Recent Study Shows Changing Perceptions of Aging as People Live Longer

When does aging begin? A recent study shows that as older people get older, they believe that aging starts later.

According to the study, the answer to this question appears to be changing as people live longer, retire later, and maintain higher levels of physical and mental health into their older years. after that.

A study published the day before yesterday, Monday, reveals that people in their mid-sixties believe that old age begins at the age of 75, but as they get older, they believe that aging starts later.

The study was conducted by researchers led by Marcus Wettstein, a psychologist at Humboldt University in Berlin, and was published in the Journal of Psychology and Aging of the American Psychological Association, and was written about by a site NBC website.

The researchers analyzed data from around 14,000 participants in the German Survey on Aging, which examines age as a stage of life in Germany. Participants were born between 1911 and 1974 and entered the study at the age of 40 to 85 years.

Personal assessment

People included in the study reported feeling like they were aging up to 8 times over 25 years, and for every 4 to 5 years that had passed , participants reported starting to age one year later than at their last assessment.

Participants born earlier – from 1911 to 1935 – believed that aging started earlier compared to participants born after 1935.

“Clearly, our ideas or perceptions of aging change over historical time. People who are middle-aged or older today believe that aging begins later than their peers 10 or 20 years ago,” Wettstein said.

Wettstein said this change may be partly due to an increase in life expectancy. Average life expectancy in Germany is about 81 years at birth compared to 71 years in 1974. Many people in Germany also live healthier lives longer, and studies have shown an improvement in heart health, cognitive abilities, and overall quality of life among the nation’s older adults over time.

“People who feel younger also believe that aging starts later,” Wettstein said.

Study participants who were more lonely, had more chronic diseases, or reported being in poorer health were more likely to believe that aging started earlier.

On average, women believe that age begins about 2.4 years later than men.

However, she – who was not involved in the research – warned that the results may not apply to other countries, as cultural ideas about age and historical trends differ between societies. In the United States, for example, life expectancy decreased during the “Covid -19” pandemic from 79 years in 2019 to 76 years in 2021, while life expectancy in Germany has remained relatively stable since 2014.

Previous studies have shown that people’s perceptions of age can affect their health.

Previous research has shown that negative beliefs about aging are associated with higher levels of stress, which can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke.

On the other hand, studies have shown that people who have positive attitudes about aging are less likely to develop dementia and tend to live longer than people who have more negative attitudes about aging. ‘get older.

People who saw themselves as younger than their actual age also showed slower memory decline, better cognitive performance, and lower depressive symptoms, while people who saw themselves as older people in increased risk of death.

old age

In a previous study, researchers suggested from Austria The age at which old age begins is 74, which is 9 years older than 65, which has always been considered traditionally as the age at which old age and retirement begin in some countries.

Age 65 is considered to be the age at which a person’s average lifespan ends and old age begins, but scholars from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in… Vienna They say that age should be measured not by age, but by the number of years a person has left and can expect to live.

In the 1950s, men were expected to… Britain A person who reaches the age of 65 can live 15 more years, and today a person of the same age is expected to live 24 years, that is, 9 more years.

The development of health care over the last decades has been reflected in an increase in life expectancy and quality of life, that is, an improvement in the nature of life of the elderly in terms of being free from diseases or preventing their problems .

Sergei Scherpov, deputy director of the World Population Census Program at the International Institute, said that the elderly in the future will show characteristics and qualities that the younger generation is showing at this time.