As young adults look forward to their future, older adults tend to reflect and have negative feelings toward how their life has progressed. The author of the study also points to social media and technology as reasons why older adults are unhappy.
There are many reasons to feel joy in our older years. But with all the changes happening as we age, it's okay — and normal — to feel sad sometimes too. “As we grow older, many of us struggle with isolation and loneliness,” explains Frank Sileo, PhD.
National Well-Being.
Across Europe and the United States, unhappiness reached its peak in the late forties, specifically at the age of 49 years. In general, unhappiness followed a hill-shaped curve across the lifespan. Thus, young children start out with rather low unhappiness which increases until the age of 49 years.
Research shows that many people report being happier in their 50s and 60s. Here's why. At this point, many studies have examined how your overall sense of happiness (or what psychologists sometimes call “well-being,” because that sounds more scientific) changes over the course of your life.
With age, you might have difficulty focusing on objects that are close up. You might become more sensitive to glare and have trouble adapting to different levels of light. Aging also can affect your eye's lens, causing clouded vision (cataracts). Your hearing also might diminish.
Natural changes happen in the body as we age, such as skin damage from sun exposure, loss of muscle and physical strength, loss of some sight and hearing, as well as changes to our sleep patterns, energy levels and appetite.
There are suggestions that hormonal changes may make aging men more emotional, or that as we age we care less about maintaining a stoic posture. And there are certainly studies which correlate emotional expression with the effects of depression, social isolation and dementia.
According to a study published in the Social Indicators Research journal, we're the happiest between the ages of 30-34, and midlife (our 40s and 50s) is not perceived as the least happy period in life.
While Americans stop feeling young in their early 40s, they start feeling old at 52, on average, according to a survey by the Worldwide Independent Network of Market Research.
One review of 152 longitudinal studies found the biggest changes in personality traits occur from childhood through the 20s. In the 30s, 40s, and 50s, we can and do still change, but these changes come more slowly, and require more effort, said Paul T.
On average, happiness declines as we approach middle age, bottoming out in our 40s but then picking back up as we head into retirement, according to a number of studies.
Studies in economics often find that happiness decreases from the teenage years to middle age, only to increase afterwards (and then to fall again in very high age).
Aside from changes in the brain that impact inhibitory control and social cognition, it could simply be that as we get older, we care less about what others think. Compared to younger adults, older adults are less self-conscious, reporting fewer experiences of emotions such as shame, guilt, and embarrassment.
Midlife Can Make You Miserable
A 2008 study of data from 2 million people found that midlife depression spans the globe. In the U.S., it peaks at around age 40 for women and 50 for men, and usually starts to lift in the 50s.
You're also more likely to develop depression if you are between ages 45 and 64, nonwhite, or divorced, and if you never graduated high school, can't work or are unemployed, and don't have health insurance.
SAD usually starts during adulthood. The risk of SAD increases with age.
adulthood, the period in the human lifespan in which full physical and intellectual maturity have been attained. Adulthood is commonly thought of as beginning at age 20 or 21 years. Middle age, commencing at about 40 years, is followed by old age at about 60 years.
Age Periods during Late Adulthood
In this chapter, we will be dividing the stage into four age periods: Young–old (60-74), old-old (75-84), the oldest-old (85-99), and centenarians (100+). These categories are based on the conceptions of aging including, biological, psychological, social, and chronological differences.
One's late twenties and early thirties, from an emotional perspective, are therefore the worst part of life. It's during these years that people experience the most negative thoughts and feelings and experience the most mind wandering, a psychological state that has been shown to be detrimental to well-being.
The dip in life satisfaction occurs around the age of 45 until 54, and is seen across many wealthy English-speaking countries, including the United States, Canada, the UK and Australia. There were similar findings in these countries for the emotional aspects of happiness.
Among the perks of getting older, seniors tend to make better decisions, are more emotionally stable and become less impulsive than their younger peers, according to research. Older minds tend to better understand the weight of each decision because they know the value of their time, energy and happiness.
The researchers found that stress drops steadily as we get older. Life is particularly fraught in young adulthood, when we face more stressful situations and have fewer psychological resources to deal with them. By the time we reach our 40s and 50s, our emotional lives tend to settle down.
Older adults report fewer negative emotions as well as more emotional stability and well-being than younger people. Older adults may also be savvier at navigating interpersonal disagreements than younger people.