• As age increases, more positive and fewer negative emotions were reported, suggesting that it may take more to get older people upset.
  
• As age increases, people are more likely to accept who they are and feel more in charge of their situations and responsibilities; however, this is more evident among those with more social and financial resources (college graduates, married persons, those with high ranking occupations).
• Work and relationship stress had a greater impact on emotions in midlife than other ages.
  
• Men and people who are married or outgoing reported more positive and less negative emotions than women and single or shy people.
  
• Mental Performance in Midlife: Although it is commonly thought that mental functions decline with age, this may not happen until old age and, even then, not in all areas! Middle-aged adults showed little or no decline in mental speed, reasoning, and short-term memory compared to younger adults. Midlife adults performed better than the elderly in the same areas, and even more striking, midlife and elderly adults both outperformed younger adults in vocabulary tests!

Differences between Men and Women

• Although similar numbers of men and women graduated from college, women tended to have fewer high-ranking jobs.
  
• Women, especially midlife and older women, were more likely than men to have made career sacrifices for their families.
• Married men felt more in charge of situations and managing daily responsibilities than non-married men, but married women did not have this advantage compared to unmarried women.

Who's Not Feeling Healthy?

• Throughout midlife, physical health ratings decreased and reported health problems increased, although women reported more problems than men. However, men were more likely to report alcohol or drug problems.
• Men had an increase in the number of chest pains until age 50, where they leveled off, while women had a high incidence at all ages.
• As age increases, so did the waist to hip ratio, the percentage of people overweight, and the use of high blood pressure medication. The reported frequency of exercise decreased with age.
• As age increases more effort is devoted to health, although women reported devoting more effort than men.

Stress in Adulthood

• Most people experienced a daily stressor during the 8-day daily diary study. However, 8% of young, 12% of midlife, and 19% of older adults reported no stressors.
• As age increases, men and women reported fewer daily and multiple daily stressors.
• Women reported experiencing stressors on more days, felt more overloaded, had higher levels of physical symptoms, and experienced more child-related stressors than men.
• Men reported more stress related to coworkers, job procedures, and disciplining employees, and reported that stressors posed more risk to their financial situations.
• Men were more likely to experience stress that was focused on them, while women were more likely to experience stress that focused on others.

Who's Exercising?

• During young adulthood, men with less education exercised the most while men with the highest level of education exercised the least; however, by older adulthood this pattern was reversed.
• Among women, a higher level of earnings was associated with more vigorous exercise, yet those women with more education had a steeper decline in exercise across adulthood.
• Individuals who were single or who had a high level of emotional support from their spouse or their family exercised more often.
• Employees who had decision-making ability at their job or who worked more hours exercised more often.
• Individuals who perceived their neighborhoods as safer participated in more regular exercise.

History of MIDUS (Non-Technical):

The first MIDUS investigation was conducted n 1994/95 with a sample of over 7000 Americans, aged 25 to 74. It was funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In 2002, the National Institute on Aging provided a grant to the Institute on Aging at the University of Wisconsin - Madison to carry out a longitudinal follow-up. MIDUS II is currently in progress.