- Researchers say older adults who “feel younger” tend to be in better health and live longer.
- Experts say feeling younger includes energy for recreation, fitness activities, and creativity.
- They say you can feel younger by taking time to meditate, laugh, and learn new topics.
You can fight the damaging effects of stress simply by feeling younger.
That’s according to a new study published by the American Psychological Association in the journal Psychology and Aging.
Researchers from the German Centre of Gerontology analyzed 3 years of data from 5,039 participants over 40 years old in the German Ageing Survey.
They questioned people on their perceived relationship to stress and their overall feelings of health or feelings of well-being.
Subjective age, or how old the participants felt, provided some sort of protective effect against stress.
Participants who reported more stress in their lives experienced a steeper decline in functional health over 3 years. This relationship was stronger for chronologically older participants.
Feeling younger than their chronological age was associated with a weaker link between stress and functional health. The benefits of this were seen to increase with participant age, too.
In other words, feeling more youthful than you are helps buffer the effects of stress. This can play a role in maintaining your overall health as you age.
Source: healthline