Tips to Finding Happiness through a Midlife Crisis
We’ve all seen the depiction of a midlife crisis. Generally the old man is driving a red sports car with a young woman on his side. Yet, what happens when we start to go through our midlife crisis? I recently was discussing this with a friend of mine, as we are both middle-aged adults. We discussed different physical changes we noticed, our life satisfaction, and trying to understand our sense of purpose. I joked that we were in our midlife crisis, which she didn’t like the word crisis. She felt that this time is more of an awakening, as this stage of life was opening up doors for her and she was excited about a possible change in career path.
This has led me to want to dive deeper into the midlife crisis and provide some tips to help you look at things differently. While also providing some of the best ways to look at this time and get excited about some of the positive changes that occur.
What is a midlife crisis?
It is a period of transition in life where someone struggles with their identity and self-confidence, usually occurring for the age group of 40 to 60. The psychologist Elliott Jaques coined this term in the 1960s. He noticed that patients in their mid to late 30s seemed to go through a depressive period and had sudden lifestyle changes as they confronted the idea of their mortality.
Signs of a Midlife Crisis:
-Feel a sense of restlessness or inner turmoil with how things are in your life right now
-Feelings of depression with how things turned out for you in life
-Ruminating on your own mortality
-Have the feeling of only having a little time left to do what you want to do
Things that tend to bring on a midlife crisis:
-children are in school, and mom is not having to care for the children
-empty nest syndrome (having adult children)
-receiving a diagnoses of chronic illnesses or health problems
-death of parents or a recent loss of a loved one
-caring for aging parents
-job loss
It is important to rest, reflect, and determine where you want to go from here. Do not get hung up on the aging process. Instead, accept that this is a part of the life stages and doesn’t mean that you are dealing with mental or physical decline. Imagine yourself like the stages of a butterfly. You were crawling along as a caterpillar; eventually the midlife experience happens, where you go into your cocoon. You gather information about where you are and where you want to go from here. Once you come out of the cocoon, you will have had your awakening and can look forward to the later years in life, knowing that you know who you are, no longer put up with the BS, and are ready to go out and live your best years yet!
What can you do if you are going through this midlife transition:
It is important to take care of yourself during this time as you are dealing with a lot of hormonal changes.
-Take care of your mental health to help decrease stress, increase joy
-Find a family therapist to discuss
-take care of your physical health with nutrition and exercise. Physical activity helps decrease cortisol levels
-Eat nutritious foods and focus on a lot of variety with fruits and vegetables. They will help to decrease inflammation
-Get out in nature
-try to get a better night’s sleep
-take time for yourself by finding things that bring you joy
-Finding a social support system is a good idea to help you work through daily stressors
-Think about the things that brought you joy as a child
-Stop with the rearview mirror of life thinking, the things of the past can not be changed, so let them go
-Unfollow all of the younger people you are following and instead follow older people for your mental health
If you feel you are struggling with life transitions and trying to find your purpose, do know that it will continue to nudge you in the right direction. As you are drawn to do something different, find a way to look into your life more. This could be through scripture and prayer, human design, gene keys, or personality tests, and it can help provide you with ideas on the best way to move forward.
**Please note that if you are really struggling during this time, please seek professional help to ensure you aren’t suffering from clinical depression.**
