"... would feel like they were 50 years old, or about 17 percent younger.... Researchers are not sure what is causing the trend of feeling younger.
One reason could be that a younger subjective age reflects having more resources than stress.... There could also be a less positive possible explanation for this recent shift toward a more youthful state of mind: Ageism. People could be feeling younger because 'they don’t want to belong to the group of older adults... a kind of psychological distancing oneself from the older adults.'... Women reported feeling younger than men of the same age.... People with more education had younger subjective ages.... A study found that if you make adults feel sad, by giving them sad readings or music, they feel older afterward.... Participants who felt older and held more ageist attitudes were more likely to have depressive symptoms on a day-to-day basis...."
I was 14 when I first heard that, but I feel like I'm 54 now. I'm 72.
Anyway... I'd just like to say that you know what age you are. And you know how you feel. Rationally, you ought to think the age that you are feels like the age that you are. What better evidence do I have of how 72 feels than how I myself feel? Whence this notion of the inner life of other 72-year-olds — this faceless crowd, averaged out? How absurd and unseemly to imagine their sad decline — compared to me, the ever-young, full of life me! Actually, I myself don't have such absurd and unseemly imaginings. I was just imagining some other 72-year-old who is embarrassingly un-self-aware and vain.
Posts
59 comments:
And, Ann, you look like 54.
I'm nearly our host's age, and I too felt 50ish until I was talked into going to my 50th high school reunion--the first and only reunion I'd been to, having hated high school. I kept wondering who all these alter kokers were.
Toby Keith, country western singer, put it thusly:
I ain't as good as I once was.
I got a few years on me now.
But there was a time, back in my prime
When I could really lay it down.
If you need some love tonight
Then I might have just enough.
I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once
As I ever was.
My father, a former Merchant Marine in WWII, in his old age after performing almost any feat of physical activity, would hold up his hand, and declare, "each finger, a marlinspike!"
My grandfather, a retired former steel mill worker, would work in his garden moving yards and yards of dirt before noon and say, "You always gotta earn your lunch."
There are various ways of saying the same thing, really.
61 today, feel mid-30s.
It's social media. I can interact with people while anonymous. When I step out into the real world, my physical being indicates my age. Online, my avatar indicates nothing. I am treated according to my words and voice with no visual reference. And I am interacting with a broad spectrum of ages. Their youthful style -- something earlier generations were gatekept out of -- is all around me.
If you have your health you have it all. Thanks to modern medicine women who eat right and exercise daily remain active and beautiful into their seventies. Meanwhile men lose their testosterone and their hair …
You probably feel to be the age which your physical and mental fitness characteristics match in the average population. If you feel like you are 54 when you are 72, it probably means that your physical and mental capabilities are a close match for the average 54 year-old. So, I think there is probably a causality problem with some of this article- you feel younger because, physically, you are younger than average.
An older person the age of a younger person.
I also think something benchmarks us in our brains. Famous people who were older than me back in the day, who were younger than me now, still look older to me.
Take Robert Young, the father in Father Knows Best: he was 42 to 48 when the series aired. Or any of the Rat Pack back in their 40s and 50s, etc. Even now, looking back at them then, they all still seem older to me.
Maybe it's some evolutionary quirk within us that recognizes seniority in the group, and forever marks an icon as "older" in the eyes of the next generation?
Even now despite us now having access to images of them throughout their lives, they still tend to look older.
Or it could fashion, styles or even smoking.
Err, or my immature Peter Pan "I won't grow up" mentality.
i've noticed; from first watching my grandmother.. Then my mother..
that THE FIRST THING TO SLIP as you age; is the ability to realize that you are slipping. My mom is now 91 years old; she is still sharp as a tack.. Just Ask HER.
Of course, she's not too clear on SOME things, everyone has "senior moments" (several times a day).
She is still COMPLETELY healthy and mobile (Just Ask HER), of course, she uses the elevator now instead of the stairs, and walks with a cane; but she still exercises everyday (of course, Now the exercises consist of stretching and 5 minutes on a treadmill. But HEY! she's JUST AS SPRY AS EVER!
I don't think this is a new thing; i just think the new old people are pretending THEY are DIFFERENT.
Ask a 72 year old how old they are; Now ask an independent observer how old that 72 year old is.
for FUN! start telling people that you're 10 years older than you are..
Then, listen to them when they say; "Oh you don't look much older than..."
I think that modern medicine is to blame -- and I mean blame. It has become increasingly normal and expected that your health will deteriorate as you age, but that medical intervention -- especially through drugs such as statins and insulin -- will keep you functioning. So, whereas in the past you would look around and see that other people your age were much more physically fit that you were, today that is not the case. And then there are all the people much younger than you who are either just as unhealthy or well on the road to requiring medical intervention.
