All posts tagged: midlife

11 Midlife Factors That Make Women Happier In Old Age

11 Midlife Factors That Make Women Happier In Old Age

Published by Sam Flores

I’ve been writing about health and lifestyle for a couple of years now, and some of the research I’ve covered has changed how I live.  For instance, I now take strength training seriously – after all, it’s one of the best ways to ensure I’ll stay independent as I age, and it might even lower my dementia risk. I also take creatine, a well-researched supplement associated with better ageing, an easier menopause, improved strength, and increased cognitive ability.  But what about the steps I need to take to be happy in my later years? Luckily for me, researchers have looked into that too. Midlife might be a key window to build happiness for your older age  A 2021 paper found that “Midlife is a pivotal time in women’s lives and may impact future [psychological well-being, or PWB]”.  After looking at the lifestyle factors of 1,693 women involved in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) cohort, they then followed up with their PWB scores roughly nine years later. At this point, participants were in their early old …

Midlife, but Make It Millenial

Midlife, but Make It Millenial

Published by Jenni Sidey

It’s official: Millennials are entering our midlife crisis era. But in true millennial fashion, we’re doing it our own way. We’re not buying sports cars or cheating; we’re joining car shares and exploring polyamory. Compared to previous generations, millennials have less time and resources, and more anxiety and malaise. We grew up on and alongside the internet (boy has that guy changed!). We’re a generation shaped by economic uncertainty and environmental catastrophe. We’re eager to redefine work and family. The changes to these defining life elements mean the old midlife crisis model just doesn’t work for us. As a teen, in the nineties and early aughts, pop culture taught me the well-worn tropes, like Monica as “Richard’s little speedster” in Friends, and Red’s motorcycle in That 70’s Show. The midlife crisis was rendered more nuanced and profound but still sterotypically in films like American Beauty and Lost in Translation, where Lester Burnham and Bob Harris grapple with mundanity and meaning at life’s halfway point. When I turned 40 this year, I was nothing but excited. …

I’m 69. Please stop saying that I’m in midlife or middle-aged

I’m 69. Please stop saying that I’m in midlife or middle-aged

Published by Daniella Wilson

Last week I turned 69. And I don’t think I’m middle-aged. I understand why people use the term. We are living longer, many of us are healthier for longer, and people in their sixties and seventies often feel very different from previous generations at the same age. But extending midlife further and further doesn’t seem to me to be the answer. The long-running MIDUS study asked people when they thought midlife ended. The average answer was 59. That feels much closer to my own sense of it. That time between midlife and old age is full of opportunities – we just don’t know how to correctly engage with it (Getty Images) When I turned 60, nothing happened. Nobody treated me differently. I didn’t feel a shift in my body. If anything, I was the healthiest I had ever been. There has been research done in the past that suggests most of us feel younger than our years past 40, so perhaps this isn’t unusual. But I’m less interested in feeling younger than in simply being …

When Friends Never Disappoint: AI Companions in Midlife

When Friends Never Disappoint: AI Companions in Midlife

Published by Jenni Sidey

I’ve completed a lot of research into friendship across the lifespan, and what has always been a given is that friendships are voluntary relationships between two people. That “chosen” nature of friendship has always made it something special. These relationships are built on mutuality, reciprocity, and genuine fondness for one another. But today, the face of friendship doesn’t always look like it used to. As the friendship recession leaves people struggling to maintain close social connections, millions of people are now turning to AI friends for companionship, emotional support, and connection. These artificial intelligence companions can, in some ways, rival person-to-person friendships, but they also may pose unexpected hazards to the human relationships that sustain us in the real world (Yong et al., 2026). AI Friends Are Always Up for the Adventure Most of us have had to disappoint friends when we had to “cancel” or turn down an opportunity to get together or enjoy an adventure together. We’ve also all suffered the disappointment that comes when friends cancel on us. This is an early …

A Midlife Awakening: Seeing Things Anew in Our 50s and 60s

A Midlife Awakening: Seeing Things Anew in Our 50s and 60s

Published by Jenni Sidey

As I have coached clients in their struggles with siblings, I have found that many come to me in their 50s and 60s when they suddenly see themselves and their relationships from a fresh perspective. These clients feel they have entered a new developmental life stage; it’s not a midlife crisis, with the classic signs of a fancy new car, an affair, or an obsession with changing one’s physical appearance. It’s much more subtle. I would call it a midlife awakening. The facts of their lives may not have changed, but they often find the meaning of their lives has. The awakening reveals itself in moments. Suddenly, a conversation with an adult child or sibling lands differently. A friendship that once felt fulfilling begins to feel one-sided. A marriage, a career, a family story no longer feels satisfying or a long-held belief no longer resonates as their perspective shifts. The awakening prompts a reorganization of relationships, purpose, and identity, During a midlife awakening, many say that they feel like they have just come out of …

‘Adjustments must be made’: how to live well after mid-life

‘Adjustments must be made’: how to live well after mid-life

Published by Sam Flores

We have never lived so long, so well, nor had more available advice on how to do so: don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat ultraprocessed foods; lift weights, get outside, learn a language. Cosmetics – or surgery – have never been so available, so advanced, nor so widely used; we take for granted medical procedures that previous ages would have considered miracles. And something’s clearly working: average global life expectancy is the highest in recorded history. The fastest growing demographic is now the over-80s. There is much public hand-wringing about the burdens this ageing population will place on health and care systems, and on younger people. But what is far less talked about, argues the clinical psychologist Frank Tallis in his new book, Wise, is how to get older well: not just in physical, but in mental good health. Midlife has throughout history been a hinge point where such questions come to the fore. We never know when that midpoint will be, but there is often, in a person’s 40s, a constellation of symptoms ranging …

I got married twice in my 20s. Now I’m in love with my midlife situationship

I got married twice in my 20s. Now I’m in love with my midlife situationship

Published by Sam Flores

We were just two midlifers in our 50s who met back in 2020 using a popular dating app. Bored, lonely and emerging from lockdown we jumped at the chance for an outing. We had our first date at a trendy, dimly-lit Japanese restaurant and bar in Sydney’s Surry Hills. By our second lychee martini, we became aware of some mutual connections that we knew and discovered that we had actually grown up in the same place. There was an immediate feeling of familiarity and a shared sense of humour that clicked without effort. We were in no rush for anything too serious. In fact, it would take another five outings, including antique-trawling for some 70s-inspired crockery, before things would develop into more of a romantic connection. You could say we’ve been dating ever since but, in modern parlance, I’m inclined to call it more of a “situationship” than a full-blown relationship because it’s not an “all-in” arrangement. I don’t think that is too uncommon these days – partnership norms have shifted over the past decade …