Not So Happy? You Must Be Middle-Aged.

Work on your happiness, we say. Make your "to do before I die" list and get to work knocking things off it. Skip over midlife crisis.

Not enough people are listening -- at least in the UK.

A new national survey finds that for men, the ages 35-44 are the least happy in their lives. While they rate their well-being in young adulthood at 7.3 on a 10 point scale, it bottoms out at 6.8 for the ten years starting at age 35.

Women are least happy between 25-34, and see wellbeing increase thereafter.

source: UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Headlines about the survey focus on "unhappiness." The BBC headlines its story "Middle Age Most Miserable for Men," and the Guardian's subhead is "A survey has found that middle-aged men are the most miserable of all English adults."

That's overstating the case. 6.8 on a ten point scale doesn't point to widespread gloom. And the decline in wellbeing from young adulthood is only 7%.

A study earlier this year of over 500,000 Americans and Europeans found that well-being is at its lowest later than the new survey -- in the mid to late 40s. That survey equated the decline in happiness at midlife to 1/3 the impact of being unemployed.

---
The UK's Daily Mail features a column by Philip Norman about the survey in which he explains why "I no longer needed to be scared of turning 40."