People Become Happier In Their Late 60s, Study Finds

The wellbeing of people in their 60s increases as they move towards their 70th birthday, a new study has suggested.

The Medical Research Council has followed the physical and mental health of 1,700 people since birth.

Participants were asked to rate how they felt when in their early 60s and again at aged 68 to 69.

Researchers based at University College London asked people how confident, cheerful, relaxed and useful they felt to determine their wellbeing.

They discovered that this improved from when participants were aged 60 to 64 to when they were approaching 70.

This was despite the fact that many people in the age group had at least one chronic disease, such as arthritis or diabetes.

The research supports previous studies that suggest people in their 60s and 70s are much happier than those in their late 40s to 50s, with the latter group considered the most unhappy.

Dr Mai Stafford, programme leader at the Medical Research Council’s unit for lifelong health and ageing, said the reason for the change was not yet clear.

She said it could be because people in their late 60s are able prioritise relationships – and, indeed, many people will point at the fact that the latter group is post retirement.

She told BBC News: “We found that one in five experienced a substantial increase in wellbeing in later life, although we also found a smaller group who experienced a substantial decline.

"The benefit of using a cohort study like this is that we can look at how individuals change over time.

"We hope this will allow us to pinpoint which common experiences may be linked to an improvement in wellbeing in later life.”