. His research is focused on understanding how stressful life events—such as relationship dissolution, financial stress, and trauma—might influence people’s health as they age, with the goal of better understanding how to prevent stressful life events from leading to poorer health.  We discuss what ‘stress’ means in the context of a research setting, how stress leads to reduced health outcomes, and what some of the implications of this research is for treatment and health.