How do the things that make us happy change as we grow older?
Scientific litsketch on boosting mental health
Research shows that the things that improve our well-being change at different stages of life but a few remain important throughout our lifespan (Jebb et al., 2020).
A survey of 1.7 million people found that getting married increases our emotional well-being but only by a trivial amount after the age of 40. Having a job increases both our life satisfaction and emotional well-being especially between the ages of 40 and 60. Acts of kindness such as helping a stranger, and donating money or time to a charity increase emotional well-being especially from late 50s.
Most importantly, having an important meaning or purpose in life increases both life satisfaction and emotional well-being all throughout our lifespan.
The study shows that helping other people becomes more and more important as we grow older but having a meaningful purpose in life is important at every stage in our lifetime for increasing happiness.
Another study of 6,163 people over 14 years found that people with a purpose of life live longer than than those without (Hill and Turiano, 2014).
Simply put, help others and find meaning in life to nurture happiness. Even if you don’t have one now, it’s worth investing your time to search for it.
Jebb, Andrew T., Mike Morrison, Louis Tay, and Ed Diener. "Subjective well-being around the world: trends and predictors across the life span." Psychological science 31, no. 3 (2020): 293-305.
Hill, Patrick L., and Nicholas A. Turiano. "Purpose in life as a predictor of mortality across adulthood." Psychological science 25, no. 7 (2014): 1482-1486.