Throughout your life, your skills typically improve with age and experience. However, common aging myths would have you believe that everything is downhill after 50. With every additional year, we become more forgetful, our responses slow down, and we have less energy. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t apply to everything. As far as your emotional maturity, that keeps getting better with age. Understanding that emotional well-being improves with age is one of the most surprising studies in regards to aging.
Emotional Maturity and Age
What is Emotional Maturity
When we think of emotional maturity, we might automatically associate that phrase with teenagers and 20 somethings. However, an emotionally mature person is simply someone who can stay calm and make good decisions. Therefore, we look to them during times of strife due to how well they perform under pressure. In other words, an emotionally mature person is someone who has control over their emotions. And this, as it turns out, gets better with age.
Indicators of Emotional Maturity
- Taking responsibility
- Owing mistakes
- Showing empathy
- Being unafraid of vulnerability
- Recognizing and accepting needs
- Setting healthy boundaries
What Science Says
Most of your development is finished by age 27, however, emotional regulation is one of the things that continues getting better with age. Unlike physical fitness or cognition which see slow changes over time, emotional maturity (demonstrated through emotional regulation) gets better with experience.
Research suggests that though you may begin processing information slower as you get older, this may also be a benefit to your emotional health. Basically, due to slower reaction times, people have more time to think about how they want to respond. Researchers observe older individuals exhibiting greater prefrontal cortex activity than younger adults when processing emotions. This means that older adults are better at regulating their emotional stimuli. Many older individuals display a positive bias in their thinking, whether they are aware of it or not. Researchers find that older adults don’t sweat the small stuff and are more likely to let go of negative experiences. Essentially, older adults are better at picking their emotional battles and tend to default to the positive.
When Emotional Maturity Leads to Greater Levels of Satisfaction
You may be surprised to learn that your greatest levels of satisfaction don’t occur during the much talked about years of youth. In fact, the time in your life when you experience the highest levels of satisfaction and contentment is in your golden years. Therefore, the peak for your highest levels of positivity and lowest levels of negative feelings is found between ages 55-70. Only after 75 do negative feelings start rising again, often due to physical ailments.
Benefits of Emotional Maturity
Emotional maturity is good for you and also helps foster the relationships of people around you. Here are some benefits of emotional maturity that might not occur to you:
- Better decision making
- Reduced anxiety
- Positive relationships with others
- Greater awareness in a variety of new situations
Practices for Emotional Maturity
Emotional maturity can be improved with these simple practices:
- Seek new learning opportunities
- Increase emotional intelligence
- Keep a positive attitude
- Maintain a reasonable degree of independence
- Delay gratification
- Stay honest
- Be responsible
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