Challenging negative stereotypes and embracing strengths associated with aging

“In 1949, Mental Health America established that each May would be recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month. The theme for 2026 is “More Good Days, Together,” and it encourages everyone to think about what a “good day” looks like – for both ourselves and our communities. Here to share insight on that is Susan Charles , UC Irvine professor of psychology and nursing, who examines emotional processes across the adult lifespan. In this episode of The UC Irvine Podcast, she will discuss her award-winning findings on how people’s perceptions of good days – and their priorities – change as they grow older. The director of the Emotion Research Lab will also highlight several factors her team has learned contribute to well-being over the years and answer a common question: How do individuals know if they’re aging well? “The Day Is Close,” the music for this episode, was provided by The 126ers via the audio library in YouTube Studio. To get the latest episodes of The UC Irvine Podcast delivered automatically, subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Spotify . TRANSCRIPT Cara Capuano/The UC Irvine Podcast: From the University of California, Irvine, I’m Cara Capuano. Thank you for listening to The UC Irvine Podcast. Our guest today is Susan Charles, UC Irvine professor of psychology and nursing. Professor Charles’s research interests include emotional processes across the adult lifespan. She also studies the relationship between physical health factors and emotional processes and how that relationship may vary as a function of age. Professor Charles, thank you for joining us today. Susan Charles: And thank you for inviting me. Capuano: In 1949, Mental Health America established that each May would be recognized as Mental Health Awareness Month. The theme for 2026 is “More Good Days, Together.” That theme encourages everyone to think about what a good day looks like, both for ourselves and for our communities. Professor Charles, what does a “good day” look like for you? Charles: I wanted to start this by saying I love the emphasis on “days” because so often people emphasize big moments in their lives or changes that they’re going to make and New Year’s resolutions. And our lives really unfold from day to day, and what we do really matters. So, as far as what a good day looks like for me, I would say that it would include something about helping my physical health. As we know that after age 30, we start losing three to five percent of our muscle mass every decade – and it accelerates later in life – but throughout midlife, we really have to be aware of this. And even now, I do some resistance training, not so much for aesthetic reasons – which we did maybe in our 20s and 30s – but so that I can lift that can of beans or vegetables when I’m older, or so I can get out of a chair without having to use my arms in the next 20 or 30 years. So, it’s health. It’s social… so, sharing a conversation or a smile with somebody. It’s experiencing less stress. Whether that’s pushing a button for an elevator and thinking, “No, if I have to wait 30 seconds, I’m not going to be frustrated by that. I just need to calm down and not have that pressured feeling throughout the day.” And then it’s also a sense of discovery. It’s wonderful every day to have a moment where I’m either productive at work or I discover something –whether it’s a fun movie, whether it’s information from the news – just learning something new. Capuano: Since your work focuses on the adult lifespan, how does one’s perception of a “good day” change over time? You shared with us a little bit about how your perception has changed. Charles: It’s funny thinking about that. I don’t think that the core values of what constitutes a good day really change throughout adulthood, but the emphasis on how much time and your priorities – and how much you want to emphasize these certain building blocks do change. So, for example, we find that as we grow older, our sense of meaning and our sense of well-being becomes more and more important to us. And so, we will prioritize that more than, for example, learning some new information that’ll be really helpful for the future. Exercise, again, some people do it because they want to run their first marathon or they want to achieve something fantastic in their sporting life. And with older adults, they might do it more to keep what they have or to sustain their strength and their independence. So, the goals change, but I think the building blocks stay the same. Capuano: What inspired you to commit your career to investigating these changes along the adult lifespan? Charles: Yeah, so it’s interesting to think that I made such an important decision – like all of us do, when we were in our teens – but it started college. Back then, what we knew about aging was that life basically developed and ended around age 25. And that’s what I was told by a very famous, wonderful psychologist at that time. And I was sitting there at age 19 thinking, “This is it?” I mean, “This is… this is my life? Wow!” (laughs) And so, then I had the good fortune of meeting some researchers who pointed out that we know more about the first four years of life than we do about the last 60, and we have yet to discover and we need to understand it. And that fascinated me and we’ve learned a lot since then. Capuano: That’s wonderful. For decades, there were so many negative stereotypes associated with aging, increasing depression, social withdrawal, decline in both physical and mental health. In 2025, you received the “Baltes Distinguished Research Achievement Award” from the American Psychological Association for your rigorous research to disprove those long running perceptions. What were your findings? Charles: