Posts Tagged ‘middle age’

Happy? Not happy? We tell you why.

Posted: February 3, 2016 in Popular Culture et al, Science
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Group of older men

Sixty-five to 79 is the happiest age group for adults, according to the British Office for National Statistics research.

The survey of more than 300,000 adults across the UK found life satisfaction, happiness and feeling life was worthwhile all peaked in that age bracket, but declined in the over-80s.

Meanwhile, those aged 45 to 59 reported the lowest levels of life satisfaction, with men on average less satisfied than women. That age group also reported the highest levels of anxiety.

Researchers said one possible reason for the lower happiness and well-being scores among this age group might be the burden of having to care for children and elderly parents at the same time, the financial pressures that places on a family, and emotional and social pressure.

The struggle to balance work and family commitments might also be a factor, they said. Meanwhile, those who were younger or retired had more free time to spend on activities which promoted their well-being, the researchers suggested.

Happiness and well-being dropped off again in those over 80, however, with researchers suggesting this could be down to personal circumstances such as poor health, living alone, poverty and feelings of loneliness.

The survey asked people to rate out of 10 how happy and how anxious they had felt the day before, how satisfied they were with their life generally, and how much they felt what they did in life was worthwhile.

 

Graffiti saying happiness

The published results have been broken down by age, ethnicity, religion, marital status, employment status, religion, and where in the country people live.

They suggested:

  • Married people reported the highest levels of happiness, averaging 7.67 out of 10, higher than people who were co-habiting, (perhaps due to perceived “security”?) followed by single, widowed or divorced people
  • Hardly surprisingly, people with jobs were happier than unemployed people, with part-time workers the happiest. Of those who were not working, retirees had the highest levels of happiness, followed by students.
  • Of those who followed a religion, Hindus were marginally the happiest on average, followed by Christians and Sikhs, while those who followed no religion reported being the least happy.
  • Women on average reported higher levels of anxiety than men, but were more likely report better well being and feel their life was worthwhile.
  • People of Arab ethnicity were found to be the most anxious ethnic group, with people of Chinese ethnicity the least anxious.

Reflecting the age-old adage “at least you’ve got your health”, researchers found a strong link between health and well-being.

People who said their health was very good reported an average life satisfaction rating of 8.01 out of 10, compared with people who said they were in very bad health, whose average rating was just 4.91.

UK life satisfaction map. The darker the green, the happier people are.

The over-90 age group reported by far the lowest levels of feeling their life was worthwhile, even though their reported levels of happiness and life satisfaction were comparable to those in their 20s and 30s.

Understanding how people of different ages rated their personal well-being could help policy makers target issues to improve lives, the study added.

“We know that the UK population is ageing. There were more than half a million people aged 90 and over living in the UK in 2014 – almost triple the number 30 years ago,” it said.

“This shift towards an older population will impact on important policies and services including the labour market, pension provision, and health and social care demand.

“Understanding more about how the oldest age groups rate their personal well-being will help focus on issues that are fundamental to a good later life.”

A woman smiling

Serves you right for being middle aged

The “U-shaped” pattern of happiness, which sees people’s happiness dip in middle age, has been observed globally.

  • It has been documented in more than 70 countries, in surveys of more than 500,000 people in developing and developed countries, although the age at which happiness is lowest differs between countries.
  • Previous studies found happiness hits rock bottom at 35.8 years in UK; the low point in the US comes a decade later; in Italy, happiness is lowest at 64.2 years.
  • Starkly, US citizens have become less happy with each passing decade since 1900, whereas in Europe, happiness declined until 1950 and has been increasing steadily ever since
  • Women are at their least happy at 38.6 years on average; males hit low point at 52.9 years
  • Apes, like humans, may also suffer from midlife melancholy – that’s according to a study of 508 apes in which their human care-givers assessed their well-being

In good news, Dear Reader, in just a year we can start feeling happy again.

And so the world turns again, and so do we.

Posted: October 7, 2014 in Popular Culture et al, Religion
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Change is the only constant - Heraclitus.

