How old you feel has an influence on how long you will live.

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

Attributed to Mark Twain, this little nugget of wisdom has been turned into many inspirational internet memes. 

But according to a growing body of research, there is more to it than that. Subjective age – how old we feel – has a very real impact on health and longevity. People who feel younger than their years often actually are, in terms of how long they have left to live.

The question of what controls how old we feel and whether we can change it, would seem tricky to address with a scientific approach. But, research is revealing some surprising answers. 

The good news is, many of the factors that help determine how old we feel are things that we can control to add years to our lives – and life to our years.

Scientists can measure various markers in the body to see how far along the physical ageing process we are, but we also know that physical ageing is not everything. 

Gerontologists recognise we can make generalisations about the ways physical ageing affects our bodies – a 60-year-old will usually show more signs of physical decline than a 30-year-old – but there are also predictable psychological changes that come with age.

In the late 1990s, gerontologist Laura Carstensen measured how human psychology typically changes as we age. Her work, published by the American Psychological Association at the time, showed young people, for whom time seems unlimited, are motivated to explore and make new connections. 

As a result, they tend to be more enthusiastic, outward-looking and sociable than their parents and grandparents, but also more impulsive and emotionally fragile.

Older people, feeling they have fewer years left to play with, turn away from exploring and concentrate on finding meaning, emotional intimacy and sharing the wisdom of their years.

Santa never seems to age - he’s obviously been reading the research.

Just a feeling?

We all know older people who are young at heart and young people who think and behave older than their years. 

Intriguingly though, further studies suggest being sociable and open to new experiences can keep you young at heart.

Having a lower subjective age is associated with better health and well-being, while people with a greater subjective age have higher levels of inflammation, a marker of general ill health.

Large-scale research in the US following over 17,000 people for up to 20 years, confirmed that subjective age isn’t just a feeling, but an accurate predictor of health. 

People who feel younger tend to live longer. 

So you can get a rough idea of your longevity by figuring out your subjective age. The trouble is, it’s not as simple as just deciding how old you feel.  

Happiness levels vary greatly from day to day and even hour to hour, but an individual’s happiness does tend to fluctuate around a baseline. A generally cheerful person can have bad days, but will always gravitate back towards this happy medium.

So, researchers looked to Artificial Intelligence (AI) to spot patterns in large data sets and determine an accurate baseline subjective age, despite our natural fluctuations. 

Although the biggest influence on subjective age is health, they found evidence that a positive attitude is more strongly associated with long life than any biomarker. 

What else they found was also interesting.

One of the top influential factors in people’s subjective age is how satisfying they expect their sex life to be in 10 years’ time. The effort they put into their current sex life is just as important.

Other contributions to subjective age aren’t obviously connected to youth at all. One of the top 25, for example, is how much people feel they contribute to the well-being of others.

Ultimately, say researchers, the goal is to turn these findings into lifestyle advice to help people feel more youthful and even live longer. The analysis showed that a 60-year-old with a subjective age of 65 is twice as likely as a 60-year-old with a subjective age of 60 to die from any cause at any given age in the future.

Higher subjective age doubles your mortality risk. Yet simple lifestyle changes can lower our subjective age.

Older, wiser, sexier?

These results resonate with research conducted on centenarians, showing the one thing they have in common is an optimistic and gregarious nature. Remember Tom Moore, who raised millions in the UK by walking for charity at the age of 100?

Others may want to focus their energies closer to home. 

A satisfying sexual life correlates to feeling psychologically younger. Investment in closer relationships can improve your well-being.

Feeling valued, and valuable is also important - taking opportunities to help others.

If answering 1000 questions to find out your subjective age doesn’t sound like you, the good news is you don’t have to. Researchers have whittled the questionnaire down to just 15 questions and created a website where anybody can get an estimate of their subjective age. If you’re keen, we’ve provided the link below.

 I did it and discovered that I feel younger than my age.

Aging isn’t all bad. If living to a ripe old age requires more friendship, better sex, new experiences, and contributing to the well-being of others, count me in. 

40 again, here I come!

Click here if you want to estimate your psychological age. 

Click here for health and well-being information HealthlWellbeing

Images Unsplash