I’m not old (yet), and I like to think of myself as young at heart. But even while I am still (relatively) young I am starting to understand the effects of aging. It is a little harder each year to lose those extra pounds, stay up late, and remember all of the things I have to do each day. The research in aging is not inspiring either. Eventually I can expect my body and my mind to slow down.

But there are some things that people seem to get better at with age. Research shows that being emotionally healthy and happy may be one of them. For example, recent work published in Psychological Science by Stacey Wood and Michael Kisley shows that older individuals are less likely to feel negative emotion than younger people to the same events. And work by Laura Carstensen at Stanford University shows that older individuals focus more the present than younger folks do and more often savor what they have rather than worry about what they want.

We are pretty bad at predicting what will make us happy in the future. The things we think will make us happy (money, good looks) don’t and we fail to understand how much our relationships and savoring each day makes us happy. So you may have a few more wrinkles when you get older, but you’re probably going to be happier.

Further Reading:

For more on this work see a recent LA Times article at

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/l…

For more on Dr. Carstensen’s work

http://longevity2.stanford.edu/personLaura.html

For the work of Dr. Kisley and Dr. Wood

Kisley, M. A., Wood, S., & Burrows, C. L. (2007). Looking at the sunny side of life: Age-related change in an event-related potential measure of the negativity bias. Psycholgical Science, 18, 838-843.

http://www.uccs.edu/~mkisley/