Marianne Schaefer Trench - The Cliché Is True: You Really Are as Young as You Feel
Aging, it turns out,
is nothing but a cosmic mistake. Why? Because if you feel you are younger than
your chronological age, then you actually are. And there’s a flood of new
science to prove it.
One study from the
University of Virginia states that at least 70 percent of more than 30,000
subjects reported to feel significantly younger than their chronological age - a
divergence so drastic that the scientists invoked
the red planet: “Past age 25 or so, subjective aging appears to occur on
Mars, where one Earth decade equals only 5.3 Martian years.”
The discrepancy
becomes more pronounced the older we get. We look at our chronological age and
know with absolute certainty that we’re not there yet. This cosmic wrongness
causes ennui every time a birthday comes around. Friends offer platitudes -“Age
is just a number”- that turn out to be the truth. We do suffer from a mass
delusion. And it happens to be beneficial for us.
After analyzing the
mental and physical health of test subjects who feel younger than their
chronological age, scientists are in agreement that our chronological age is
irrelevant and our subjective age is what matters. Our subjective age is not
how old we wish to be, but how old we feel. It is a multidimensional construct
marked by one or more of the following indicators: felt age; biological age
(looks and physical health); societal age (how we act and what we do); and
intellectual age (interests and pursuits). Consider yourself lucky if you feel
young, look young, participate in youthful activities and have the curiosity of
a child - because those are the indicators for how old you really are.
Feeling younger has
many benefits. According to an article in
the Journal of Personality by researchers from Florida State
University and Montpelier University, it makes us into better people because it
fosters “openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness.” It makes us healthier
because it corresponds directly to fewer chronic conditions such as
hypertension, diabetes, and depression. It makes us stronger and yields greater
benefits from fitness regimens. The next time you think Cher might be just
another lifted-to-the-limit, wrinkle-free septuagenarian freak, keep in mind
that she claims to have a rigorous fitness routine and is able
to hold a plank for five minutes.
Arguably the greatest
benefit of a younger subjective age is how it affects the aging of the brain.
When MRI scans were used to predict chronological age, it turned out that brain aging is
much more closely related to the subjective age than the chronological age, and
it’s an important marker for mental and cognitive health… read more:
