20 Aug Happiness increases as you get older!
Good news for anyone getting older…which is YOU because we're all getting older!
Getting old doesn't need to mean getting grumpy and frail and hopeless and helpless. Rather, happiness can increase with age as this article interestingly points out…
Question: Do we get sadder as we get older?
Answer: It seems that just the opposite is true. There's a lot of evidence that we get happier the older we get.
A Gallup telephone poll of 340,000 people across the U.S. showed that happiness comes with age. However, the poll didn't uncover the cause of this phenomenon.
Dr. Arthur A. Stone, a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, was the lead author of a study based on the Gallup survey. He speculated on the causes for this happiness.
"It could be that there are environmental changes, or it could be psychological changes about the way we view the world, or it could even be biological — for example brain chemistry or endocrine changes," Dr. Stone told the New York Times in 2010.
The telephone survey included people between 18 and 85. The survey showed that people start out at age 18 feeling pretty good. However, they feel progressively worse until they hit 50.
But after that point, people begin getting happier as they age. By the time they are 85, they are even more satisfied with themselves than they were at 18.
Why are older people happier? I collected some theories. Older people are happier because they have:
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A deeper appreciation of the value of life
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A feeling of fulfillment
…and there's more. Keep reading the full & original article HERE