Change is the only constant – Heraclitus.
Photo: Lincoln Harrison photographs star trails taken over 15 hours in Bendigo, Australia at scenic Lake Eppalock.

 

As we age, the brain plays curious tricks on us. Time, for one thing, seems to speed up, although it does not, of course. It is merely that our own understanding of the mutability of life becomes more acute. Our awareness of change, and the relentless pace of change, intensifies as we age.

When we are young, we have a seemingly endless amount of time stretching ahead of us. But as we enter middle age, and then old age, it is clear that our time is inevitably limited. And apart from the ever more rapid recurrence of landmark annual events (Wimbledon, a particular horse race, Proms concerts, 4th of July: we always know it is early May by the arrival of the FA Cup Final, for example) what seems to mark the clicking of the shears most often and most obviously is the endless round of the seasons, rolling on regardless of what we seek to make of our small and insignificant lives, and amply demonstrated in the world around us.

Our gardens. The landscape. Change is constant. Inevitable, inexorable.

Last night, we had a fierce wind squall. Just one. It lasted no more than a minute, and was, in its way, rather alarming. The suddenness, the roaring noise, the feeling of an invisible and irresistible force battering at the plate glass doors which bowed and complained.

What was most dramatic, though, was the effect of the wind on the magnificent ornamental cherry tree just outside our front door. For a few weeks now it has been literally groaning with the most exquisite light pink and white blossom, as it does every year, lending us joy and a sense of wonder every time we walk by it or look out.

In the last few days, a few of those blossoms have been fluttering to the ground, their work done. The tree has been a mine for our local bees, who have been harvesting it for all they’re worth before disappearing back to wherever their hive is, but they have been fewer in recent days, and now the slightest gust of wind brings petals down on our heads. It is a little like a shower made of flowers.

Suddenly, the leaves break through.

Suddenly, the leaves break through.

When the squall hit in all its demanding force, the tree bent almost double, so we feared it might break. And in what seemed an instant, it released a waterfall of colour to the ground. After the wind Gods had passed on, it seemed suddenly somewhat denuded. Uncloaked. And in that instant, it seemed that soft and gentle Spring had come, and gone, and all that was left now was the aching, baking heat of summer. The ground looked like a hailstorm had passed, but the hail was flowers. It seemed terribly sad, and permanent, and like something was lost.

Goodbye until next year

Goodbye until next year

But that is only one way to view the event. Another way, entirely, is to celebrate the new look of the tree. Now one can perceive that it is newly dressed in bright green leaves that shimmer and shine in the morning sun, with their own pleasing beauty. Some blossoms still adhere to the tree, but now they drop pretty much constantly, eddying in the breezes.

But where each delicate flower falls now lives the possibility of a cherry, red and pretty and hopeful, like a young girl’s first experiment with lipstick.

And without the coming heat of summer, driving in on us now as it is with blind and careless certainty, no fruit would duly ripen on the tree. The gorgeous bird life that we are blessed with in all seasons would have nothing to squabble about as they flit from branch to branch just a yard or two from where we sip our cooling drinks, just as without the blossoms the bees would have nothing to do.

As far as nature is concerned, we are mere bystanders. Nature understands the cycle of change, the endless mutability, the replacing of one joy with another. And that’s the thing about change. Change is a way of remembering what was there before change occurred by sharpening our awareness of our life, making us more thoughtful, more “mindful”, in modern jargon. Change brings things into stark focus, as only loss can. But loss can be a beginning, not just an end.

Change is what we make it. We can either be confronted by it, or embrace it as unknowable, unavoidable, and inevitable. Seeking what comes after with the same enthusiasm with which we celebrated what went before. More than 2000 years ago, Socrates said “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.”

My mother, who was much taken with what she called her “little sayings”, often remarked, when change happened, that “It’s an ill-wind that blows no-one any good.”

The green leaves and the tiny cherries agree. Everything to its time, and then round we go again.

Pubic Hair. There, now that got your attention.

Posted: January 18, 2014 in Humour
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It's not just me, then ...

