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  How to explain this U-shaped happiness curve, wherein seasoned 60-somethings turn out to be as joyful as 18-year-olds?  Positive changes in personality, due to growing more socially mature, may contribute to the upswing: Studies of personality traits have shown that over time, we tend to become more emotionally stable, conscientious, and agreeable. Blanchflower, who is 71, theorizes, too, that adults tend to get happier after about age 50 because they’ve become more realistic, having accepted that they aren’t going to be president or the next Aretha Franklin.  They may also appreciate gentler pastimes—dancing, swimming, or, in Blanchflower’s case, whiling away a summer summer afternoon fishing with his grandchildren—than they could at, say, age 45, when they still craved the rush of a rough tennis match or the challenge of a triathlon but mourned the fact that their knees were shot.  As people grow older, “they care less about excitement but then find other things ...

  4 Ways to Embrace the Happiness Boost That Comes with Age Ways to Embrace the Happiness That Comes with AgeGetty Images Growing older gets a bum rap. In our youth-obsessed culture, landing on the AARP mailing list can feel like the beginning of the end. But science consistently shows that the opposite is true.  After quantifying data on well-being from hundreds of thousands of people in 145 countries, Dartmouth College economist David Blanchflower, PhD, reported in 2021 that most people, regardless of educational, marital, or employment status, experience high levels of happiness when they’re young adults, followed by declining happiness that bottoms out in their late 40s, then, beyond that, steadily increasing happiness.