Scientific Proof: Life Gets Better As You Get Older

Apparently there are two major peaks of satisfaction in life. The first is when you are about 23 and the second when you are around 69. According to a recent study, after your early 20s, happiness was generally found to decline until the mid-50s, after which point it increased again into the 80s. Other studies (notably, a large 2010 Gallup poll) have corroborated this finding, suggesting that happiness tends to be positively linked with age. The Gallup poll found that 85-year-olds are generally more satisfied with themselves than 18-year-olds. In other words, life isn't a downhill decline, it's basically a U-curve.

"Mankind is wrong to dread aging," The Economist writes. "Happiness arcs through the average individual's lifespan. Life is not a long slow decline from sunlit uplands towards the valley of death. It is, rather, a U-bend." On average, happiness declines from youth to middle age until you hit the "midlife crisis" point, at which point people head towards old age and they experience surging levels of happiness and life satisfaction. The U-curve of happiness has been documented in countries around the world, and applies to both global well-being and emotional wellness. Why? Probably because decreased ambition and greater acceptance seems to play a significant role. Whether you're old or young, chances are you think of young people as being happier, even though science has proved that this isn't the case. A study at Duke University that asked groups of 30-year-olds and 70-year-olds which age group (30 or 70) they thought would be happier, both groups pointed towards the 30-year-olds, but when they rated their own happiness levels, the 70-year-olds scored higher. In another study, both the young and the old believe that happiness declines with age, but older adults described themselves as being happier than the younger adults did. The older we get, the more we seem to appreciate the little things. Also, Psychology Today reports, "As we age, we have the opportunity to accept who we are, instead of focusing on who we feel we need to become. We relax into being ourselves. Our faces start to look like who we are. And the world settles into more and more familiar patterns. That acceptance brings diminished anxiety and a higher degree of enjoyment."