Grow Older, Become Happier

A recent study has revealed that older age may be a far happier time than many people expect it to be.

Laura Carstensen, professor of psychology and director of the Stanford Institute of Longevity at Stanford University, has for the last 30 years been investigating the psychology of ageing.

Professor Carstensen said: "The biggest myth on the menu is that older people are inevitably unhappy, lonely and dejected. If you've been dreading the passage of time because you worry that your happiest days are behind you, take heart."

She added: "My research consistently shows that in terms of emotion the best years come late in life. With the exception of dementia-related diseases, which by definition have organic roots, mental health generally improves with age."

Professor Carstensen explained that older people suffer far less than younger people with depression and worry, no longer dwelling on the negative and managing their emotional well being.

In her book, A Long Bright Future, Professor Carstensen writes that typically we tend to perceive happiness as emanating from health, beauty and power, and that as these tend to diminish with age we therefore expect the older years to be less happy. However, the reverse is often true and older people are in fact often more content than younger people. The professor dubs this the Paradox of Ageing but adds there is more logic than paradox. Apparently, our perceptions change once we reach 50 and this change may result in us feeling happier. We just want to make the most of our lives and the time remaining, realising that we now no longer have the time to "get it right". However, far from disengaging from society we now engage in a different way that values more carefully the quality of our lives.

She says that our goals are profoundly influenced by our perception of the future and that the passage of time changes our perspective on where we are in our own life journey.

Middle age, she explains, is the time when we tend to make the most of what we have, consolidating existing relationships and savouring the time we have left. It doesn't mean that as we age we are less prone to joining new clubs and making new friends but it does mean that we are more committed to working on our existing relationships. In other words as we age we tend to value quality over quantity and take a different and more serene approach to life in general.

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