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Happiness Comes With Age Study Reveals

Life looks a little rosier after 50, a new study finds. Older
people in their mid- to late-50s are generally happier, and experience less
stress and worry than young adults in their 20s, the researchers say.
The results, based on a Gallup phone survey from 2008 of
more than 340,000 Americans, held even after the researchers accounted for
factors that could have contributed to differences in well-being with age, such
as whether the participants were married, had children at home or were employed.
So if having a partner and getting rid of the kids aren't
responsible for the uptick in happiness and general life satisfaction with age,
then what is? More studies will be needed to find out, the researchers say.
“That can be based on social things, on societal
things, on biological things; and for us that is the big question,” study
researcher Arthur Stone, a psychologist at Stony Brook University in N.Y.
Two ways to look at
life
The findings agree with previous work showing well-being
varies with age. And some studies have narrowed things down to suggest that
happiness comes with being old, male
and Republican.
However, the current work included measures of both overall happiness
(called global well-being) and day-to-day experiences of specific feelings such
as stress and happiness (called hedonic well-being).
These two measures of well-being are rarely included in the
same study, Stone said. But they are both important, since global well-being
provides a more reflective look at life while hedonic well-being gives a more
immediate view, he said.
The immediate, hedonic measures – happiness, enjoyment,
stress, worry, anger and sadness – all changed with age, but they showed very
different patterns. For example, stress and anger steadily decreased from young
adulthood through old age. But worry was fairly constant until age 50, when it
declined. Sadness levels rose slightly in the early 40s and declined in the mid
50s, but overall sadness didn't change much with age.
And people's overall satisfaction with their lives showed a
U-shaped pattern, dipping down until about the age of 50 before trending upward
again.
Men and women showed very similar patterns in terms of how
well-being changed
with age, though women tended to have higher levels of stress, worry
and sadness. However, women had about the same levels of happiness
as men and tended to feel better overall about their lives, especially during
the first 50 years.
The results emphasize the importance of looking at hedonic well-being
since these feelings, particularly the negative ones, don't all vary the same
way as we age, Stone said.
“Looking at well-being really needs to be multidimensional
and more comprehensive than might be suggested by the current literature,”
he said.
Why are older people
happier?
There are several theories that might explain why people
feel better with age that don't have to do with lifestyle factors. It could be,
for example, that older people are better at controlling their emotions than younger
people. Or it might have something to do with nostalgia, the idea that older
people remember fewer negative memories and so are happier.
Also, older people might focus less on what they have or
have not achieved, and more on how to get the most out of the rest of their
lives, Stone said.
The results will be published this week in the journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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Original Story: Happiness Comes With Age, Study Reveals
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