"Scientists" struggling mightily to find some evidence that how you "feel" has anything to do with the real world. Just another attempt to privilege gnostic mind/body dualities as being rooted in the material world rather than being completely subjective and able to be dismissed by others with a "different" reality.
When I was in my late 20's I interviewed a woman that was in her 70's.She had left her rural Missouri home in her 20's and had gone to New York City and was a dancer. She had returned to her rural area for retirement. During the conversation she told me that she didn't feel any different than she did when in her 20's. What a strange thing for an old woman to say, thought I. Now that I am 73, I know exactly what she was talking about! I would also use the 54 number because I know my stamina is not what it was in my 20's.
Just got back from a 12 mile bike ride and a 2 mile swim. Listened to Pete Townsend stuttering through "I hope I die before I get old." Then read this. :-)
I'm 64.
How old you say you feel says as much about how you think someone your age should feel as it does how old you feel. I’m 56. I couldn’t tell you how old I feel. I feel pretty good, but am unhappy about how much work it takes to feel good vs. how little work it took 10 or 20 or 30 years ago.
I feel sue you can identify as any age you like.
If someone feels like 40 when their chronological age is 60, then they need to broaden their perception of what 60 feels like.
It is a very weird thing. I'm turning 63 in a few weeks, and I don't "feel" any different than I have for the last twenty years. Part of it's health (knock on wood), and for me, part of it is the fact that I had my youngest kid at 44, so I was doing the Kindergarten thing (again) when I was 50, with fellow parents who were the age of my oldest at the time. Most of my school parent friends are about ten years younger than I am.
It's just strange.
"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are." My refrigerator magnet attributes that the ageless baseball great Satchel Paige.
I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.
I was so much older then I'm younger than that now.
John lgb Henry
Imus long ago said he was 66 years old but read at a 68 year old level.
Today's WSJ:
My Father’s Child Is Turning 65
I’ve almost reached the age at which he died, and I don’t feel as if I’ve gotten old.
By Jim Sollisch
June 15, 2023 6:25 pm ET
* Pete Townshend
And more Dylan: "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."
Amy Welborn said... "I'm turning 63 in a few weeks"
As am I in a couple of months. Hooray for us 1960 babies.... the literal "children of the Sixties." Last year I attended my 40th college reunion. Some folks looked great; some looked much older than I would have expected. Did they feel younger than they looked? I generally always have, but I also look younger than 62. Attitude plays a big part, but I think it's mostly just genetics.
I'm starting to feel my age (68) only due to physical pains and the inability to perform physical tasks to the extent I did maybe 10 years ago.
I drank alcoholically for 22 years. They "say" you don't mature mentally during your drinking days. So, in my mind, I think I am 46. Having relationships with only young women has helped "keep me young". I give that activity maybe two more years.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
As someone who does ancestral research as a hobby, I am impressed with women's ability to delay aging. The government take the census every 10 years, but it's common to find women who have only aged 8,7, or even 6 years in that span.
The record holder (so far) is a woman in her early 70s who married at 50ish year old man. She told him she was two years younger than him. He was the informant on her death certificate, which listed her birth year as 26 years later than the actual year.
I went to a 99th birthday party for an elderly relative who lives in an elder care facility. One of her great grandchildren asked her if she felt old. So said no; maybe when she turns 100 she might, though.
I just said 54 because it's the number in the Dylan song. The truth is I feel like I'm 45.
Conversely, most 17-20 year-olds seem to feel like they are 50, at least experience-wise and knowledge-wise, and that we should be bowing to their every edict.
Your feelz age is the the age you feel. Your behavioral age must be moderated with the truth that the leading cause of death and injury in old men is thinking they are young men.
Of course, competing directly with younger people will make you feel old. A couple months ago, a tree fell across my drive. I limbed a lot of it, taking breaks. My cousin's 23yr old son came up and bucked it with ease. In comparison, my 60 years were apparent.
Otherwise it is just worrying about the opinion of others, which hopefully you've learned to ignore.
There is how you feel physically and how you feel mentally/emotionally.
Having had some medical issues, there are days that I physically feel like an old man of 85. There are other days when I physically feel 35-40.
Simultaneously, I usually have the mentality/maturity level of early 30s.
On a related note, the perception of time is distorted by the culture.
We can hear a song or see a movie today and cannot believe that either is 40 years old. There are still a lot of cultural similarities with the 1980s (or so it seems) than there were similarities with the 1940s during the 80s.
According to my Garmin app, my fitness age is 20! Not too bad for my chronological age of 69.
