Things That Get Better With Age, According to Science

Is it really all downhill?

Ask most people what happens as you age and you’ll get a list of losses. Slower reflexes. Creakier knees. Reading glasses held at arm’s length. Some of that is true, and pretending otherwise doesn’t help anyone.

But it leaves a lot out. Joshua Hartshorne, who co-led one of the largest studies on how mental abilities change over a lifetime, put it simply: “At any given age, you’re getting better at some things, you’re getting worse at some other things, and you’re at a plateau at some other things.” (1)

Some things about us really do age like a fine wine. This post is about those.

What to know

• Older adults tend to report more positive, more stable emotional lives than younger adults. (2)

• In a US survey of more than 340,000 people, worry held steady until about 50, then dropped sharply. (4)

• Self-esteem tends to peak around 60. (7)

• People with more positive views of their own ageing lived 7.5 years longer on average in one long-running study, although it showed a link, not proof. (9)

Your emotional life gets steadier

This is one of the most consistent findings in ageing research, and one of the least talked about.

Researchers at Stanford asked adults of all ages to report how they were feeling five times a day for a week. They repeated it five years later, then again ten years later. As people aged, their overall emotional wellbeing improved and their moods became more stable. (2)

They also found something subtler. Older adults were more likely to feel positive and negative emotions at the same time, like pride and sadness at a child’s wedding. (2) Life doesn’t get simpler. People seem to get better at holding both sides of it.

Psychologist Laura Carstensen, who led the study, has a theory for why. When people sense their time is more limited, they stop spreading themselves thin. They put more energy into the relationships and activities that matter to them and less into the rest. Younger people, who feel like they have all the time in the world, tend to chase long-term goals like careers, which brings a different kind of pressure. (3)

There’s a small reversal in the 80s and beyond, but emotional wellbeing doesn’t drop back to young-adult levels. (3)

Worry fades, and happiness comes back

In 2008, a Gallup survey asked more than 340,000 Americans how they’d felt the day before. When researchers sorted the answers by age, stress and anger fell steadily across adulthood. Worry was different. It held fairly flat until around 50, then fell away sharply. (4)

“I don’t think people stop caring as they get older. They just get better at picking what’s worth worrying about,” says Dr Goutham Sivasuthan, co-founder and CEO of Precursor.

Daily life plays a part too. Older adults in diary studies report the fewest everyday stressors, which helps explain why negative emotions ease. (3)

Overall happiness follows a U-shape rather than a slope. A study across 145 countries found wellbeing bottoms out around 50, then climbs again. (5) In the US data, enjoyment and happiness dipped between 18 and 50 and rose after that. (4) If your late 40s feel heavy, the numbers suggest you’re near the bottom of the curve, not on a permanent slide.

You stay calmer in conflict, and reason it through better

In one experiment, younger adults and adults over 60 each discussed a dilemma with a stranger who’d been told to be unfriendly. The older group’s negative feelings, heart rate and blood pressure rose less. The researchers think older adults were reading the situation more charitably. (3)

A 2010 study looked at how people reason through conflict, from neighbourhood disputes to family arguments. Older adults were more likely to consider other people’s points of view, look for a compromise and admit what they didn’t know. (6) Psychologists call this wise reasoning. Most of us would just call it being reasonable.

Self-esteem peaks around 60

Self-esteem has a reputation for collapsing in the teenage years and never quite recovering. The data says otherwise.

A 2018 analysis pulled together 191 research articles covering almost 165,000 people, from age 4 to 94. Self-esteem rose sharply from the mid-teens to 30, kept climbing slowly through midlife and peaked around 60. It held steady through the 60s, then declined modestly for many people after 70. (7)

Your brain and body hold up better than you’d expect

Not every mental skill fades early. Raw processing speed does peak young, around 18. But knowledge-based skills take their time. In a large online study, vocabulary kept improving until the late 60s or early 70s, and the ability to read other people’s emotions peaked in the 40s and 50s. (1)

Metabolism is another pleasant surprise. A 2021 study of more than 6,600 people across 29 countries found that energy use, adjusted for body size, stayed stable from about 20 to 60. It only began to fall after 60, by roughly 0.7% a year. (8) The “my metabolism crashed at 35” theory doesn’t hold up. There’s more on this in The Age You Peak at Everything.

Does your attitude to ageing matter?

This is the finding most people remember.

Researchers at Yale followed 660 people aged 50 and over in Ohio for more than two decades. Those who felt more positive about their own ageing, measured up to 23 years earlier, lived 7.5 years longer on average. The gap held after accounting for age, gender, income, loneliness and physical health, and part of it seemed to come from a stronger will to live. (9)

It’s a striking number, and it’s worth reading carefully. The study was observational, so it shows a link rather than cause and effect. People who feel good about getting older might also be healthier in ways a survey can’t capture. What it does suggest is that “it’s all downhill from here” isn’t a harmless joke if you start to believe it.

The fine print

All of this describes averages across large groups. Plenty of people don’t follow the pattern, and real health problems can make later life harder regardless of outlook.

Much of the research also compares people of different ages at a single point in time, rather than following the same people for decades. That means generational differences can creep into the results. And the oldest people in these studies are, by definition, the ones who got there, which may make them healthier than average.

Making the most of it

“Everyone wants to live longer and feel better doing it. Then work happens, kids happen, life happens, and the good intentions slip. That’s not a failure. That’s being human. The trick is picking one or two things you’ll actually keep doing, rather than ten you won’t,” says Dr Sivasuthan.

If you’re looking for where to start, the research points in a few directions:

• Invest in the people who matter. A lot of the emotional gains seem to come from that shift. (3)

• Keep learning. Knowledge-based skills keep building when you use them. (1)

• Watch the “too old for that” thinking. How you see your own ageing is linked with how long and how well people live. (9)

Pick one. Then keep going.

See how your body is tracking

The emotional side of ageing is only half the picture. The other half is physical, and it’s easier to look after when you know where you stand. Our biological age calculator gives you a rough sense of how your body compares with your birthday. Treat it as a conversation starter, not a diagnosis.

This article provides general information and does not replace individual medical advice.