us older kids are ok, too

Michael Merzenich is one of the major scientists behind the Brain Fitness Program.  From seeing him on public tv and looking at his picture, I infer that Karen is his daughter.  Regardless, I thought the blog post below was worth sending out.  I have a good friend who often says wise things.  She is older than I am and the other day, she said to me,"If you live long enough, there is nothing to worry about."  I am only beginning my 70's but I find that is true for me.  All of the regular readers of this blog are 50 or over or are planning to be.  The blog post below is from the Posit Science blog.

Life Gets Better After Age 50 (Really!)

By Karen Merzenich on May 24, 2010

Titling this post "Life Gets Better After Age 50″ is not just an observation I made or an anecdote I heard- it's the result of a recent study of global well-being and emotional states involving hundreds of thousands of Americans. The study confirmed that "people tend to be happier, less anxious, and less worried once they pass the half-century mark." Results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To get the data, researcher Arthur Stone of Stony Brook University enlisted the help of the Gallup Organization to create a survey that got responses from over 350,000 people throughout the U.S. He found that negative feelings, worry, anger, and stress decline with age and drop off after age 50. Men and women had similar profiles throughout the years. For a more in-depth read about the study, check out this article from ScienceNOW.

Reading about this study reminded me of a review I wrote recently on Barbara Strauch's new book The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind. The book, like this study, provides examples of the positive side of aging and reasons to rejoice about growing older, wiser, and happier.