Do you feel younger than your real age? The answer determines the health of your mind

Have you lied about your age before?

Maybe if you are over 35, the answer might be yes.

Women are especially sensitive to their age, and they may be ashamed of mentioning the number of years of their whole life, so they shorten them a little or lie to make themselves smaller, which is an acceptable lie among women, just as it is not acceptable for a man to ask a woman about her age.

Perhaps lying about our true age reflects a deep psychological truth, which is that as we age, we often do not feel that we have actually progressed in it, we want to feel young and lively always, because that makes us fast, smart, we have flexibility in mind and body, sweetness and elegance in appearance.

The results of several studies have found that your gut feeling about your age, whether you feel older or younger than your real age, is an important issue, and it has major implications for your future.

If you are among those who feel that they are younger than their real age, this is a good sign of your mental health, and that you do not suffer from premature brain aging, but if you are one of those who feel helpless and old age early, then scientists think that this is not a good sign, and you need to stimulate your brain so that the cognitive abilities do not decrease You have in the future.

Thus, if you feel younger and that your real age does not represent you this is a very good sign of your mental health, and you can of course continue to feel this way.

Subjective age versus biological age

Subjective age is a term used by scholars to refer to how old a person feels, which can vary over time. We may feel younger or older than our true age.

The subjective age thus differs from the biological or chronological age which expresses our date of birth and our age in the birth certificate.

When people reach middle age or old age, they usually express a feeling of being 10 or 20 years younger than their biological age.

In research published in The Journals of Gerotology in 2016, researchers found that the age a person feels is a more important indicator of general physical and mental health than biological age.

Feeling younger than a biological age is a sign of health, low mortality and retention of cognitive abilities.

In the study, people were asked a question to answer one of these answers: "I am younger than my real age," or "I am the same as my real age," or "I am older than my real age."

The results showed that the age people feel, or "self-old age", is a strong indicator of their current health of mind.

Those with younger subjective age had more youthful brain structure, and stronger memory than those who felt the same age or older than their chronological age.

Interestingly, younger self-age is also associated with better memory and planning skills after 10 years, and although a few people who rate their self-age as older may have a problem with memory more, most people are not.

Feeling old is usually the result of accumulated stress for life (social media)

How do you feel eternal youth?

Could people who feel tired, exhausted, and older for their real age improve their feelings, so that it may reflect on their brain health in the future?

In terms of study results, feeling old is usually a result of accumulated stress for life and chronic age-related illnesses, so controlling the aetiology may lead to better outcomes.

Michelle Brown - PhD - provides 3 important tips that help reduce the feeling that you are older than your real age, in her article on the "Psychologytoday" website:

You are not alone:

 If you ask your friends who are your age how they feel about their age, do they feel older or younger, you will know that you are not alone, and knowing this may lead to a feeling of relief and then passing this stage and reducing your self-life and improving your memory in the short term.

Upset and movement:

According to the study, people who performed more physical activity during their spare time were classified as those who feel that their personal age is smaller and their memory is stronger, and these results may be related to the effect of exercise on the brain.

Not only is exercise linked to the development of the hippocampus, which is a key brain region involved in processing memory, but has also been shown to improve memory skills and reduce cell aging.

Mindfulness exercises, that is, practicing meditation periodically and regularly are important, as a study found that long-term meditators showed a gradually slower rate of aging compared to those who did not meditate regularly, and that mindfulness exercises have also been shown to enhance memory skills.

Starting with something new:

 In another study of a group of people called "Superagers", that is, adults whose minds and bodies remain strong until old age, it became clear that all of these people share one trait, which is that they continue to do difficult things by challenging their abilities, and they continue In putting themselves in situations where they are beginners not knowing how to behave.

The researchers found that these people challenge themselves to learn new skills, create new relationships, take on new tasks, learn languages, start new jobs, and try different games and sports.

If you really want to retain feeling youthful for as long as possible you must develop the ability and willingness to put yourself willingly in the "uncomfortable" state of being a beginner knowing nothing about a new topic or skill you are learning, and that over and over again.