When I was a kid I was told to grow up and take some responsibility. When I was college age I was told to grow up, quit acting like a kid, get responsible. When I got into the professional world, I was told I joked too much, which prevented me from being taken seriously in the corporate world. So I left the corporate world and did my own thing in middle age at which time I noted that my peers- those the same age range as I, sure seemed like older men and women. Now I'm two years into retirement and will turn 70 on my next birthday. I'm told I look 20 years younger than my age, but honestly, when I look in the mirror sometimes I see my dad in his later years. Right now I'm recovering from elective knee surgery so that my torn meniscus will allow me to play tennis and pickleball again. I feel great. I've always felt young and and will continue to do so until my cells say it's time to allow us to rest.
I think it's all in the attitude and the genes. I got lucky on both.
Meade:
What's your effective age? Over or under 45?
I am a 67 yr old woman, in good shape - run, bike, hike. I am slim and take care of my skin. I was at a party last week and met several people that were my age and felt shocked that we were the same age — they looked extremely old to me, out of shape, overweight, etc. I feel much younger than my 67 yrs, - best guess is mid 50’s - but am just coming off my first knee injury and recovery is taking much longer than when I was younger 😉. But I am back to running and biking and the knee feels pretty good.
I really think a lot of it is overall health. If there are health issues like diabetes, heart, muscular, or obesity - then 67 yr olds look old.
FYI - I had breast cancer on my right side at 50 (mastectomy, Chemo and radiation) and a different breast cancer on my left at 63 (mastectomy and chemo) and still consider myself in excellent health.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, I looked a lot older than I was when I was young, and often now find myself passing as younger than I am (70 a month ago). OTOH my wife has been mistaken for much younger than I though there's only 15 months difference.
As any old married guy will tell you, you're only as young as she feels at the moment.
I'm 66, retired for three years and have spent been spending this spring chopping down mature hardwood trees (with a hand saw and ax) and digging a large pond. Will be painting the garage in August with no assistance from any power tools. My doctor marvels. And how old do I feel? Sixty-six. Right on the nose.
Someday, something's gonna kill me. And I'm fine with that. I took the road less traveled by and can honestly say, what a hoot!
At my age I know scores of people who have died, and not a one of them has ever come back to complain about it. So how bad can it be?
When we take seriously people's self-reports of how old they feel, or when we ask ourselves, "How old do I feel like I am", we are saying that there's an internal reality that matters, regardless of the competing reality of our calendar age. In fact, this internal reality has its own objective reality -- it's a pretty strong indicator of how old we really are, in a meaningful way that impacts our health, etc. The apparent ability of people to quickly say, when asked how old they feel like they are, numbers like 68 or 45 or 57, suggests that this internal perception of age-iness is relevant, material and somewhat real.
What other strong internal perceptions do people have that don't match up with a competing reality about that person?
Billy Kristol had a contrary view about aging.
As he put it once on SNLyears ago:
"It's not how you feel, it's how you look."
I am 86 and I was born in 1936. My mind feels 45 but my body does not cooperate. My husband will be 88 next week. Every time we go to the grocery store and see all the old people, we realize some are probably 15-20 years younger than us. We are in a town with a lot of retirees and winter Texans. If they are still driving those big trucks and pulling those giant fifth wheels they are probably still younger than us. I have a 72 year old brother in law who acts older than we do. He looks it too.
I have a twin, I would swear she is now 5-10 years younger than me. We both like doing crazy things, always have, always will. My husband fears when the twins get together, he knows we don't think old. That is the key, no matter what your body does to you, don't think old. Or as a noted actor said, "don't let the old man in."
""Scientists" struggling mightily to find some evidence that how you "feel" has anything to do with the real world. Just another attempt to privilege gnostic mind/body dualities as being rooted in the material world rather than being completely subjective and able to be dismissed by others with a "different" reality."
That's worth repeating. Who cares if a 90 year old feels like she is 20 if she dies at 90.5. Great for her if she thinks it is helping her to believe so.
I knew an old Italian lady on Taylor St. in Chicago who was very old, she acted like a child, is that good?
Gloria Swanson was 50 years old when she starred in Sunset Boulevard (1950) as a washed up, long discarded starlet. And Jane Fonda is 85 going on 55 or so.
I'm 73 and prior to my knees giving out and cancer within the last 3 years I could lie about my age but I no long do volunteer work on hiking trails or home repair for storm victims. Now women give up their seats for me on trains. And I reluctantly accept.
I don't know how I could be specific about how old I feel, but I feel younger than my 67 years. I feel like I'm the pretty much the same "me" I was in my 20s and 30s, etc. (I remember my father telling me pretty much the same thing about himself when he was in his late 50s/early 60s.) When I see photos of me today, I'm shocked each time, as the face in the photo is not the face I think I still have, and not even the face I see in the mirror.
I guess the one thing that one might consider when determining how old one "feels" is one's physical condition. I'm healthy, but I'm not as limber as I was once, and I wear hearing aids.(But...young people wear hearing aids! I'm sure my hearing loss is a result of decades of playing rock music LOUD through ear phones.)
