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In a survey carried out in 2008  Gallup asked 340,000 people between the age of 18 and 85 to rank their overall life satisfaction from 1 to 10 in these areas:  enjoyment, happiness, stress, worry, anger, sadness.  The answers, researchers say, reveal “hedonic well-being” or a person’s immediate experience of those psychological states.  They say that patterns did emerge (like the age of 50 being a real turning point for many) and that further research is needed to find answers. The results?



Stress declines from age 22 onward, reaching its lowest point at 85.

Worry stays fairly steady until 50, then sharply drops off.

Anger decreases steadily from 18 on.

Sadness rises to a peak at 50.

They do go on to say what happens after 50:


In my own happiness scale, having come through a period of self-reflection (self-reflection  – isn’t that a kinder sounding word than unhappy, unsure, depressed, miserable, confused, bored, lonely….) I feel like I’m on the upswing now so perhaps I already hit 50 about 6 months ago? Which is about one year early.  

Either that or I get to look forward to another dip downwards….before I get on that incline in the scale of happiness again.

Either way, like they say in the article, getting old doesn’t seem quite so bad now.