Why some old people feel younger as they age, and how perceptions are changing
- A 2018 study showed that most people think middle age starts at 30, and old age begins at 50
- Older people who feel younger than their years tend to live longer, according to another recent study
My perception of old age is inextricably linked to my grandmother. When I was a kid, I thought this 65-year-old, white-haired woman whose entire body wobbled when she walked was very old. Now that I’m 66, my personal perception – or perhaps, misperception – of old age has changed. I suspect I’ve got lots of company.
Many of us are convinced that while everyone else is ageing, that person we see in the mirror every morning is magically ageing at a somehow slower pace. The confusion can start early. A 2018 Michigan State University online survey of respondents aged from 10 to 89 revealed that most think middle age begins at 30 – and that old age begins at 50.
Another study, from the University of Zurich, published in 2011, determined that older adults often try to avoid the negative stereotypes of their age group by distancing themselves from them. Yet another study, from Columbia University, in 2018 found considerable evidence that when confronted with negative age stereotypes, older adults tend to distance and dissociate themselves from this negative stereotype.
Call it what you will, but this grey-haired group of boomers and beyond – myself included – is having a hard time accepting the realities of ageing. The great irony, say experts on ageing, is that this flirtation with a slightly different reality from our ageing peers may, in fact, be a healthy thing.
People who report feeling younger actually tend to live longer and healthier lives – and they don’t tend to have as much of a pattern of decline
“Baby boomers are redefining what ageing is and what old age looks like,” says Jennifer Ailshire, assistant professor at the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California.