Well, my findings are that despite the fact that we do have losses with age… So, we have physical decline. We have social losses – I’ve very rarely met anyone in their nineties who have both parents still alive, so we do face social losses – these losses do not parallel all declines. And one beautiful exception is emotion. Emotional experience includes cognitive components. It’s a physical process. It’s one that is highly embedded in our social lives. So, when you think of physical and social and cognitive declines, one would think that emotions would decline as well. And people used to think that, but we know that’s not true – that older adults regulate their emotions well, that they experience often higher levels of positive affect and definitely lower levels of negative affect than younger people. And so, time and time again, we find that emotions are looking very good. So, so good that people often refer to this as the paradox of aging: Why are people doing so well emotionally given the losses that they experience? Capuano: I’m fascinated. How did your team conduct your research around this topic? Charles: Well, we conduct our research by being dependent on people who are very generous with their time and their insights, who will come to our labs and participate in our studies – younger and older adults. And we are also dependent on people who are willing to be interviewed and fill out questionnaires across decades of their lives starting as young as 14 or 15 or 18. These are huge longitudinal studies that my team is focused on, that I’m part of teams that are running these studies. And some of these studies began before some of us were born. And a lot of these studies will, we hope, continue after we’ve long retired. Capuano: How is what your team and others like it are learning about aging affecting policy change? Charles: It’s interesting about policy and aging, because policy is often fundamental as what age should people be given or not given certain benefits, for example. So, at what age should Medicare produce benefits? Here’s an example. In Japan, the Geriatric Society of Japan in 2017 wanted people to call those who are 55 to 65 “pre-agers” and not really talk about old age until people entered 70 to 75. And so, even if you’re talking about someone who’s 70, is it old age? And they were arguing that in Japan people look five to 10 years healthier than they have in the past. And so, we should move up age. And also, for financial reasons, there’s the question of do we move up age of retirement? And what would that do for more vulnerable people who have very physically demanding jobs? How would that change how many years they have left, supported by Medicare, that they’ve put years into? So, our research helps people to understand at what age people are capable and what age people need resources. And also, not for just for public policy, but for the individual helping them to understand and plan for their retirement. Capuano: That’s a very helpful resource your research is providing. There are some people who think quite negatively about aging, sometimes with a sense of dread. What would you tell them? Charles: Often people do look at aging with a sense of dread because it will ultimately end in death. And death is terrifying for many, many, many people. Sometimes younger people, more than older people, surprisingly enough. But that is scary. And often “end of life” can be a very hard time. For example, if I were to say, “Hey, would you like to go on this vacation for two weeks and you’re going to be surrounded by friends that you love and you’re going to enjoy this wonderful time, but this place… often people get sick from food poisoning, and so you might not feel well for two of those days and some of your friends might not feel well for two of those days… and that’s probably going to happen, but let’s go on this vacation.” I think people would have some trepidation. And I think that’s what people think when they turn 65. I hope that they focus on, “I’m going to have 10, 15 years – a very healthy life in front of me – and I really want to know what I’m going to do with that” and not focus on the end of their lives. Capuano: What are some of the strengths associated with aging? We’ve discussed a few. Charles: Yes! And emotions, again, is one of the biggest strengths. And what that means is not just how you deal with your daily life and the emotions you experience there, but your relationships. And so, we often find that as people get older, their relationships become more satisfying. They are filled with fewer arguments and fewer distressful situations. And so, we often say the older people have the best relationships and that’s pretty important. Capuano: Something to look forward to. In preparing for our conversation, I queried some of my favorite people who are slightly older than me for questions that they would like to ask you. The first is, how does one know if they’re aging well? Charles: It’s interesting because that has changed in the last 20 years. So, for example, healthy aging about 15 years ago was defined as absence of disease. And you might think, “Huh, what about people who are born with a congenital problem – or who have a disease, who get one very young in life – can they age successfully?” And so, I think that people got that memo (laughs), and so they now don’t see health as a defining aspect of healthy aging. They see functional ability and being able to do what you want to do – that is part of healthy aging. If you ask older adults, “Are you successful? Are you a healthy ager?” 80% of older adults say, “Yes, I am.” And so, I think it really depends on their definition, but it’s often filled with a purpose in life and positive relations with others – those are two factors that we see over and over again. Capuano: