How are you feeling? If you’re over 50, despite that kink in your back, bad knee and night blindness, chances are you are pretty happy today.
A sense of well-being increases over our lifetimes, according to a 2013 study that collected 30 years of data on thousands of Americans born between 1885 and 1980.
Variables such as health, wealth, gender, ethnicity and education were controlled by researchers, indicating that happiness was not a simple consequence of propitious external circumstances.
Scientific American reports a less contented early life for those who grew up during times of great strife, such as war or the Great Depression. In fact, an entire generation can be affected by societal or cultural difficulties encountered early on.
Two personality types were seen to influence our overall wellbeing: neuroticism and extroversion. Neuroticism, characterized by worry, anxiety and anger, is found to be a stable personality trait that correlates with lower levels of overall happiness, reported the Economist.
But that guy at the party with the lampshade on his head? It looks like he’ll be dancing on the tables for the foreseeable future. There is a direct correlation between extroversion and lifelong happiness.
While about 50 percent of our merriness can be attributed to genetic makeup, according to Dr. Alexander Weiss of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, relationships, health and career are major factors.
Weiss based this observation on reviewing "personality and happiness data on more than 900 twin pairs," thereby determining which common genes showed personality traits that lead to happiness.
Women, who are slightly more prone to depression than men, still tend to report more general happiness.
According to the 2013 study, mid-life unhappiness is backed up by science, with 46 years old being the nadir of happiness, the global age when most of us struggle with conflicted feelings about goals not yet met, and our diminishing future.
Participants in the study showed the following pattern of happiness throughout their lifetimes:
- From ages 20 to 30, worry decreases.
- After 30, worry increases and remains high until midlife, followed by a rise in happiness as we enter our later years.
Reassuringly, the midlife crisis is not all in our heads, neither is it the sole purview of self-aware homo sapiens. It turns out the natural world is dipping right along with us.
A study of chimpanzees and orangutans reported in the National Academy of Sciences found that the great apes have their own mid-life struggles.
The following explanations were offered as to why older people are happier:
- Older people have achieved more emotional control. The old man yelling “Get off my lawn,” is the anomaly, not the rule.
- With the knowledge of approaching death, older people are more likely to worry less and live in the present moment more.
- The death of ambition results in no longer constantly striving for future-oriented goals. Older people live in a state of greater contentment and acceptance.
As Pope John the XXIII wrote, “Men [and women] are like wine — some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age.”
Sources:
Age Brings happiness.ScientificAmerican.com. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/age-brings-happiness
The U-bend of life. economist.com. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
http://www.economist.com/node/17722567
Genes hold the key to how happy we are, scientists say. PsychologicalScience.org. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
http://www.psychologicalscience.org/media/releases/2008/weiss.cfm
Evidence for a midlife crisis in great apes consistent with the U-shape in human well-being. PNAS.org. Retrieved September 14, 2015.
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/49/19949.full
Reviewed September 15, 2015
by Michele Blacksberg RN
Edited by Jody Smith