You may be interested to know, if only for the purposes of festive trivial pursuits, that fragapanophobia, though not a diagnosable disorder, is a real phenomenon. There are a group of people who suffer from birthday anxiety. If you are one of them, be ready. The change of the decade may need to be approached with caution.
Birthdays represent the unrelenting march of time. And although yearly events are liable to cause anxiety in some, the approach of round-number birthdays are associated with more serious increases in anxiety and depression. The close of one decade and the dawn of a new one is a similar type of marker. And the anxiety people experience tends to be anticipatory. It is associated with the milestone looming on the temporal horizons. It will coincide with Christmas.
I was caught unawares by a change-of-decade conversation last week. I knew I was already in the birthday-anxiety group. Over the past decade I have become increasingly allergic to birthdays. I am less able for them with each passing year, largely because they feel as if they come around far too fast. I should have been on my guard.
A top tip this Christmas season is to do something new. It doesn't have to be a hike to Machu Picchu. Playing charades, or any other activity new to you, will suffice
Many people have the feeling that time speeds up as you grow older. So milestones such as the arrival of a new decade can be met with incredulity by those of us of a certain age. There is science to back up the feeling that time seems to pass more quickly as we age. Research suggests that the perceived passage of time is related to the amount of new information we absorb. When we are young and everything seems new, our brains have more to process and so it feels as though time is passing slowly. As we age and are faced with less new information and fewer first-time events, we have less to process and so the passage of time can feel quicker.
This process is thought to be linked to reduced production of a brain chemical, dopamine, which is produced in response to novel stimuli. Dopamine deficiency is also implicated in mental-health problems such as depression and anxiety. So a top tip this Christmas season is to do something new. Try something you have never done before. It doesn’t have to be a hike to Machu Picchu. Playing charades, or any other activity new to you, will suffice.
A change of decade is far less disquieting to the young. My teenage son is very taken with the dawn of the 2020s. He doesn’t recall the move from noughties to the teens. And he reckons his life will be very different when we move into the 2030s. To him it is exciting. And a lot of the reason decade milestones are meaningful is that we pause to think about these things. For the young there is the excitement and anticipation of the future.
This is another reason why the change in decade can be difficult for adults. It can lead to comparisons between our current life and the life we imagined for ourselves when we were younger. These comparisons can prompt moments of reflection and even crisis. We may question the meaning of life, what we have achieved or what we have contributed to the world. Tough questions. So, this season, avoid asking your nearest and dearest what they have done with their decade. It’ll make it easier on everyone.
Life takes twists and turns; there are curve balls. We get thrown off course. And sometimes our current selves are not very forgiving
The idealism and ambition of youth are not always realised. As adults, thinking about the match between our sense of who we thought we would be and who we have turned out to be can be difficult. Life takes twists and turns; there are curve balls. We get thrown off course. And sometimes our current selves are not very forgiving. Give yourself the gift of forgiveness. You can’t fall short of an imagined mark. It was only ever imaginary.
For older adults, even those as young as 40 or 50, the arrival of 2020 may be something they never really thought about as young people. It was way beyond the new millennium. And so we didn’t think that far ahead. And in this omission the dawn of this new decade represents a period that was not even worthy of very much consideration or anticipation previously.
We have surprisingly few positive representations of old age; few people are in a rush to get there. It is worth remembering, though, that we are lucky to see in this new decade. The only thing worse than growing old is the alternative. And if we can channel that gratitude, all of the studies say, we will happier for it.
Orla Muldoon is professor of psychology at the University of Limerick