It’s not just me, then …

I was recently involved in the preparation of an advertising campaign which included the words “Public Transport”.

At the very last moment in the dispatch of over 80 newspaper ads, a member of staff spotted that the headline was actually written “Pubic Transport”. At least ten people had checked the ad before this point, including me. Yet more evidence, if evidence was needed, that the eye sees what it thinks its sees, and not what is really there.

I suppose we could have argued, if the eagle-eyed helper had not spotted it in time, that Public Transport is also Pubic Transport. But I doubt our client would have been mollified, even though they had checked it too. Anyway, nervous laughter all round and no harm done.

Meanwhile, one is given to musing about pubic hair. Or, hair generally. Billy Connolly once delivered a hilarious sketch wondering how pubic hair “knows how to stop growing”.  Why, he asked, did it not simply keep on growing, so eventually it would come out of the bottom of your jeans, and you could back comb it to waist height and tie it in a little bow?

The answer, apparently, is that some hair – armpits, pubic, arms, legs, eyebrows etc – is genetically programmed to stop growing at a certain point, and eventually fall out. This is not nearly as interesting as another answer I saw on Yahoo, which is that the pubic elves come at night and gather it, and if you wake in the morning and find an teensy-weenie little hat and boots lying forlornly on your bed, then you have rolled over in the night and squashed one of the poor little buggers going about their business.

None of which, Dear Reader, really explains to me the two great mysteries of human hair.

To wit, nose hair. And ear hair.

As always, Wikipedia is our friend.

Adult humans have hairs in the anterior nasal passage. Their function may be to keep insects and foreign particles from entering the nasal cavity.

Nasal hair, of course, should not be confused with cilia of the nasal cavity, which are the microscopic cellular strands that, unlike macroscopic nasal hair, draw mucus up toward the oropharynx via their coordinated, back-and-forth beating.

So there.

Meanwhile, ear hair is simply peculiar. Wikipedia for once falters and merely offers: Hair growth within the ear canal is often observed to increase in older men, together with increased growth of nose hair.[citation needed] Visible ear hair that protrudes from the ear canal is sometimes trimmed for cosmetic reasons.

Well, quite.

But that leaves us wondering what on earth the genetic cause of increased nasal and ear hair growth is in older men. Are older men somehow more likely to experience foreign bodies trying to get up their nose than younger men? And what earthly purpose does ear hair serve, other than instantly undoing the artifice of the mid-50s guy who tries to pretend to a younger woman in a bar that he is “just a tad over 40”?

About once a month, a single, long grey hair unrolls itself from just above my right earlobe. Screams of horror from Mrs Wellthisiswhatithink lead to an immediate and savage attack with the kitchen scissors to remove said offending strand.

What is it for, for heavens sake? How did growing ear hair in middle age help Homo Sapiens to win the race of life?

Is it to attract small fish? Sweep the air clean of pollutants as I pass? Make me more attractive to women “d’un certain age”? If so, Charlotte Rampling is yet to ring.

I think the people should be told. We rely on your ingenuity, in the Wellthisiswhatithink cohort, to tell us what ear hair is for.

Meanwhile, Iworldearhairbar_450x300ndian grocer Radhakant Baijpai was crowned the official Guinness world record holder for the longest ear hair back in 2003, when his aural fronds were an already-impressive 13.2cm long.

But that didn’t stop him pursuing his goal of ever-longer hair on his ears.

After several more years of carefully cultivating and caring for the ear-hair, Radhakant’s tufts now stretch an astonishing 25cm. He is now waiting for Guinness adjudicators to confirm that he has set a new high, hairy bar for his chosen field.

Radhakant, from Uttar Pradesh in northern India, acknowledges that his wife has, at times, wished that he would cut his ear hair off – but he says that she has agreed to let him keep it, as it is a source of pride.

His 25-year-old son is already displaying signs of growing similar ear-hair – although only time will tell if the son can eventually take the place of the father, standing triumphant atop the pinnacle of human ear-hair achievement.

Speaking personally, we will stick to the shears.

When “Happy Birthday” can be the most depressing words you can hear – our third guest blog, and it’s a doozy!

