Research shows aging is not all gloom and doom
By Joan Patterson, Las Vegas Review-Journal
So, you can’t remember what you had for dinner last night, your knees ache and after years of perfect vision there is now a collection of snazzy drugstore reading glasses stashed all over the house.
Congratulations, it’s only going to get better. Really.
In their book, “Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths and Aging” (Oxford University Press, 2015), authors Mindy Greenstein and Jimmie Holland point to some of the latest research showing an increase in reported well-being as we age. One significant finding is a pattern that emerges called the U-bend.
In a nutshell, feelings of satisfaction are high in early adulthood such as the 20s, then start to curve downward and hit rock bottom in middle age, around the late 40s to early 50s. Then, despite all those preconceptions about growing older, well-being actually starts to curve upward and keeps rising into at least the eighth decade.