Happiness Has No Age

Seniors getting grumpy is a myth. If you are already a happy person, and you are pleased with who you are and with your life, then you will be even happier as you grow old. A new study shows that happiness has no age and that elderly people tend to have an excellent mental health, sometimes surpassing youngsters.

The recent research suggests that older people have a better state of mind than most people in their 20s or 30s. Despite the physical diseases that might give them a hard time, people who are no longer in their prime are content with their lives and seem to have found the recipe for happiness.

The study involved 1000 elderly people answering a survey. The research was led by doctor Dilip V. Jeste (Center on Healthy Aging, University of California, San Diego), who chose that approximately half of the patients to should be men, and half of them, women.

The specialists explain that a better state of mind has nothing to do with illnesses such as memory loss or losing cognitive functions. Doctor Dilip V. Jeste puts it as follows:

“Overall, our findings support the existence of a ‘paradox’ in which aging is associated with better mental health despite loss of physical and cognitive function.”

The researchers’ team also examined young people, in their 20s and 30s. What they observed is that precisely younger people develop more stress and depression, because of their hectic lifestyle. The analyses on people who were over sixty years of age revealed that they were greatly satisfied with their lives, showing very few symptoms of depression and anxiety, or not showing them at all.

If old people getting grumpy is a myth, what is surely not a myth is old people getting wise. It is actually medically proved, and professor Jeste thinks that this also has to do with them finding a way of preserving their happiness.

Other doctors also agree on the findings of doctor Jeste and his team. There are surely many misconceptions about aging that young people don’t know of. The lead author also declared for Medscape:

“It does not apply to everybody, and in our study of aging adults, their improved sense of psychological well-being was linear and substantial. Participants reported that they felt better about themselves and their lives year upon year, decade after decade.”

The study was published this month in Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

Image courtesy of: Wikipedia