Posted: March 25, 2013 in Popular Culture et al, Religion
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As someone for whom the words “mid life crisis” have become a daily reality, I read this guest blog from Helen Downing nodding at the shared insights and whistling through my teeth at the apposite and blazingly honest way she encapsulates the middle years of our lives and the search for meaning, especially in the face of profound changes and grief.

I am very proud and grateful to publish her words … and I shall be buying the book! I recommend you read on.

Helen, or her protagonist, confronts a few age old issues.

Helen, or her protagonist, confronts a few age old issues.

Helen writes …

When I was very young, I remember my maternal grandmother telling me that my grandfather had such a hard time when he turned 35 that it became a bit of legend in the small town of Seaford, DE where they lived.

Everyone knew that “Pop-Pop” had just had a big birthday and his reaction to it was pretty foul. Pop-Pop was one of my most favorite people ever. I didn’t get to know him until he was much older, and to me he was bigger than life. Self-confident to the point of being a bit of a bastard, a caustic wit that some found to be borderline insulting but always had me rolling on the floor, and he was the only member of my immediate family who was a businessman instead of clergy. (My interest always lied in business. The clergy seemed entirely too full of poverty and humility for my taste.)

He was my hero, and the thought of him having a hard time turning a particular age was so foreign to me I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Now of course, I know. Each of us have a number in our head that will make us freak out when that number becomes our age. It probably lies between 30 and 50. But regardless, it’s somewhere in the middle. Once we reach “middle-aged” by whatever standard we’ve set, the words “Happy Birthday” becomes much more ominous, at least for that one year. Middle age is not for the weak of heart. In fact, middle age sucks.

My 40th year was the worst of my life. Not turning 40, that was fine in itself. But that year I found my self-esteem and identity truly tested.

It is not that my life, as every other person’s on the planet, did not have plenty of tragedy, trial, and tribulation, previously. I had failed relationships, sickness and death around me, a few times when I was so broke I considered selling blood for cigarette money, and lots of other things that just come with being a breathing entity on the planet.

But when things happened to me or around me, I would react based on who I thought I was, which had always been a strong, independent, intelligent woman who can talk her way through a keyhole and who could fall into a pile of shit and come up with an ice cream cone. That version of me could handle anything that comes down the pike.

Until I reached what I considered “middle-age”, I was invincible. In the year that I was 40 I had a bunch of firsts.

My daughter, who was my first-born and will always be my baby was grown up and moving out to live on her own.

I was laid off from the non-profit that I worked for due to a bad economy, and my husband of 10 years left me for another woman.

I had spent my entire career being the young executive who came in and opened up new revenue streams or developed innovative ideas to save money. Now I was the 40 year old who was put out to pasture.

In my 20s I was the ingénue who made married women nervous and hold on tight to their husbands. Now I was a 40 year old with mascara tears running down my face while knocking on my best friend’s door with an overnight bag and an old, old story.

My little girl, instead of being set free to experience the excitement of being on her own, was in fact being set adrift, all alone, while the foundation that was supposed to support her and be her safety net was crumbling behind her.

I wanted to bounce back. I wanted to be strong and independent and all of that stuff. I wanted to just overcome and be victorious. But my heart was shattered and my brain could not process what was happening to me. These things just didn’t happen to the version of me that I had built in my own head. And then my demons came out to play.

They sat on my bed at night and discussed my fate while I was lying there sleepless and sobbing. “Maybe she’s done” they’d say. “Maybe this is who she’s been all along. A loser, with no job and no prospects, unloved and alone.”  On top of that, I also felt horrible guilt, as though somehow all of this was not only warranted but deserved.  Maybe I was paying back all the bad karma I had incurred back when I thought that life was not preordained, and that I could be anything? As though dreaming of a greater destiny in my youth was somehow a sin? That is, of course, ridiculous. But guilt and regret became my constant companions.

Meanwhile, my mother who has been battling cancer off and on my entire life, had a relapse.

My father and I decided that I would come home to help him take care of Mom.

