Summary: New research indicates that feeling younger than your chronological age and increasing physical activity can improve cognitive function, health and longevity as people age.
Source: American Psychological Association.
Could moving more and feeling more in control of your daily life help you stay mentally and physically younger? New findings presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention suggest simple, practical strategies that may help older adults feel younger — a subjective state linked to better cognition, health and longer life.
“A younger subjective age — when people feel younger than their actual age — is associated with a range of positive outcomes in older adults, including improved memory, better health and greater longevity,” said presenter Jennifer Bellingtier, PhD, of Friedrich Schiller University. “Our research shows that subjective age fluctuates from day to day, and that older adults report feeling significantly younger on days when they perceive greater control over their lives.”
Bellingtier and co-author Shevaun Neupert, PhD, from North Carolina State University, tracked daily experiences of 116 older adults (ages 60 to 90) and 106 younger adults (ages 18 to 36) over nine consecutive days. Each day participants completed brief surveys asking how much control they felt they had (for example: “In the past 24 hours, I had quite a bit of influence on the degree to which I could be involved in activities”) and how old they felt that day.
The study found clear day-to-day variability in subjective age in both older and younger participants. Crucially, in the older adult group there was a consistent link between daily perceptions of control and subjective age: on days older adults felt more in control, they reported feeling younger. That same daily association was not observed in the younger adult group.
“Designing daily environments and routines that allow older adults to exercise more personal control may be an effective approach to maintaining a youthful mindset and improving overall well-being,” Bellingtier said. She recommended a range of possible interventions that preserve or enhance daily control. These could include structured sessions with a therapist focused on identifying situations where individuals can take meaningful action, and strategies for coping with circumstances that cannot be controlled. Low-tech options such as offering nursing home residents more daily choices — what to wear, when to join activities, or which meals to select — can also increase feelings of agency and autonomy.
Bellingtier also suggested modern tools could support daily experiences of control. For example, smartphone apps or daily reminder systems might deliver short suggestions and prompts that encourage small acts of control each day, helping users notice opportunities to influence their daily lives and reinforcing a stronger sense of personal agency.
Alongside perceived control, increasing physical activity emerged in a related study as another promising route to a younger subjective age. “Our results suggest that promoting a more active lifestyle may lead people to feel younger,” said Matthew Hughes, PhD, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, who presented the complementary study.
Hughes and colleagues recruited 59 adults in the Boston area, ages 35 to 69, who were not regularly active. Participants wore a FitBit activity tracker and researchers recorded daily step counts for five weeks. Individuals who increased their daily steps more substantially by the end of the monitoring period reported lower subjective ages than those whose activity changed little. In other words, walking more and moving more during daily life corresponded with feeling younger.
Hughes cautioned that these findings are preliminary. “This was a pilot study with a modest sample size,” he said. “While the pattern suggests walking may contribute to feeling younger, larger studies using more controlled designs are needed to confirm the effect and to clarify how much activity is required to influence subjective age.”
Taken together, these studies point to two accessible approaches that may help older adults feel younger and potentially reap the downstream benefits for cognition, health and longevity: increasing everyday physical activity and enhancing day-to-day perceptions of control. Both strategies are practical, scalable and could be integrated into individual routines, clinical programs and residential care settings to support better aging outcomes.
Source: Jim Sliwa — American Psychological Association
Publisher: Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com.
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Original Research: “Feeling Young and in Control: Daily Control Beliefs Predict Younger Subjective Ages,” and “Taking Steps to Feel Younger,” presented at the American Psychological Association’s 126th Annual Convention.
MLA: American Psychological Association. “You’re Only as Old as You Think and Do.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 10 August 2018.
APA: American Psychological Association (2018, August 10). You’re Only as Old as You Think and Do. NeuroscienceNews.
Chicago: American Psychological Association. “You’re Only as Old as You Think and Do.”