There are lots of reasons to be stressed in today’s world, but if you’re a middle-aged woman, you may be feeling less of it. Those are the findings of a recent study by researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, published in the journal Women’s Midlife Health. The study found that “perceived stress” — a measure of confidence, control, and the ability to cope with life — decreased for middle-aged women over a 13-year period. The study looked at data on more than 3,000 women between ages 42 and 53 who were enrolled in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health. The women met with researchers on average every year to discuss their health and well-being. The specific goal of this study, led by Elizabeth Hedgman, a graduate student at the school of public health, was to identify the effects of age, menopause, and sociodemographics (race, ethnicity, and where you live) on stress. The women in the study were from seven cities around the United States: Boston; Chicago; Los Angeles; southwest Michigan; Newark, New Jersey; Oakland, California; and Pittsburgh. About half of the women were white, close to 30 percent were black, 9 percent were Japanese, 8 percent were Chinese, and 7 percent were Hispanic. (All of the study sites included white women, four included black women, and one site each included Chinese, Japanese, or Hispanic participants.) Even though women with less education and income consistently reported higher levels of perceived stress compared with the others in the study, the differences diminished over time. Menopause, long considered a stressor, wasn’t a factor for increased stress among women in the study. “The neat thing is that for most of us, our perception of stress decreases as we age through midlife — perhaps life itself is becoming less stressful, or maybe we’re finally feeling at the top of our game, or maybe things just don’t bother us the way they did,” Hedgman says. While the study didn’t look at why stress was reduced, Hedgman says that previous research shows it can include factors such as these:
Children have moved out.Professional goals have been met.The women are in a good place before the next set of challenges, such as caring for aging parents or becoming ill themselves.
Hedgman says that research also suggests that aging helps us regulate our emotions. “Perhaps things just don’t bother us as much as we age, whether because of emotional experience or neurochemical changes,” she says. “It’s all worth exploring.” According to Hedgman, there are some limitations regarding follow-up and researchers generalizing based on the study’s results. Lekeisha A. Sumner, PhD, an assistant clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that the study is a good one but that we need to “use a little caution in making too many robust assumptions from this study alone.” That’s because other studies suggest that ethnic and racial groups experience different stressors, says Dr. Sumner. Regional differences are also important, she says. For example, in the South there is often more deference to older people, while in California there can be more ageism. But certain factors do have bearing on the potential for stressing less as we age, Sumner says. “Experience, for example, gives you the opportunity to develop some ways to withstand adversity,” she explains. “The study shows you that getting older can come with its own benefits.”
