Why do people get more anxious as they get older?

[NoisySnail]

I know this does not apply to every single individual, but in general people do seem to get more anxious as they get older. And I wondered why? Is it simply a natural thing to happen as you become aware that your body is deteriorating and that simple things such as falling over could have a serious consequence? Or are there other reasons?
Interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this.

As you gain more life experience and either witness awful things happening to friends or family or have them happen to yourself you realise that it won’t necessarily all be alright and crap really does happen to anyone.

Menopause - I’ve never had issues with anxiety before, but I do now.

Age and experience I guess - DD and I both ride horses - I’m more of a happy hacker now as falls hurt a lot more and take longer to recover from these days. DD blasts around a x country course without any fear, laughs and gets back on when she falls off and is generally a bit of a dare devil - as was I when I was 18. Not so much now.

But then on the other hand, I definitely give far less fucks than I used to.

💐

I try and push myself out of my comfort zone, I know it is easy not to. I am aware as well there is nobody real to bale me out if things go wrong like there was when I was younger. My parents are dead and my DH is disabled.
But I have also seen too many people my age or round about have their life suddenly change. A woman I know in her sixties is now blind, uses a wheelchair and has carers after a car accident.
I hate going up in the loft now. I can do it, but it makes me anxious.
God I am turning into my mother and grandmother!

I’m 60 this year. 30-35 years ago I drove all over the world including USA/Canada, the middle of Athens (yep) and even in India. Now I avoid a certain roundabout in our (albeit large) town as it scares me.

I have no idea what has caused this.

Same with travelling, I feel all jittery about going abroad, yet worked and lived overseas for 15 years.

Same with travelling, I feel all jittery about going abroad, yet worked and lived overseas for 15 years.

I'm an avid traveler and always have been. I used to feel nothing but excited anticipation beforehand and at the airport, even when I was wrangling a DH and children.

I'm still an avid traveler, solo and backpacking of the beaten track. But now I angst beforehand. Worry about whether I should be going/want to go. And instead of the airport being a place of excitement, I feel stressed until I'm safely on the plane.

The good thing is that at least, once my feet are on foreign soil, the anxiety leaves me! But I'm sad not to have that happy anticipation any more.

I was so anxious in my teens and 20s I actually think I've burnt myself out. I struggle to give a shit now and certainly don't worry about things I would have done years ago.

I don't think that is necessarily true - maybe it depends whether you are already predisposed to be anxious.

I think I have had more than my share of crap life events (my husband and sister both died young, my father was disabled by sepsis in his 60s, I have had cancer, experienced major earthquakes etc) but it has not turned me into a bundle of anxiety, despite family tendencies that way (see my previous post).

Possibly it has had the opposite effect: I have seen how the really bad stuff comes out of nowhere and you can do nothing to avoid it, so there is no point in worrying about everyday things - better to seize the day and get on with life rather than limiting yourself with anxiety about the stuff that will probably not happen.

I'm in the sweet spot right now where I've had enough life experience not to be anxious about small things but not enough life experience to worry unduly about big things. My anxiety is better overall although I've noticed a definite shift from worry about work/school related issues to health related issues and general mortality. I'm guessing it will get worse but I'm enjoying where I am.

I’ve been in that sweet spot for decades @Harleyband. I hope you are too. Worry about it when it happens is my motto.

I don’t think it’s inevitable at all. I think it completely depends on mindset.

Fear of Death or using the certainty of death as a driver to embrace every second of life?

Worry because you can’t control everything v embracing the freedom this knowledge brings?

Worry about things happening to family’s v embracing the fact your loved ones are living life to the fullest.

worry about doing something Newburn knowledge you have coped in so many new situations and have learned so many skills in doing so which you can now apply.

I'm loving getting older. People fear no longer being young. Why?

I think it's life experience. Things happen to you that you never really get over and you carry them with you. Eventually it's a huge load.

I've always been quite anxious but sometimes my anxiety is really bad.

I'm making myself do stuff that scares me. I drove to Orkney from Yorkshire a couple of years ago - I was terrified but I knew if I didn't do it, I would never do it. I've got a friend a couple of years older than me and her world has shrunk because she won't drive ANYWHERE other than very very locally. Her health is fine but she is terrified to drive on any main roads or to travel by train. I don't want to get like her, so I MAKE myself do things. Years ago, like a pp, I would have ridden mad horses over any size of jump and driven to the middle of cities I'd never been to. Now I ride very very sensible horses and have to prepare to drive to strange places for about a fortnight before (with maps, Sat Nav, Street View and every other aid known to man!)

