The Science Behind Anxiety Reduction with Age.

A new brain imaging study has found that older individuals are faster at recognizing and responding to negative emotions, which may explain why they tend to have lower levels of anxiety. The study contradicts the idea that older adults are less engaged with negative emotions due to cognitive decline or that they are better at regulating negative emotions. Instead, the results suggest that older adults may develop a more automatic way of processing negative emotions. The study authors said that further research is needed to explore the physiological markers and brain mechanisms underlying these age-related changes in emotional processing.