  We investigate the stress relaxation behavior on the application of step
strains to aging aqueous suspensions of the synthetic clay Laponite. The stress
exhibits a two-step decay, from which the slow relaxation modes are extracted
as functions of the sample ages and applied step strain deformations.
Interestingly, the slow time scales that we estimate show a dramatic
enhancement with increasing strain amplitudes. We argue that the system ends up
exploring the deeper sections of its energy landscape following the application
of the step strain.
