Taking care of one's mental health is also similar to taking one's physical health. A person who is not mentally healthy could find themselves in distress and may have a low quality of life.
A new study that spans multiple decades of post-British war has found that 1 out 05 of 5, or around 20%, of people, experience psychological distress during middle age, ScienceAlert reported. The result is from the collected data in longitudinal studies of participants born in 1946, 1958, and 1970.
The study showed the psychological health of Britons from Baby Boomers to Generation X, suggesting that mental health peaks during middle age. The result reframes the common notion of a midlife crisis, which is understudied.
According to Very Well Mind, people struggling with the midlife crisis are thought to be struggling with their mortality, wherein they start to think about ditching responsibility in favor of fun, like picturing themselves with mistresses or sports cars.
Mental Health Problems Happen At A Higher Rate During Midlife
Public health researcher Dawid Gondek from University College London (UCL) explains that mental health problems during middle age are under-recognized compared to adolescence and older age, even though adults are particularly vulnerable at this stage.
But their study focuses on the midlife psychological distress that adults may experience. The researchers collected data from the National Survey of Health & Development, the National Child Development Study, and the British Cohort Study.
Looking at the data gathered from 28,000 participants, the researchers wanted to come up with an age profile to describe what psychological distress looked like. They define psychological distress in general terms, including depression and anxiety, but not diagnosing or differentiating it from any mental health disorders.
They found that psychological distress is highest during midlife, particularly 19.1% at age 53 in NSHD, 15.2% at age 50 in NCDS, and 19.9% at age 46 in BCS70.
"Overall, after controlling for cohort differences, the age profile of psychological distress followed an inverted U-shape in adulthood, with symptoms increasing from early- to mid-adulthood, and subsequently declining," the authors explain in their paper.
They noted that the Generation X participants born in 1970 tend to experience the highest consistent rates of mental health problems during adulthood. Generation X individuals were the group that entered the job market during the period of recession and high unemployment in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and this generation also has more difficulty getting on the housing ladder than previous generations.
As a result, this had a lasting effect on their mental health throughout the rest of their adulthood.
Why Do Mental Health Problems Appear During the Middle Age?
The researchers are not sure why mental health problems often peak during midlife. But they hypothesize that it might be due to several factors that coincide during this stage of life, creating more pressure and stress on the person.
The team writes that middle-age is when the peak of the career happens, and middle-aged adults acquire increasingly more responsibilities as the decision-makers in society and lesser leisure time. Also, it is a time when family structures change, either on divorce, ongoing parental care, or taking care of aging parents.
As a result, middle-aged adults experienced declining quality and quantity of leisure time, friends, and family, which could translate to worsening mental health.
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