One of the few studies that found no age-related differences in well-being last year focused on 226 young and older adults living in the Bronx. In this, New York’s most underserved congregation, older people often live with their children and grandchildren, helping them with meals, schooling, babysitting, and acting as co-parents. No researchers found that emotional well-being has an “age”, they found, in part they concluded because “the sample was somewhat ‘more stressed’ than the national average level.”
Although this important distinction has been noted, these studies reinforce a theory of emotional development and aging that Drs. Carstensen formulated and which psychologists have been debating for years. This view believes that when people are young, their goals and motives are to acquire skills and take chances, to prepare for opportunities that the future may hold. You can not know whether you will run a business or on stage unless you really give it a chance. Bruntwork does for little money; pervert terrible bosses, bad landlords, needy friends: the mental obstacle course of young adulthood is no less stressful to be so predictable.
After middle age, people become more aware of a narrowing time horizon and begin to consciously or not move to daily activities that are more enjoyable than improving themselves.
They tend to skip the neighborhood meeting for a walk to the local bar or favorite bench with a friend. They accept that the business plan does not work, that their paintings are more suitable for the pit than for a gallery. They accepted themselves for who they are, rather than for whom they are supposed to become. Even those who have lost their jobs in this tragic year and have the prospect of re-entering the labor market – at least they know their abilities and what jobs are possible.
It is important to keep these differences in mind in the near future, if only to stem an increasing gender gap, experts say. A pandemic that began with the excessive killing of the elderly also brutally turned on the young people and robbed them of normal school days, graduation ceremonies, sports, first jobs or any real social life – and shamed them, often in public, when they tried has . Now, in a shrinking economy, they are at the back of the vaccine line.
“I think the older generation is now, just as threatened by Covid, starting to say, ‘My life is not nearly as disrupted as my children or grandchildren,'” Dr. Charles said, “and that’s where we focus. on mental well-being must now turn. ”