By Julie E 
Photo Credit ( Greety image )
Washington, D.C. People who feel younger are happier, smarter, have less inflammation, are less likely to end up in the hospital, and even live longer than their peers who feel older. A study from the American Psychological Association offers one possible reason for the link between how old you feel and your health: Middle-aged and older people might be able to handle the negative effects of worry better if they feel younger.
Researchers from the German Center of Gerontology looked at three years’ worth of data from 5,039 people who took part in the German Ageing poll, a longitudinal poll of Germans aged 40 and up. The study was published in Psychology and Aging®. People were asked about how much stress they thought they were under and how much it affected their ability to do normal things like walking, getting dressed, and bathing. People also said how old they thought they were by answering the question “How old do you feel?”
The researchers found that over three years, people whose lives were more stressful had a steeper drop in their functional health. This link between stress and functional health decline was stronger for people who were older.
However, subjective age seemed to act as a safety net. For people who felt younger than their actual age, the link between worry and worsening health was not as strong. The oldest subjects were most protected by that effect.
“In general, we know that functional health gets worse with age, but we also know that the paths that these declines take are very different.” Because of this, some people enter old age and very old age with pretty good and intact health resources, while others have a big drop in their functional health, which could even mean they need long-term care, according to Markus Wettstein, PhD, who led the study and is now at the University of Heidelberg. “Our results support the idea that stress can lead to a loss of functional health, especially in older people, and that a younger perceived age can help with health and reduce stress.”
According to the researchers, interventions that try to make people feel younger might help older people deal with stress better and be healthier. However, more research is needed to help figure out what kinds of interventions would work best. Wettstein said that efforts to fight ageism and negative age stereotypes and to promote positive views on getting older could help people feel younger. Wettstein also says that more general interventions to reduce stress and training in how to deal with stress could keep older people from losing their ability to do things.
Wettstein says that more research is needed to find the best gap between a person’s perceived age and their actual age. This is because past research has shown that feeling younger is beneficial for a while, but the benefits decline as the gap between perceived age and actual age grows. “Feeling a little younger might be good for your health in some ways, while ‘feeling too young’ might be less helpful or even harmful,” he said.