I don't like it. I want to be fearless again.

@Heatherbell1978 this is me. Something has happened which means I really dislike driving now. I can’t explain it and I actively avoid it unless I can’t. I’ve been debating what I can do to try to solve it.

I don't know. I can only assume it was part of their personality before. Certain people don't, do they? Why is that? Some people simply have inner confidence and wouldn't become anxious, no matter what.

I disagree with Blackcats7 :

"As you gain more life experience and either witness awful things happening to friends or family or have them happen to yourself you realise that it won’t necessarily all be alright and crap really does happen to anyone."

This doesn't necessarily come with age, to some this is obvious at an early age. Most people face some crap, accepting it, trying to get on with things, accepting that there's no point worrying about things you can't control. We'll all die at some point, why worry about the inevitable?

As an “elderly,” for me it is that I haven’t got the energy, I used to have, to deal with all the crap daily life gifts me. I don’t actually get anxious, but go into, fuck, fuck, fuck - “why is this happening to me/everyone in the world but me is an idiot,” have a cup of coffee/glass of wine/secret fag, and then just cope with it.
I think life at the moment affects everyone, not just the elderly.
Just for info, I’m fit, healthy and very tech aware/savvy, been in IT most of my professional life.
Sincere sympathy for those elderly not coping well.

“I think it is because I no longer am pushed out of my comfort zone so my comfort zone is shrinking”

I think this is a big part of it. (But not the whole picture)

In psychology facing your fears actually eases anxiety so by always avoiding things ‘out of the comfort zone’ you don’t build the confidence muscle. It withers and atrophies. You see this a lot in elderly people.

I think it’s also down to our nervous systems especially in those who are prone to anxiety. The more anxiety you feel through life, the more it accumulates in your system (unless it is fully resolved each time- which is not commonplace) and so it builds and builds in older age.

I think it is all dependent on the person. My FIL is 88 and he has always been the most chilled person I've ever met as well as the healthiest. Never ruffled, always takes life's highs and lows on his chin, until relatively recently. I genuinely think that he'd shaped himself as some kind of James Bond character in his head and the reality that he's just like everyone else and is ultimately going to die has floored him.

I’m 52 and never was the anxious type but since becoming older I don’t sweat the small stuff. I feel less constrained by caring what others think.

I think it’s threefold.

1 you become hyper aware of all the bad things that can happen which you’d never heard of before.

2 you’re getting older and suddenly you’re in the risky age group. So whereas before you were like “meh I’ll be fine, I’m only young so the odds are it’s not serious” now you’re like “people my age die of cancer and become disabled, it could be happening to me”.

3 menopause and hormones make you anxious.

Agree with bitter experience, also being generally less young and carefree than you once was. Young people tend to have this invincibility attitude don't they. As you get older you see that shit can and does happen to everyone.
I travelled the world when I was younger, cant even go to Tesco without getting anxious these days.

I am nearly 64, and I find I am much less anxious than I used to be. When I was young, I was incredibly anxious about what people might think about me, if I was making a fool of myself, how I compared with other people and so on. I was also so anxious in employment situations. I was terrified of making mistakes, and sure I was not as 'good' as anyone else.

Now, I don't really care. I have the life experience and confidence to know that I can manage most social situations, and work is not my main priority in life (although I do need to work to pay the bills).

Yet, as other posters have said, when people become frail, when they start to become more dependent on others, when, like my 95 year old mother, they know they cannot survive without support from other people, then they are more likely to become anxious. It is an existential anxiety.

I developed really strong "free floating" anxiety (as in, it wasn't particularly connected to anything specific I was worrying about) due to menopause. HRT has helped quite a bit but now I do have a bit of an ongoing feeling that bits of my body are gradually failing to work (I have a bunch of other chronic stuff going on, none of it serious or acute but still). I teach teenagers and a lot of my colleagues are young, which accentuates the feeling that I'm a crusty old fossil!

I also feel that unless you actively avoid the 24 hour news cycle, there is plenty going on to be anxious about. Plus the huge NHS waiting lists are exactly encouraging if anything does go wrong physically or mentally. Even just looking at the state of the UK's infrastructure is rather anxiety inspiring when you remember it being in better nick.

However my DM, DSis and DMIL are all rather anxious people and it seems strongly linked with their experiences around parenting. Anxiety is strongly linked, I think, to feelings of powerlessness.

aren't exactly encouraging