Rounding the happiness curve and still smiling

MY NEW Old Self is on record as being a sucker for any claim that starts with the words “A new study shows…” I also confessed in a past column to being unduly compelled by scientific research confirming that something I like doing is actually good for me. Examples include studies headlined “Chocolate protects against memory loss” and “Red wine prevents Alzheimer’s disease”.

Some studies seem to confirm the intuitively obvious, while others challenge conventional wisdom. The latter fall into the category of Surprising Findings, like studies over the past decade describing a “U-shaped theory of Happiness and Ageing”. Study author Dr Hannes Schwandt explained this curve as “driven by unmet aspirations which are painfully felt in midlife but beneficially abandoned later in life”.

According to a confirming study in the Journal of Happiness Studies, the lowest point of the U is the age of 46. According to researchers, after this point happiness steadily increases as we get older.

However, studies also show no study is immutable. Research is dynamic and new studies can overturn past findings. This seems to be the case with the U-Shaped theory. It has recently been challenged by researchers at the University of California School of Medicine in San Diego.

“We did not find such a mid-life dip in well-being,” said senior author Dr Dilip Jeste, Professor of Psychiatry. “Participants reported that they felt better about themselves and their lives year upon year, decade after decade.”

According to this latest study on happiness and ageing, things will only get better over the years, mental health-wise. Forget the U, it’s one straight line heading upwards, for the rest of our lives. Older people evidenced better mental health than the youngest group in the study, even though older people were less physically and cognitively able.

Why is it that older people appear to be more happy and less stressed than younger people? The researchers offer no definitive explanation, proposing a wide range of potential reasons. There is mention of age bringing wisdom, and of older people scoring higher in the psychological measurement called Emotional Intelligence.

It could just be that older people may have learned not to sweat the small stuff. This view is backed up by brain studies showing that the amygdala in older people’s brains respond less to stressful or negative images than those in younger people. Or it could be because there is less stuff to sweat as career responsibilities and family obligations wane.

Another theory for the year-onyear increase in happiness is that as we age we recall fewer memories of bad experiences.

Is this psycho-speak for forgetfulness? If so, it’s a welcome up side to age-related memory loss.

Unfortunately, there seems a down side to this latest study, as it has some serious limitations. There is the intrinsic aspect of what is known as Survivor Bias. Less healthy adults – mentally as well as physically – tend not to survive into old age.

Another potential problem is that the study did not include people who had dementia, were terminally ill or lived in a care home. Published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the findings are based on interviews conducted by phone with people aged 18 to 85.

And where did they all live? In sunny San Diego, California. So this study not only excluded no one who was sick, but also none bummed out by endless grey skies. It would seem that several factors potentially contributing to unhappiness were thus eliminated. But hey, I’m no Happiologist.

I have other concerns, notably around the implications of this study for young people. The findings do give them a lot of happiness to look forward to in their later lives. But they need support through the emotional stresses of their less happy 20s and 30s. Especially since other studies indicate a recent trend towards worse mental health in young adults, who are experiencing more depression and anxiety than youth in the recent past.

“We need to understand mechanisms underlying better mental health in older age, in spite of more physical ailments,” said Jeste, who went on to offer this potential benefit to unhappy young people.

“That would help develop broadbased interventions to promote mental health in all age groups, including youth.”

Despite this study’s limitations, and its worrying implications for those too young to have joined the ever-upward happiness path, I’m going to put my faith in this new theory. I’m going to be a believer in incrementally increasing happiness, to the grave.

I do realise that some future study may overturn these latest findings. Even so, I may still benefit from the placebo effect. If I believe that science has proven that I will get ever happier, year after year, maybe I will.

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