This one’s from my Mom: “We’ve all heard about the primary behaviors that are important for aging well: a healthy diet, staying active, sufficient sleep, maintaining social connections. But is there any recent research related to other factors beyond those that most folks already know about?” Charles: Well, first I would say that your mother’s very wise and what she said is absolutely true. Those are important. I would challenge you in saying that “we already know about those.” I mean we do, but we are learning new findings about our sleep, or about what foods are the best for us and how should we eat them. There are different diets and, and different prescriptions about that. Staying active… I don’t want to add too many because those are so fundamentally important. But I would say be bold. Our hippocampus, for example, is so tied to cognitive decline but it’s also tied to exploration. And we need to use that part of our brain. We need to explore; we need to be able to detect novelty. So, we need to expose ourselves to novelty. We need to continue to grow. So, that old adage, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” is horrible… (laughs) Capuano: (laughs) Charles: … and wrong. And so, we need people to want to learn because by learning, you are engaging your brain and doing something very important for yourself. Capuano: What is the impact of retirement on mental health? Charles: Well, that really depends. And actually, it’s very similar to the question that people have raised in the past, which is should women work or not work after they have a child? And like those findings, it depends on what the person wanted to do in the first place. So, for example, in the same way that we know that women who want to stay home are happier if they stay home, and women who want to work are happier when they go back to work, people who want to retire and are ready to retire are doing great. People who are forced into retirement and who did not want to retire, they are not as satisfied. Capuano: What about seniors who choose to invest in long-term care insurance policies? Are those a necessity or perhaps excessive and unnecessary – what does the research show you on that? Charles: That’s an interesting question because once again – I know that’s not very satisfying – but it depends. So, for example, about 5-10% of all older adults will someday be in a nursing facility. The average age is around 85 and they live there for about two years before generally they end their time there, often in death. So, it is about two years. It is very late in life. So, for example, if someone wasn’t planning to live very late in life, their chances of being in a nursing home would be much lower. At the same time, when I visit memory facilities, again, most people live there anywhere from five months to two years. So, most long-term care plans are good for two years. If you have enough money so you could pay for this for two years, you’d want to think about it. I have met people though who have been there 10 years, 11 years. If their family was thinking, “Oh, they’re going to be the average,” they would be really surprised. And so, it very much depends. Men generally stay shorter periods of time than women, but that’s also because they oftentimes have caregivers in the house. So, they enter a little later. Capuano: My Dad says, from his experience, it seems like most seniors have a tendency to put their best face forward, especially with their family and their friends. With that in mind, Dad asks, “What’s the best way to break down that tough, proud facade and explore what seniors find as their everyday challenges, whether involving their emotional realities or maybe their activities of daily life? Charles: Yes, and I loved that your Dad asked that because the people who are older today came from a cohort, particularly for men, where they were told not to share feelings of vulnerability. So, they can express anger, but they just can’t express sadness, for example, which is really a cruel lesson to teach boys since we know that men and women experience the same levels of emotion, just women express them, sometimes, more often than men – except for anger, which they’re told not to. Regarding your father’s question about putting your best face forward, however, I would challenge him to share first. Because oftentimes people are afraid to share because they think, “Well, no one’s talking about it. No one has this problem.” And if you share, then people will be more likely to share back. I know that sometimes men have to be awakened to this experience. So, for example, I hear about people who have a friend of theirs end their life by suicide and they say, “Wow, we really need to share what’s going on because we had no idea what this person was going through. And we have some of the same issues, but we need to share and we need to understand that we are not doing this alone.” Capuano: Sharing is caring – that seems very appropriate here. Professor, what haven’t we discussed today that perhaps you wanted to share with the listeners of this conversation? Charles: I just want to point out that life is challenging, and life is wonderful, but it can also be very hard. And I think at every age of life, life is hard. And life is beautiful. And it’s not just end of life that’s hard or end of life, that’s easier in some ways… that people at all ages have challenges before them. So, I think we need to understand people’s needs at every age. Capuano: I think that’s a great point and a wonderful place to wrap up our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Professor Charles. Charles: Well, thank you. Capuano: I’m Cara Capuano. Thank you for listening to our conversation. For the latest UC Irvine News, please visit news.uci.edu. 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