After a few years' layoff, I'm back to yoga classes and working out, as well as bicycling in good weather. (New Yorkers walk a lot every day, which is not true in the 'burbs, where one must hop in the car just to run to the market. No longer a New Yorker, my daily walking is dramatically reduced.)
So, let's say I feel "45," or "40."
Is this a test you take sitting down or do you have to stand up?
I turned 72 earlier this year. Whatever I feel like is what 72 feels like. I can't say I feel like I'm 54, or 45, because I remember what that age felt like at the time and I don't feel or look like that now. As you age the point isn't to look younger but to look fit and active and being fit and active is the best way to look fit and active.
I'm 75+ but when with guys my age doing what guys do, I sometimes feel/act like a teenager. It's great.
I know we've only known each other four weeks and three days, but to me it seems like nine weeks and five days. The first day seemed like a week and the second day seemed like five days and the third day seemed like a week again and the fourth day seemed like eight days and the fifth day you went to see your mother and that seemed just like a day and then you came back and later on the sixth day, in the evening, when we saw each other, that started seeming like two days, so in the evening it seemed like two days spilling over into the next day and that started seeming like four days, so at the end of the sixth day on into the seventh day, it seemed like a total of five days. And the sixth day seemed like a week and a half. I have it written down, but I can show it to you tomorrow if you want to see it. Anyway, I've decided that tomorrow, when the time is right, I'm going to ask you to marry me, if that's o.k. with you. Just don't say anything.
(no answer)
You've made me very happy.
Ann Althouse said...
I just said 54 because it's the number in the Dylan song. The truth is I feel like I'm 45.
Perfect. I feel like I’m 76. Half my age + 7 = 45, your felt age. Any younger and I’d feel like I’m some kind of Humbert Humbert cradle robber and that would feel… so wrong.
Chronological age and biological age are different for everyone. And there are tells aside from how you feel. I have a picture of my maternal grandparents posing with my newborn older sister and my mother. A color picture no less, late 1953. Grandmother was 58, grandfather 62. I just turned 68, sharing Donald Trump’s birthday and my wife is 65. If you look at a picture of us today, not 8 years ago, today, it’s rather obvious we’re at least a decade younger. But we aren’t. I was in FL a few weeks back and went bodysurfing. I guarantee none of my wife’s or my parents or grandparents were doing that at our age. About 3-4 years back in CO went overnight camping on Mount Herman overlooking USAFA hiking up to the campsite on trail that climbed from 8000 to 9000 feet. A day after arriving there from sea level. To be totally honest many people my chronological age today couldn’t do that.
Part of it’s lifestyle, part genetics. My wife and I have never smoked or used unlawful drugs or abused legal ones. Many people my age are on supplemental oxygen for COPD because they ignored the knowledge that all that was bad for them. Maybe they didn’t expect to live this long….
I can’t tell you how old I feel- because I feel like this at age 68, so, IMHO, this is how I should feel at this age. I know for a fact I’m healthier than most my age. If for no other reason then my doctors actually tell me that.
Someday death will find me. I fully intend to be as healthy as possible on that day so it catches me totally by surprise. Don’t want any of this lingering crap and slow decay I’ve recently seen others my age succumb to.
I am 71 years old. My body feels 50 but my mind feels 25.
Althouse: "I was just imagining some other 72-year-old who is embarrassingly un-self-aware and vain."
So, you DON"T think this song is about you?
Reminds me of toilet paper rolls - 4 rolls but "really" the equivalent of 12.
Close to what someone else posted:
"You're only as old as the girls you feel."
My dad hated being called "Pops" or "old man" by strangers. One time he was at Walgreens picking up some beer for a get together later that day when a young man tried to butt in line directly in front of him. My dad bumped the kid right out of line. The kid, chagrined, said something like "hey, pops, what's the deal?" Former prizefighter, he got up in that young man's face and threatened him with a question somewhat like "How'd you like this six pack of beer shoved up your ass?"
It doesn't bother me at all to be old or called old and I have adopted "TheOldMan" as a screenname on several sites. To pretend that I am not old is silly.
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
"Chronological age and biological age are different for everyone."
Very true. I'm 71 and feel pretty good. Most days.
I recall 70+ year olds when I was young. Rocking chairs all around.
75 & feel 21 most of the time, until I look in the bathroom mirror in the morning & wonder who the fuck let that old man in there.
At 75 with NO gray hair, (Just a weird gene I guess) I worry about looking like that sad old guy with jet black hair in West Palm with a gold chain, bikini babe, & a thunder boat.
Don't be a jerk, Kevin.
"Feel" is subjective. As such, you cannot make worthwhile comparisons with it. Same for "happy", "angry", etc.
Post a Comment