{"id":1090,"date":"2018-09-10T16:49:52","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T15:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebodymatters.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2021-12-08T13:43:41","modified_gmt":"2021-12-08T13:43:41","slug":"midlife-malaise-and-reboot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebodymatters.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/09\/midlife-malaise-and-reboot\/","title":{"rendered":"Midlife Malaise \u2013 and Reboot!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Rauch\u2019s book \u2018The Happiness curve\u2019 is an excellent study of midlife \u2013 a time which is often characterised by clich\u00e9s of red open-top sports cars and motorbikes! \u2018The Ladybird book of mid-life crisis\u2019 has these clich\u00e9s and more: \u201cPhil does not regret leaving his wife, growing his hair and starting to wear cowboy boots\u201d for example. And there\u2019s more: \u201cPaul recently bought a shark-tooth necklace. Ray has spent the morning bidding on a leather biker jacket. Last night, Charlie Googled local triathlons\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rauch argues that the transition that people go through during midlife should be given the same importance and respect by society as given to adolescence. In fact, society\u2019s current response to midlife change is one of either medicalisation of symptoms – or mockery.<\/p>\n

The gist of the Happiness curve that Rauch identifies is that in our youth we (mostly) have an \u2018Optimism bias\u2019, in which we anticipate all the great things that the future holds. This tendency is hard-wired into us \u2013 without it, we wouldn\u2019t have the motivation to so much as get out of bed each morning. As youths then, realism is bad for us \u2013 \u201cHope keeps our minds at ease, lowers stress and improves physical health\u201d as one contributor to Rauch\u2019s book says. However, in our youth, we also over-estimate the happiness that our future life-successes will give us. The result is that over the following years (and decades!), we experience continuous disappointments \u2013 and the cumulative effect of this is to drag-down our level of life-satisfaction. This occurs even if our life has been more successful than we imagined in our youth. In fact, this negative effect on our enjoyment of life may be even more severe if we are highly successful. This is because we know that objectively we should be happier than we are \u2013 that, on the face of it, we have little to be unhappy about. \u2018Counting our blessings\u2019 then, may not make life feel better, but do the very opposite: we know we \u2018should\u2019 be happy, but we\u2019re not \u2013 making us even less happy!<\/p>\n

However, at the age of about 50, things change. Just when we have got used to disappointments \u2013 the \u201cdepressive realism of middle age\u201d, life gets more enjoyable than we imagined it would be. People\u2019s ratings of their happiness rise (we are now on the upward slope of the U-shaped happiness curve) \u2013 people\u2019s happiness is now greater each year than they anticipated.<\/p>\n

Contrary to stereotypes then, with age comes happiness. Older people are not depression-prone<\/a>. After 50, stress declines, as does regret, whilst regulation of emotions improves. One contributor to this book says that with age \u201cwe lose not our emotional sharpness, but our tendency to have our day ruined by annoyances and setbacks\u201d. How happy we feel our life to be, on a 1-10 scale, rises.<\/p>\n

Like the unrealistic optimism of youth, midlife transition or re-orientation may have evolutionary advantages, as we devote greater focus to supporting those around us \u2013 something that Rauch refers to at one point as \u2018the grandmother effect\u2019 \u2013 where older people\u2019s efforts support the children of their children.<\/p>\n

Whilst Rauch believes the Happiness curve to be hard-wired (and cites evidence that a similar tendency is experienced in apes), awareness of the curve can aid us, as can therapy and coaching, in getting through this period of our lives.<\/p>\n

To arrange a free 30-minute consultation to discuss how BWRT\u00ae<\/a>, hypnotherapy<\/a> or counselling<\/a> can help you to change your life for the better, contact Jonathan at The Body Matters on 01702 714968.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jonathan Rauch\u2019s book \u2018The Happiness curve\u2019 is an excellent study of midlife, a time characterised by clich\u00e9s of red open-top sports cars.<\/p>\n

Read more <\/em><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":1107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[210,14,272,133,257],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mindfulness","tag-body-and-mind","tag-depression","tag-midlife","tag-mind","tag-mindfulness"],"yoast_head":"\nMidlife Malaise \u2013 and Reboot! - The Body Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jonathan Rauch\u2019s book \u2018The Happiness curve\u2019 is an excellent study of midlife, a time characterised by clich\u00e9s of red open-top sports cars.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebodymatters.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/09\/midlife-malaise-and-reboot\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Midlife Malaise \u2013 and Reboot! 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