Happiness gets better with age. This NYT article details results from a recent survey on happiness across the lifespan. The article contains several interesting stats on how our levels of anxiety, worry, sadness, and happiness change over the years. Rather than summarize all of the findings, I’ll highlight one piece – that age 50 seems to be a sharp turning point for many people. At 50, worry and sadness begin declining while happiness, enjoyment, and a global sense of well-being begin to increase steadily.
True research on the survey results is just beginning to be published. At this point, there are no empirically supported explanations for why emotions change over time as they do, at least from this data set. Which means…
…that we get to make our own hypotheses! So let’s hear ‘em…why do you think happiness increases after 50? Why does stress decline after 22? Why does sadness peak at 50? What makes anger drop off after 18?