Back in the cone of unconditional love that I have enjoyed by having the parents I was blessed to receive, I began to heal. However, I also now had to face aging parents, one of whom had been deemed terminally ill. Now my life was filled with things like “living wills” and “pre-arranged funerals”.

So, fast forward. Several years have gone by now. My mom is still with us and some days I believe that she will outlive me. My children are happy and settled. I have a job that I love and I have renewed dreams and inspirations. Turns out that middle-age doesn’t suck as much as I originally thought.

However, this is what I think I’ve learned through this experience.

Being in the middle of life means literally being caught in between two very powerful influences.

Many of us are dealing with aging parents or parental figures. We also have children, whether they are our own or those of someone else that we feel close to. When we see those younger than us setting out to conquer the world, and making the same stupid mistakes we made, feeling the same sense of invincibility that youthful arrogance affords them, we begin to take stock of our lives. Even those who are ushered into their late 30’s to early 50’s with much less drama than I just described still take a moment to reflect on what they  could have done better or not done at all. Each of us have burdens of regret that we are forced to carry to the top of the proverbial hill right before we establish that we are “over” it.

Being “over the hill” also means that we now go to more funerals than weddings – we have to plan to lose those people that we consider grown-ups – and we have to prepare to become matriarchs and patriarchs of our family units. When you mix regret and death, you have a cocktail for an epic identity crisis that can result in anything from clinical depression to simply having a bummer birthday.

The good news is that mid-life hands us as many fabulous lessons as puberty does.

At this time, we get to experience forgiveness on a whole new level. Especially how to forgive ourselves.

We also learn to let go, letting go of the past, letting go of old dreams to make room for new ones, or actually letting go of people. Whether that means letting go of children who are now adults and will start their own adventures or letting go of those who brought us to this point and are now transitioning themselves.

We learn to see ourselves in many different roles. Many of us don’t find our groove professionally until we get to this age, as well as becoming grandparents, or being caregivers.

We start to realize that having 40 or so years under your belt can inspire all kinds of things like creative pursuits, an entrepreneurial spirit, or a renewed relationship to a higher power.

We deal with relationships differently, from the married couple now having to deal with empty nest syndrome learning to rekindle their romance, to single folks like me figuring out how to be happy with or without someone else. This is a time to take stock of our lives, but not with regret. Instead we should honor our past with tremendous reverence and gratitude. Then quietly unpack our baggage and leave it at the top of the hill.

That way, instead of trudging down the other side weighted with heavy hearts, we can spread our arms out wide and fly, soaring into our own old age with grace and beauty.

Taking this one on my hols with me …

I wrote “Awake In Hell”, a book about a middle-aged woman who dies and finds herself damned for eternity.

It uses humor, foul language, and a unique vision of Hell to illustrate how I felt about reaching mid-life.

When my protagonist finds herself in a temp agency along with its enigmatic staff, she discovers the most amazing thing – redemption.

I hope you enjoy the second half of your life as much as I am enjoying mine.

I hope that my story gives you something to think about, or comforts you, or at least makes you think “there but for the grace of God” – and I offer it to you with a renewed heart full of conviction and thankfulness.

Helen Downing

Author, Awake In Hell

Find my book here: http://amzn.to/WYOwYv

Find my blog here: http://bit.ly/124uGCR

Like me on Facebook here: http://on.fb.me/Xuf1MO

Follow me on Twitter here: @imtellinhelen

Middle Aged Texting

Posted: August 25, 2011 in Popular Culture et al
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BFF – Best friend fell.

Middle Aged Texting

And just when you thought you'd conquered the TV remote ...

TTYL – Talk to you louder?

BTW – Bring the wheelchair.

BYOT – Bring your own teeth.

FWIW – Forgot where I was.

GGPBL – Gotta go, pacemaker battery low.

DGHA – Damn, got heartburn again.

IMHO – Is my hearing-aid on?

LMDO – Laughing my dentures out.

OMMR – On my massage recliner.

ROFLACGU – Rolling on floor laughing and can’t get up.

With thanks to Richard Ember