Middle-age understanding

Middle age tends to get a bad name. Historically, the “Middle Ages” are regarded as a time of semi-barbarity following the enlightenment of antiquity and prior to the flowering of the renaissance. Similarly in an individual human life middle age sits between the burning fire of youth and the mellow glow of old age. Thankfully though, a new study has shown that human middle age is not without its benefits.

Much past research has shown that while young adults are carefree and full of hope for the future and the over-60s have come to terms with the trials of life, sandwiched in between the middle-aged feel weighed down by the demands on them. Parental responsibilities, occupational demands, burgeoning hair growth where hair should never burgeon, and bodily sagging and bagging of middle age all add up to what psychologists call the “U-shaped” nature of happiness. That is, happiness is high in the 20s, dips in the middle years, and then begins to grow from the late 50s or early 60s into old age. It does not of course have to be this way. There is a lot to recommend about middle age and now a new study has found that, for example, in middle age your capacity to empathise peaks.

The new study looked at data on more than 75,000 adults and found that unlike happiness, the capacity for empathy has an inverted “U-shape”. That is, middle-aged people are more able than younger or older people to react emotionally to the experience of others and are also more likely to try to understand how things look from the perspective of others.

It might be that the “cohort” of people born in the 1950s and 1960s have come through times that dispose them to be more empathetic to others. Even if that is the case though, it shows that middle age does not have to be a total wasteland of the human experience. Like so much else, it is what you make it and there is lots of treasure to be found in those middle years if you care to look.