Oh no! We don’t look as young as we think we do

It’s official – we look a bit older than we like to think. This bit of bad news arrives courtesy of the peer-reviewed journal, Psychology and Aging, in a study conducted in the USA with over 2,000 people aged 50-80. Of these men and women, 59% reported ‘appearing relatively younger than peers’. Only 35% thought they looked their age and a glum 6% felt they looked older than they were.  

Why we think we look younger

Is this a surprise? None of us likes to think of ourselves as old. Why do you think makeup and skincare and tweakments are so popular, if not to help us look on the outside more in line with how we feel on the inside? Ask any 75-year-old, or me for that matter, and we’ll say we feel about 32 on the inside, and that it’s always a nasty shock to catch our reflection in a shop window and realise who that grumpy old hag is. Besides, we try to present our best selves – to ourselves as well as to others, don’t we? When we look in the mirror, we smile and stand up straight. We delete all photos where we don’t look good.  

We’re delusional  – but that’s a good thing 

Does it matter how old we think we look? Yes, says the study. People who thought they looked relatively younger reported more positive and fewer negative experiences of ageing. And because our perception of how we appear (preferably younger) may affect our behaviour (acting younger, standing straighter, walking faster, being more adventurous and energetic), that in turn may affect our health for the better.  

Our attitude matters more than our looks

That’s great, though according to Dr Becca Levy, who’s Director of the Social and Behavioural Sciences Division and an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health. If we want to improve our health as we age, what we really need to work on is our whole attitude towards ageing. In her book, Breaking the Age Code, she points out that having a positive or negative attitude to ageing affects everything from the diseases to which we’re susceptible, to our balance, and our walking speed. 

Because society generally tells us ageing is shameful, she says, we grow up with negative self-perception of ageing embedded in our minds. Change that attitude – by, for example, short sessions of subliminal exposure to words like ‘wise’ – and the results are measurable and remarkable. In one of the many studies detailed in her book, Dr Levy discovered that in the 15 per cent of the population who have the gene that makes them more likely to develop Alzheimer’s, the people who feel positively about ageing are 47 per cent less likely to develop dementia than those with negative age beliefs, meaning their risk of Alzheimer’s drops to the same level as people who don’t have the rogue gene.  

So the good news is?  

‘Be more positive about ageing – and live longer’. Surely, that’s a great piece of news to take away. Even if it doesn’t help us actually look any younger.  

You can read the study How old do I look? Aging Experiences and Experiences of Aging among US adults aged 50-80 online here 

Dr Becca Levy, Breaking the Age Code, £13.99