Remember when you were little, and you used to play ‘grown ups’? And you thought when you did eventually become an adult, life would be great because you could do whatever you want, like stay up all night and eat ice cream for dinner?
But once you get there, it becomes quite obvious that this whole adulthood business it’s not all it's cracked up to be – silly responsibilities!
But if your life hasn’t fallen perfectly into place just yet, don’t worry, because a recent survey has found that feeling of ‘contentness’ comes a little later in life than our childhood selves imagined.
Well decades later, in fact.
That’s right, according to a recent survey by The Medical Research Council, who have followed the wellbeing of 1,700 people across their lives, our late sixties and seventies is truly our prime time.
When asked how cheerful, relaxed and confident they felt in their later life, the researchers found people in their late 60s reported the highest levels on life satisfaction, with 65 – 79 being the happiest age group.
Although researchers didn’t pinpoint the secret to happiness, we can take a guess at why this demographic are the most satisfied.
We can imagine the pressures to live up to others expectations would have faded away by our sixties (it’s tiring after all), we’d hopefully have ticked a fair few bits off our bucket list, and our kids will be spoiling us instead of vice versa.
Oh, and retirement? We’d be pretty pleased with that, too.
Dr Mai Stafford, the programme leader from the Medical Research Council told the BBC:
"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."
She did indicate however, that later in life the subjects had more time to prioritise social bonds and do the things that really matter with the people they love.
And these finding come in spite of more reported health problems within this age group.
This comes after another big survey was realised earlier this month conducted by the Office for National Statistics, and the results correlated very closely to the Medical Research Council’s findings.
Looking at over 300,00 adults between the years 2012 to 2015, these results also showed that 65-79 are the best years of our adult life.
Sadly, our life satisfaction levels plummeted at age 35, with the years 40-59 being the least happy – gulp!
The report suggested that increasing responsibilities of the middle aged is what is driving people in their 40s and 50s to feel this way, as they’re increasingly pulled in different directions.
It states:
“Those in their middle years may have more demands placed on their time and might struggle to balance work and family commitments.”
Many are looking after young children, ageing parents and chasing careers - all while making sure their social and love lives don't suffer.
It either end of the spectrum – the old and young – are more satisfied due to free time to pursue personal leisures.
But hey – at least there’s light at the end of the tunnel of time! Plenty to look forward to.