A new, decades-long study has determined the exact age at which one is officially considered old.

That’s right, now you know when to put on your anti-wrinkle cream, buy your walking stick, and resign yourself to spending your days watching shows about antiques.

For the new study by the American Psychological Association, 14,056 German citizens were surveyed.

Participants were asked eight times over a 25-year period about the exact age at which they would consider someone old to see how their perceptions change with age.

The age at which we officially become old may not be what you expected. (Getty Stock Images)

The data collected confirmed that middle-aged and older adults believe that old age begins much later in life, while younger people think it begins earlier. So this is no surprise.

At the age of 65, study participants born in 1911 assumed that old age began at around 71 years.

However, when people born in 1956 asked the same question at age 65, they were told that retirement age begins at 74.

As we move through our 40s or so, there is a slight shift in the time when people think we are old.

At age 64, the average participant thought that old age begins at 74.7 years.

However, they said that old age began at 76.8 years, when they were 74 years old at the time.

I guess nobody wants to think they’re old.

While women believed that aging sets in later than men, healthy people also believed that it sets in later than people who often felt lonely or suffered from poor health.

I mean, we all know that aging is a complicated process, but we should all have the same idea of ​​what constitutes old.

The author of the study, Dr. Markus Wettstein, comments: “It is possible that the onset of old age is being delayed because people view old age as an undesirable state.”

Secure.

It turns out we just keep moving the number depending on how we feel. (Getty Stock Images)

But this is not the only age-related study conducted this year.

Another study found that molecules and microbes in people between the ages of 25 and 75 changed more significantly at certain times in the participants’ lives.

This led them to believe that the aging process peaks at two key points.

The research paper, entitled “Nonlinear dynamics of multi-omics profiles during human aging,” addresses the scientific side of things head-on.

It was found that age-related changes are most likely to occur more quickly between the ages of 44 and 60.

“We’re not just changing gradually over time. There are some really dramatic changes,” Prof. Michael Snyder, a geneticist and director of the Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford University and lead author of the study, told the Guardian.

“It turns out that the mid-1940s, like the early 1960s, was a time of dramatic change – and this applies regardless of which class of molecule you look at.

“I firmly believe that we should try to adjust our lifestyle while we are still healthy.”