There are seven categories of aging. With age as such a crucial feature of a person’s identity, we are at loss as to who the person is, if we lack such information. Yet, age as society perceives it, is not a very good indication of knowing a lot about a person. Think of the older-than-her-years hyper mature 15-year-old who could easily pass for 22. How about the older adult who lives down the street from you whose sprightly step would rival that of someone 40 years her junior?
It’s time to throw aside this narrow and imprecise measure of your identity and move on to the next step, which is to calculate your true age. As it turns out, your true age will not be a simple number, but a combination of where you stand along seven dimensions. In a nutshell, age is multidimensional.
So what are the seven categories of age?
First is chronological age, which is defined as the number of years a person has lived. This is the one we’re all very familiar with.
So the big question is how old are you? And you will answer; I am so many years, months, and days old. Because of the ease and familiarity everyone has with chronological age, many tests and programmes are based around it. Most 5-year olds are ready for kindergarten; most 16-year olds have matured enough to drive; and many 65-year olds are ready to retire.
Chronological age is just a rough indication of age; it’s just the most convenient way.
Biological or physical age, which is a description of an individual’s development based on biomarkers, a recordable molecular or cellular event like blood pressure, respiratory capacity, aerobic power, blood glucose levels, etc. Here we’re looking at the individuals as they are, not necessarily when they were born. Physical aging can be described by grey hair, wrinkled skin, fragile body, hazy eyes. It is age of our bodies in regards to critical life signs.
Psychological age, which is the perception of how old one feels. This is about ones mental outlook on life. For example, a person who is older may feel younger and vice versa. Psychological age is thus not necessarily equal to chronological age. A person can, therefore, have a psychological age that exceeds their chronological age if they are mature or at least feel older than they really are. This may be common in adolescence when young teens that feel older than they really are engaged in behaviours typical of late teens and early adults.
Emotional age is about how we adjust to circumstances that cause us to be rational or irrational. How we handle conflict and resolve misunderstandings are markers for our emotional maturity. Emotional age may follow chronological age, or may lag behind, or be ahead.
Intellectual age is how we think critically about ourselves and the world around us. Are we open or closed minded? The ability to reason and think critically can benefit our life experiences. Staying updated, flexible and curious about life can help to develop a youthful level of intelligence.
Social age: This reflects your position along the so-called “social clock” of life. The social clock is based on the set of expectations that people in a given culture have about when life’s major events “should” occur. We can divide the social clock into the two major areas of life: family and work. The family social clock of our culture expects that people become parents at some point in their late 20s or early 30s, at which point they also are married or in a serious relationship. We become grandparents, according to this clock, in our 60s, reflecting the fact that our children are following a similar social clock. The work social clock says that we graduate from secondary school in our late teens, and then from university a few years later, at which point we start our career. We retire in our 60s, and at that point the work social clock stops ticking.
Functional age: It is defined as a combination of chronological, biological, social, intellectual and psychological ages. Here, instead of focusing on one aspect at a time, we are summarizing them to create a more holistic picture of a person. Functional age would give you the clearest understanding of a person.
This type of age is not often used because you will need a lot of expert input to give the clearest understanding of how old the person is.
Food for thought
How old do you feel? Forget what the calendar says, and even forget what your functional ages are.
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