Many of us can attest that life tends to get sweeter as we get older. But if you need more evidence to adopt a better outlook toward ageing, this is it.
Business Insider created a timeline of peak ages for all sorts of milestones, health markers, achievements and skills, with points ranging from which age is best for remembering names to when you’re most adept at understanding emotions.
While some points, like bone mass, peak during younger years, much of the really good stuff ― like happiness with your body and psychological wellbeing ― comes later.
Of course, you should never let “peak ages” limit you: you can be a chess champion at 16 or 50 years old, you can run multiple marathons at 70, and a new study shows tech savviness doesn’t have nearly as much to do with age as some people think. But general peak ages do exist, especially in the health community.
Some of Business Insider’s information sources are informal, like an Okcupid survey used to determine the peak age for attractiveness. Its data pool was not a representative sample of the population, and the conclusion is therefore more for entertainment purposes. But most are based on scientific studies, like a famous 2013 life satisfaction study from the London School of Economics. Many of the timeline’s statistics come from a highly regarded MIT study on cognitive function and ageing from 2015.
Overall, consider this timeline a pleasant reminder that everything from physical to emotional wins can come with age. Make every effort to take care of your body, and watch it give back to you.