If You Feel Overwhelmed With Stress Now, Science Has Good News For You

Are you going through your 20s so stressed out, every time you're anxious you sweat to the point where you're pretty much constantly sweaty, especially behind your knees?

No? Just me? Even the knee thing? Wow, I should get that checked out, huh?

Well, I have some good news and bad news for you (and me). Bad news first: According to science, we're most stressed out in our 20s and 30s.

This makes sense seeing as how I'd currently summarize my 20s as a small dumpster fire that got way out of hand.

So yeah, I'm a little upset I'll still be an anxious wreck in my 30s, but oh well. That's the rat race I guess!

Ugh, just thinking about a bunch of rats in a race is making me stressed. When does it stop?

However, according to a new study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, as you get older, your mental health improves.

That's right, you're going to be less stressed and less anxious as you harness your inner Dumbledore.

Study author Dilip Jeste of the Center on Healthy Aging at UCSD said it's all the changes we experience when we're younger that makes us so nervous.

He explained,

There is constant peer pressure: you're looking at others and always feeling bad that you're not succeeding like some of them, and you feel like you have lots of choices but you're not really making use of them.

Wow, looks like I'm all stressed to impress!

Well, when I get older, I hope to turn my DGAF dial up real high.

I'm talking getting groceries without wearing a shirt, swimming naked (always) and watching movies on my laptop in public without headphones.

According to the new research, what we get more of when we're older is emotional stability, empathy, self-knowledge and social savviness.

Right now, I'd settle for only one of these four things, and you know, maybe the swimming naked part.

Citations: Old People Are Happier Than People In Their 20s (TIME)