Physical, Cognitive and Psychosocial Changes During Midlife

Physical, Cognitive And
Psychosocial Changes Which
Occur During Midlife

Table of Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Main body..............................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................8
References.............................................................................................................................................9

Critically discuss and analyse the key physical, cognitive and psychosocial changes which
occur during midlife, placing this within a life course.
Introduction
Midlife, spanning from forty to sixty five, is basically the period when a person goes through
physical, cognitive and psychosocialchanges. It could be stressful period for an individual as
they have to struggle with mortality, ageing and sticking to a sense of purpose. Physical,
cognitive and psychosocial changes are the most common aspects of mid-life of an individual
where they have to deal with number of problems (Krychman, 2017). The overall system of
the body could slow down and most of the individuals indulge into substance abuse or may
cause stress or depression. During this period most adults take new job responsibilities and
feel a requirement to reassess their professional life and make changes when they feel that
there is still some time left. In this particular study, all sorts of changes including physical,
cognitive and psychological changes that occur within an individual whole life course,
specifically in midlife is going to be covered.
Main body
As per views given by Paine and et.al. (2019), physical changes are the changes which are
clearly visible and could be noticed by individuals. It goes throughout the life course of an
individual. As a result of passing of time, a middle aged person goes through a number of
physical changes. However, age related changes can be based on number of factors such as
cellular or molecular changes, biological factors and oxidative damage which all comes in the
category of primary aging. The aging that comes due to regulatory factors like leading an
unhealthy lifestyle due to lack of physical activities and poor diet is referred to as secondary
aging. Going out of the shape is not actually a part of ageing, it is most probably due to the
reason that middle aged person has experienced a lot of stress and has become less physically
active. Some of the activities of the individuals like smoking, taking alcohol, low quality of
diet, stress, anxiety along with the occurrence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, blood
pressure, arthritis negatively affects the overall health of the individuals. Moreover, the
physical changes which are most visible in a middle aged adult can be due to internal
functioning of their body. Such as colour of Hair which is mostly due to the pigment called
melanin developed by hair follicles. Due to ageing, the follicles of hair generate less amount
of melanin content and thus cause the hair to become grey. Colour of hair generally starts to