Age is just a number?

Age is just a number?

Imagine for a moment that you do not have a birth certificate and your age is based on how you feel.

How many years would you give yourself?

Like your height or shoe size, the number of years that have elapsed since you were born is invariable. But experience tells us that ageing affects us differently, and many people feel older or younger than they really are.

Scientists are increasingly interested in this phenomenon. In their opinion, your "subjective age" may be necessary to understand why some people are benefiting from years of age and others fade with age. "How younger older people feel can dictate important everyday or life decisions about what they will do next," said Brian Nosek of the University of Virginia.

The importance of subjective age does not end there. Various studies have even shown that your subjective age can also predetermine various important health consequences, including the risk of death. In Feeling, you old as you feel.

Given these intriguing results, many scientists are trying to understand the biological, psychological, and social factors that shape individual experiences of aging - and how this knowledge can help us live longer and healthier lives.

This understanding of the ageing process is not new. Early research appeared in the 70s and 80s. The stream of initial interest has become a stream. A large number of new studies over the past 10 years have focused on the potential psychological and physiological consequences of this divergence.

There is now a belief that people tend to settle down as they grow older, becoming less extroverted and less open

for new impressions - these personality changes are less pronounced in people, young souls and more accentuated in people whose subjective age exceeds chronological.

Interestingly, however, people who feel younger than they really are also more conscious and less prone to nervousness - these are positive changes that come with normal aging. Thus, they still acquire wisdom that comes with life experience, but not at the cost of energy and youthful zeal. We cannot say that a small subjective age freezes us in a state of constant immaturity.

Emotional youth, moreover, is associated with less risk of depression and greater mental wellbeing in old age. It is also associated with better physical health, including reducing the risk of dementia and the likelihood of hospitalization due to illness.

Yannick Stefan of the University of Montpellier studied three multi-year studies, which together tracked more than 17,000 middle-aged and elderly participants. Most felt eight years younger than their actual age. But some felt that they were getting older - and the consequences were serious. Self-confidence 8-13 years older than the actual age resulted in an 18%-80% increase in the risk of dying during the study period and an increase in the duration of the disease - even if other demographic factors, including education, race or marital status, were taken into account.

This can be a direct result of the personal changes that accompany the "youth of the soul", meaning that over the years you will not stop doing what you love to do (such as traveling or learning a new hobby).