Elderly and Thrilled

Want to feel happy all the time? Give it a few decades.

Findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Toronto, Canada, this past weekend demonstrated that people in their 80s and 90s are often happier than younger people.

"Older people are better able to recognize what will bother them, and better able to negotiate their environment," Susan Turk Charles, a psychologist at the University of California, Irvine, told CNN.

This makes a lot of sense. The older you get, the more wisdom you accumulate. Time simply teaches you to take things less personally, not sweat the small stuff and avoid wallowing in negativity because, really, what’s the point?

Richard Rose seems to have all that figured out. At 87, he’s living large in Palm Beach, Florida. He spends his days swimming with his wife Joyce, and reading to keep his mind sharp. He feels a whole lot happier than he did in his 40s when the stress of running his Cleveland furniture and design store caused sleeping issues and digestive disturbances.

"Since I retired, I have none of those problems. I sleep well and I eat well," he said. "The stress of business always took something out of me."

Studies show that a few factors may contribute to older people’s sunnier outlooks. For instance, the senior set generally spends less time dwelling on negative aspects of a situation. They also tend to look back at prior situations more positively, perhaps because enough time has passed that they remember negative emotions less intensely. The way people treat their elders, typically more respectfully, can also up the happiness factor.

So, next time you are fretting about those little laugh lines or those gray hairs creeping in, remember, getting old has its perks.

Photo courtesy of cgarbiano via stock.xchang