What is ‘subjective age’?

How old do you “really” feel? Many people feel younger or older than they are biologically – and the answer could affect your physical and psychological health.

Scientists have been interested in the gap between chronological age and the age someone “feels” – our subjective age – for decades. The earliest studies took place in the 1970s and 80s, said the BBC.

But that “trickle of initial interest has now turned into a flood”, said the broadcaster, and a “torrent” of studies over the past decade have explored “the potential psychological and physiological consequences” of feeling younger or older than your biological age.

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How big is the discrepancy for most people?

“Why do so many people have an immediate, intuitive grasp of this highly abstract concept – ‘subjective age’, it’s called – when randomly presented with it?” asked Jennifer Senior in The Atlantic. It is a “bizarre” phenomenon, she wrote. “Certainly most of us don’t believe ourselves to be shorter or taller than we actually are. We don’t think of ourselves as having smaller ears or longer noses or curlier hair.”

But in a 2006 Duke University study in which 1,470 Danish adults were asked how old they felt, 40% perceived that they were on average 20% younger than they actually were. Adults under 25, however, generally said they felt older than their chronological age.

Why do we think of ourselves as being younger?

The Duke University study didn’t explore why, in general, “we’re possessed of this urge to subtract”, wrote Senior. But some have offered up a “predictable” answer: “namely, that lots of people consider ageing a catastrophe”.

But while true, there is also a different case to be made, argued Senior: “that viewing yourself as younger is a form of optimism, rather than denialism”. She added: “It says that you envision many generative years ahead of you, that you will not be written off, that your future is not one long, dreary corridor of locked doors.”

Indeed, some psychologists have speculated that a lower subjective age “is a form of self-defence” which is “protecting us from the negative age stereotypes”, said the BBC.

A study from Anna Kornadt at Bielefeld University in Germany found that people’s subjective ages were lower when negative age stereotypes are most prevalent – such as in the domains of work, health and finance.

It suggests that feeling younger than your chronological age “helps people distance themselves from the negative connotations of their age-group”, said the BBC. The study by Kornadt also found that people with a lower subjective age tended to imagine their future selves in a more positive light, suggesting that feeling that our subjective age is younger than our chronological age can protect us from society’s “dismal” view of ageing and give us “a more optimistic view of our future”.

Are there health benefits to feeling younger?

There do appear to be both physical and psychological benefits to feeling younger than you really are. The Wall Street Journal said that some recent research which “focused on the correlation between attitudes and mortality have linked positive feelings about ageing – and feeling younger than you actually are – with a longer life”.

In one German study of 2,400 adults over more than 20 years, participants who said they expected to continue to grow and develop into old age lived on average 13 years longer than those who didn’t expect such growth.

“It is really good and important to feel younger. It is soft protection. If I feel younger, I am more motivated to be engaged and active,” the study author and professor at University of Greifswald, Susanne Wurm, told the paper.

Those who feel older than their chronological age may also generate more health-damaging stress. Scientists examining the link between subjective age and long-term health have found in recent studies of men over 50 that “those who feel older than their actual age have elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol and C reactive protein”, which is “an inflammatory marker associated with heart disease and other illnesses”.

How can I feel younger?

Being “open to new experiences and challenges” is one way we can lower our subjective, psychological age, according to Dayna Touron, associate dean and professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who spoke to The Wall Street Journal.

This can be done in a variety of ways, whether it is starting new classes, travelling, spending time with friends who have positive attitudes toward ageing, or taking up a hobby.

And she advises not to assume that “common slip-ups are necessarily signs of cognitive failure”, but rather a normal part of everyday life, unless it comes very commonplace. “The beliefs you have about the inevitability of decline as you age can be self-fulfilling,” she added.