Older Adults Give Their Mental Health High Marks, Polls Find

A newly released University of Michigan (U-M) poll of some 2,000 older adults found 65 percent of adults ages 50 to 80 rated their mental health as excellent or very good, 27 percent as good, and 8 percent as fair or poor, reports AARP . Over 80 percent said their mental health is as good as, or better than, it was two decades ago. Furthermore, 29 percent of respondents ages 50 to 80 said they would be hesitant to seek help from a mental health professional in the future. In addition, fewer people reported feelings of isolation than those who did so in a survey from spring 2020. "I really think resiliency, life experience, the ability to put things in perspective can really help . . . people shoulder some of these stressors a little bit better," said Michigan Medicine geriatric psychiatrist Lauren Gerlach. Meanwhile, a November 2020 AARP national phone survey of roughly 1,500 adults found that the portion of respondents reporting high stress decreased with increasing age.