[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, [00:02.65]this is the Health Report in Special English. [00:07.42]Are people less happy or more happy the older they get? [00:13.42]If you answered more happy, [00:16.16]then you were right, [00:17.86]based on a study in 2008. [00:20.75]It found that people generally become happier [00:24.66]and experience less worry after age fifty. [00:29.60]In fact, it found that by the age of eighty-five, [00:34.23]people are happier with their life than they were at eighteen. [00:39.86]The findings came from a Gallup survey of more than [00:45.10]three hundred forty thousand adults [00:47.39]in the United States in two thousand eight. [00:50.48]At that time, the people [00:52.71]were between the ages of eighteen and eighty-five. [00:56.79]Arthur Stone in the Department of Psychiatry [01:01.22]and Behavioral Science at Stony Brook University [01:04.97]in New York led the study. [01:07.85]His team found that levels of stress were highest [01:12.43]among adults between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five. [01:18.01]Stress levels dropped sharply after people reached their fifties. [01:23.60]Happiness was highest among the youngest adults [01:28.62]and those in their early seventies. [01:31.91]But the people least likely to report feeling negative emotions [01:37.48]were those in their seventies and eighties. [01:40.82]The survey also found that men and women [01:45.32]have similar emotional patterns as they grow older. [01:49.89]However, women at all ages reported more sadness, [01:55.02]stress and worry than men did. [01:58.76]The researchers also considered possible influences [02:02.89]like having young children, being unemployed or being single. [02:08.71]But they found that influences like these did not affect [02:13.74]the levels of happiness and well-being related to age. [02:18.32]So why would happiness increase with age? [02:23.11]One theory is that, as people get older, [02:26.66]they become more thankful for what they have [02:30.39]and have better control of their emotions. [02:34.57]They also spend less time thinking about bad experiences. [02:39.36]The findings appeared [02:41.70]in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [02:46.82]Happiness is not the only thing that apparently improves with age. [02:53.39]In a study, people in their eighties [02:57.14]reported the fewest problems with the quality of their sleep. [03:02.11]Researchers surveyed more than one hundred fifty thousand American adults. [03:08.24]The study, led by Michael Grandner at the University of Pennsylvania, [03:14.02]appeared in the journal Sleep. [03:16.86]The original goal was to confirm the popular belief [03:21.49]that aging is connected with increased sleep problems. [03:26.57]The survey did find an increase during middle age, [03:31.51]especially in women. [03:33.40]But except for that, people reported [03:36.93]that they felt their sleep quality improved as they got older.

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