London - If you are in your forties and finding life a bit miserable, you’re not the only one.
Happiness slumps for many people at this time in their lives, a major study has found.
The 40-something crisis happens as the stress and pressures of work and family reach a high point. But there’s light at the end of the tunnel – as happiness is U-shaped and we become gradually more content again in the years after the dip.
The study, from the University of Warwick, is the first to monitor happiness and wellbeing across a person’s life cycle.
The team tracked 50 000 adults in Britain, Germany and Australia throughout their lives. They asked them to fill in life-satisfaction questionnaires at various stages, in which they had to rate how happy they were with their lives on a scale, where zero was very dissatisfied and ten was very satisfied.
The researchers – economists Andrew Oswald, Terence Cheng and Nick Powdthavee – said many people became very dissatisfied during their forties, with happiness levels hitting the lowest point between the ages of 40 and 42.
People then became gradually happier again until they were 70 – although after this age happiness levels tended to drop again. Phillip Hodson, a psychotherapist and patron of the West London Centre for Counselling, said the study confirms that the mid-life crisis exists.
He told the Observer: “Childhood and old age are protected times of life to a degree. In old age you are funded or you have funded it. It’s the same for a child. You are looked after at both ends of life and your responsibilities are fewer.
“The burdens of life fall on the middle-aged. You are looking after your children, your parents, yourselves. You are working as you will probably never work again in older age and probably harder than you did when you were younger.
“You are also having to be on call a lot, time wise, so your days are long and your purse is stretched. This is almost universally the case, regardless of whether you live in Venezuela or England.”
Another study earlier this year found that a sudden new interest in trendy pop music was a sign of a mid-life crisis as people desperately tried to reconnect with their youth.
The US researchers analysed the tastes of millions of users of online music service Spotify, and found that as listeners age they seem to “mature” and their taste in music stabilises.
But they noticed a blip at the age of 42, when many veered towards popular contemporary stars such as Taylor Swift, 25, and Ed Sheeran, 24.
But at the age of 45, listeners returned to their more sophisticated tastes.
Daily Mail