{"id":2054,"date":"2016-05-31T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T10:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2016-05-27T15:05:01","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T19:05:01","slug":"40-signs-you-are-middle-aged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html","title":{"rendered":"40 Signs You Are Middle Aged"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Helley Emling<\/em><\/p>\n

When does middle age actually start? <\/strong>Is it when you hit 50? Or when you send your first kid off to college? Or after you’ve been married a good 25 years?<\/p>\n

For those of you feeling old at 48 or 50 or even 52, here’s some good news. A new survey shows that does not actually start until you’re 53.<\/p>\n

According to a survey of 2,000 adults commissioned by British healthcare provider Benenden Health,<\/u> one is middle aged if they enjoy afternoon naps, moan when they bend over, are frustrated by modern technology and choose comfort over style when it comes to clothing. Another sign of middle age? The preference of a night in rather than a night out.<\/p>\n

Paul Keenan, head of communications at Benenden Health, said in a press release that being old appears to be a state of mind rather than being a specific age.<\/p>\n

“People no longer see \u2018middle age\u2019 as a numerical milestone and don\u2019t tend to think of themselves as \u2018old\u2019 as they hit their fifties and beyond. I\u2019m 54 myself, with the mind-set of a thirty-something -\u2013 perhaps sometimes even that of a teenager!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiving a healthy and varied lifestyle helps people to keep feeling young and we see people embracing getting older,” he added. “‘Middle age\u2019 is becoming a term with less and less significance.”<\/p>\n

In general, the top 40 signs of middle age are:<\/p>\n

1) Losing touch with everyday technology such as tablets and TVs
\n2) Finding you have no idea what \u2018young people\u2019 are talking about
\n3) Feeling stiff
\n4) Needing an afternoon nap
\n5) Groaning when you bend down
\n6) Not remembering the name of any modern bands
\n7) Talking a lot about your joints\/ailments
\n8) Hating noisy pubs
\n9) Getting more hairy -\u2013 ears, eyebrows, nose, face etc.
\n10) Thinking policemen\/teachers\/doctors look really young
\n11) Preferring a night in with a board game than a night on the town
\n12) You don\u2019t know any songs in the top ten
\n13) Choosing clothes and shoes for comfort rather than style
\n14) Taking a flask of tea on a day out
\n15) Obsessive gardening or bird feeding
\n16) Thinking there is nothing wrong with wearing an anorak
\n17) Forgetting people\u2019s names
\n18) Booking on to a cruise
\n19) Misplacing your glasses\/bag\/car keys etc.
\n20) Complaining about the rubbish on television these days
\n21) Gasping for a cup of tea
\n22) Getting bed socks for Christmas and being very grateful
\n23) Taking a keen interest in The Antiques Road Show
\n24) When you start complaining about more things
\n25) Listening to the Archers
\n26) You move from radio one to radio two
\n27) Joining the National Trust
\n28) Being told off for politically incorrect opinions
\n29) Flogging the family car for something sportier
\n30) When you can\u2019t lose six pounds in two days anymore
\n31) You get shocked by how racy music videos are
\n32) Taking a keen interest in the garden
\n33) Buying travel sweets for the car
\n34) Considering going on a \u2018no children\u2019 cruise for a holiday
\n35) When you know your alcohol limit
\n36) Obsessively recycling\/ knowing the collection dates
\n37) Always carrying a handy pack of tissues
\n38) Falling asleep after one glass of wine
\n39) Spending more money on face creams\/anti-aging products
\n40) Preferring a Sunday walk to a lie in<\/p>\n

Before you start feeling too good about yourself, take note of a survey from a year ago that said middle age starts at 55 not 53.<\/p>\n

As an aside, a study by Florida State University last year found that both women and men view the start and end of of middle as occurring earlier for women than for men, consistent with the argument that a \u201cdouble standard of aging\u201d exists that disadvantages women.<\/p>\n

When do you think middle age starts?<\/p>\n

* ***<\/p>\n

Donna Henes is the author of The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n

The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Helley Emling When does middle age actually start? Is it when you hit 50? Or when you send your first kid off to college? Or after you’ve been married a good 25 years? For those of you feeling old at 48 or 50 or even 52, here’s some good news. A new survey shows…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[397,40,860,200,43,60],"class_list":["post-2054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-midlife","tag-change","tag-empowerment-2","tag-middle-age","tag-midlife-crisis","tag-self-esteem-2","tag-transformation"],"yoast_head":"\n40 Signs You Are Middle Aged - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"40 Signs You Are Middle Aged - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Helley Emling When does middle age actually start? Is it when you hit 50? Or when you send your first kid off to college? Or after you’ve been married a good 25 years? For those of you feeling old at 48 or 50 or even 52, here’s some good news. A new survey shows…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-05-31T10:00:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-05-27T19:05:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"40 Signs You Are Middle Aged - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"40 Signs You Are Middle Aged - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"By Helley Emling When does middle age actually start? Is it when you hit 50? Or when you send your first kid off to college? Or after you’ve been married a good 25 years? For those of you feeling old at 48 or 50 or even 52, here’s some good news. A new survey shows…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html","og_site_name":"The Queen of My Self","article_published_time":"2016-05-31T10:00:28+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-05-27T19:05:01+00:00","author":"Donna Henes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html","name":"40 Signs You Are Middle Aged - The Queen of My Self","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-05-31T10:00:28+00:00","dateModified":"2016-05-27T19:05:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2016\/05\/40-signs-you-are-middle-aged.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"40 Signs You Are Middle Aged"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/","name":"The Queen of My Self","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Henes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a","name":"Donna Henes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","caption":"Donna Henes"},"description":"Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2055,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}